Minister insists, ‘no one in danger’ Gopeesingh: Name CDAP bad drugs

Gopeesingh, a medical specialist, listed the “awful effects” of hypertension and diabetes as justification for his call for full disclosure to the population, even as he recalled the death of former prime minister Patrick Manning was allegedly due to faulty pharmaceutical drugs.

Deyalsingh said it was wrong for anyone to say all pharmaceuticals in the CDAP programme were bad, as he narrowed down the dubious drugs to two drugs taken orally to treat diabetes and hypertension which are mixed by pharmacists in solutions to various strengths. “We are going to replace them, and those instructions have gone out to Nipdec for this year’s procurement cycle.

“What the doctors are doing in the interim (is) titrating the dosing for these two drugs according to the clinical symptoms presented by the patient. So no patient is in danger. Absolutely no patient is in danger. They may have to take a little more and that’s about it, just to bring it up to bio-equivalency.” Deyalsingh lamented the media reporting on the issue, plus two other matters. He refuted a press headline (not Newsday) that a Venezuelan man had died after being refused medical treatment at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex in Mount Hope, saying that the man had been treated but had then discharged himself against medical advice.

Deyalsingh then took issue with a Newsday report of alleged side-effects in a girl taking the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) vaccine. “You know what is the backlash? People are now shying away from the HPV vaccine that could save lives.” He urged all to be careful discussing medical matters so as not to create a backlash that could scare away the population from seeking treatment.