and total cases climbed to 304 nationwide as at Monday, more evidence has shown that toxic chemicals are the main culprits.
Instead of taking a more proactive approach in periodically examining drugs on shelves, the agency relies heavily on self-assessment by drug manufacturers, leaving a loophole in the supervision over pharmaceutical companies, a consumer group and experts said. Dr Windhu Purnomo, a public health expert from Airlangga University in Surabaya, told The Straits Times that the distribution of a number of unsafe drugs tinted by impurities reveals a lack of supervision by BPOM.
That is also a point underlined by the Indonesian Ombudsman, which is tasked with overseeing the implementation of public services, when making the case of BPOM’s failure to halt the distribution of hazardous drugs. “This is the standard that we should develop now as part of the BPOM’s routine sampling,” she said on Oct 24.bring a criminal case against errant drugmakers,