Over 2,000 online posts of unauthorized selling of medicines, including prescription drugs, have been taken down after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) called the attention of three online sites.
FDA Deputy Director-General Oscar G. Gutierrez Jr. said that a total of 2,202 online posts of unauthorized selling of medicines at Lazada, Shopee, and Facebook have been deleted from the period 2020 to February this year.
From January to February this year alone, he said a total of 371 online posts were taken down from Lazada and Shopee.
“ 779 percent increase of removal compared to 2020,” Gutierrez noted during the Talk to the People of Pres. Duterte on Monday night, Feb. 14.
In 2020, FDA said it has only taken down 189 online posts of unauthorized selling of medicines.
The FDA, meanwhile, has removed 1,642 violative posts in 2021, most of them from Shopee.
Gutierrez said that FDA has recently partnered with Facebook in order to quickly remove health product-related that is violative of national policies.
“So right now, we do it electronically for email. Then we receive a confirmation that they received our report. And they give us a tracking number, and within five days, as long as we endorse it, they remove it--anything health product-related that is violative with our national policies,” said the FDA deputy director-general.
According to Gutierrez, 30 FDA personnel were trained on Facebook Consumer Police Onboarding.
On Feb. 26, 2021, FDA shared with Facebook Philippines the FDA online product verification portal.