FDA junks bid of Tarlac health clinic to reopen

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO — The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has dismissed a Tarlac medical clinic’s appeal to reopen, after it was shut down in August for manufacturing and selling unregistered health products.

In a statement on Sunday, FDA said its Oct. 2 resolution sustains the agency’s earlier decision to close the Dr. Farrah Agustin-Bunch Natural Medical Center at Victoria town in an Aug. 17 operation. The center had promoted cures for serious ailments including cancer.

The FDA seized more than P800,000 worth of unregistered health products being sold at the center’s pharmacy, and imposed a fine of P1.072 million on the center for selling unregistered products and for operating a pharmacy without a license to operate.

The FDA also permanently revoked the center’s license to operate as a food manufacturer.

In her Facebook page, Bunch claimed that FDA Director General Nela Charade Puno denied her due process “in a mad rush to pass judgment and inflict punishment upon me.”

Bunch complained about the “outright confiscation of my livelihood, and worse, [the] inhumane denial of care and treatment [for] my patients who are suffering and dying from advanced stages of cancer and other grave and serious illnesses.”

Citing its Aug. 20 motion for reconsideration, Puno in the statement said Bunch’s center had claimed that its products were “in the process of registration” with the agency.

“The reckoning point of authorization is the issuance of a certificate of product registration (CPR) and not [the] mere filing of an application for registration. The respondent is in no position to create its own rules and regulation regarding health product registration at the detriment of the consuming public,” she said.

“It is crystal clear… that selling and offering for sale any health product that has not undergone the registration requirement of this Office is prohibited. Any sale or offer for sale of any unregistered health product violates the law,” Puno added. /je