The Department of Justice (DOJ) has ordered the withdrawal of the Dengvaxia cases filed in court against Iloilo 1st District Rep. and former health secretary Janette L. Garin and her two co-accused.
In a resolution dated Jan. 10, Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin C. Remulla granted the petition for review filed by Garin and former Department of Health (DOH) undersecretary Gerado V. Bayugo and former assistant secretary Ma. Joyce U. Ducusin, both physicians.
They assailed the June 14, 2022 resolution of the panel of prosecutors which found probable cause to file charges in court for reckless imprudence resulting in homicide for the deaths of 98 school children who were inoculated with the anti-dengue vaccine Dengvaxia.
They were among the more than 30 accused charged before the Quezon City Regional Trial Court (RTC) over the deaths of persons, mostly children, who received doses of Dengvaxia.
“After a careful examination of the evidence on the records of these cases, we do not find a prima facie case with reasonable certainty of conviction against respondents-appellants Bayugo, Ducusin, and Garin,” Remulla's resolution stated.
The June 14, 2022 resolution of the panel of prosecutors was ordered "reversed and set aside.”
“The Prosecutor General is hereby directed to withdraw the Information for Reckless Imprudence resulting in Homicide, if any, filed against respondent-appelants Dr. Janette Garin, Dr. Gerado V. Bayugo, and Dr. Ma. Joyce U. Ducusin, and to report to this Office the action within ten (10) days from receipt of this Resolution,” the resolution also stated.
Remulla's resolution said: "Most central to a finding of guilt is the conclusive determination that the accused has exhibited, by his voluntary act without malice, an inexcusable lack of precaution.”
It also said:
“The Dengvaxia vaccination program was not haphazardly designed, planned and implemented, nor was it done for electioneering purposes. Respondents-appellants presented data showing that surges of dengue cases occur during the second semester of every school year.
"Thus, by starting vaccination on the first semester of the school year, students would have been administered with the prescribed three doses by the second semester of the following year.
"The program was submitted way back from the time of then Health Secretary Enrique Ona. Thus, showing that the timing and implementation of the program underwent considerable planning and was initiated long before respondent Secretary Janette L. Garin’s term of office."
It cited that it was also shown that “the health workers secured the consent from students and conducted health assessments of each before proceeding with the vaccination.”
"A Certificate of Product Registration (CPR) was secured from the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) for the Dengvaxia vaccine…,” it said.
“Verily, factual findings of administrative officials and agencies that have acquired expertise in the performance of their official duties and the exercise of their primary jurisdiction are generally accorded not only respect but, at times, even finality if such findings are supported by substantial evidence,” it also said.
It pointed out that “the vaccine has been approved for licensing in more than twenty (20) countries” after being in development for 20 years, “subjected to various regulatory approvals based on rigorous safety and efficacy evaluations that are compliant with WHO (World Health Organization) standards.”
“In the absence of malicious intent on the part of respondents-appellants, they cannot be held liable for conspiring and confederating with one another to commit reckless imprudence,” it added.
“With the CPR being issued for Dengvaxia by FDA coupled with the clinical trials undertaken concerning the vaccine, and the conduct of health assessment of the students before giving them vaccination, the proponents as well as the other actors in the implementation of the vaccination program has reasons to rely on these heavily,” it stressed.
Remulla resolution stated that before Dengvaxia was purchased and distributed, “a rigorous bidding process in accordance with existing laws for its procurement was undertaken by the concerned parties.”
Thus, it said, it could not find how the actions or omissions of the three accused could have resulted to reckless imprudence resulting to homicide.
It noted that the only participation of Garin, when she was still with DOH, was that she negotiated with pharmaceutical form Sanofi Pasteur for the purchase of Dengvaxia; submitted funding proposal to the Department of Budget and Management (DBM); issued a certification of exemption of Dengvaxia from the Philippine National Drug Formulary (PNDF); entered into a memorandum of agreement (MOA) with the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) and Department of Education (DepEd) for the implementation of the vaccination project; and launched the project on April 4, 2016.
It pointed out that the participation of Ducusin, who then headed the DOJ Family Health Office, was “only her submission of the request for exemption to respondent-appellant Garin and being the officer-in-charge of the expanded program.”
As to Bayugo, the resolution stated that his “only participation was his supervision of the program and users.”
At the same time, Remulla's resolution stated that “it cannot be established that there is any causal link between Dengvaxia vaccination and the deaths alleged in the Complaint-Affidavits.”
“Rigorous scientific studies conducted by the World Health Organization (WHO) and other respected experts clearly point to a contrary conclusion that there is causal link between them,” it said.
It slao said that the WHO provided information that, following the administration of the Dengvaxia vaccine, “vaccine-related viscerotropic or neurotropic disease should manifest within eight (8) days from vaccination.”
“In the instant case, a perusal of the dates when the last dose of the Dengue vaccine was administered to the complainant’s children and the time their symptoms happened beyond eight (8) days from vaccination,” it pointed out.
Also, the resolution cited that Dr. Scott Halstead, one of the world’s foremost authorities on viruses transmitted by mosquitoes, said that viscerotropism and neutropism are terms that cannot be attributed to a dead person.
It said that Halstead explained during the Senate hearings in 2018 that “what is necessary is to determine the presence of dengue vaccine particles in tissue sample through the use of histopathologic examination.”
“Since it appears that viscerotropism and neurotropism cannot be determined via an autopsy, little to no probative value should be attributed to the PAO (Public Attorney’s Office (PAO) Forensic Reports,” it also said.
The PAO has served as lawyers of the parents of the dead children in the filing of complaints before the DOJ.