‘Alternative med’ doc says FDA denied her due process

A doctor whose alternative medicine clinic in Tarlac province was recently shut down by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has cried foul over the supposed lack of due process afforded to her.

However, the FDA shrugged off her claim as a form of “bashing.”

In a lengthy post on her Facebook page, Dr. Farrah Agustin-Bunch claimed that FDA Director General Nela Charade-Puno “either deliberately ignored the records of the FDA or negligently did not bother verifying” her answer to the agency’s summons when the official ordered her clinic closed.

Malice, neglect

“What [Puno] did is clearly with malice and overwhelming neglect considering she denied my right to due process in a mad rush to pass judgment and inflict punishment upon me, which came in the form of the outright confiscation of my livelihood and worse, inhumane denial of care and treatment to my patients who are suffering and dying from advanced stages of cancer and other grave and serious illnesses,” Bunch said on her Facebook page that has a following of over 3 million.

In August, the FDA shuttered the Dr. Farrah Agustin-Bunch Natural Medical Center after it was found to be selling unregistered herbal products claiming to heal cancer.

Illegal, unsafe

In a statement on Saturday, Puno said that because these health products were unregistered, their sale was “illegal and may pose serious risk to users.”

“The claim that these supposed health products are natural and herbal does not automatically guarantee safety and efficacy. That is the reason for the strict product certification process of the FDA—to ensure that those who use these products obtain the benefits claimed by such products,” she added.

Bunch, however, said that she had applied to register her products with the FDA but “beyond the lip service” that officials were doing for traditional and alternative medicine, “not much” was being done to truly promote the use of natural medicine.