ANTI-Crime advocates decried efforts to discredit the findings of the Public Attorney’s Office (PAO), as well as the families of the alleged victims of the government’s anti-dengue immunization campaign who have “lost trust” in the Department of Health (DoH).

“We expect some efforts to discredit us and to discredit the victims, but we are not doing this for our own sake but for the sake of the victims who have lost trust to the DOH (Department of Health),” Dante Jimenez, chairman of the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption, told The Manila Times in an interview on Sunday.

Jimenez also said that the autopsies performed by PAO on the bodies of the victims, mostly children, who received Dengvaxia, were on the request of their families.

The VACC chairman was responding to an appeal by a group of doctors and health advocates asking the Department of Justice (DoJ) to direct the PAO to stop performing autopsies and “leave the matter of determining the cause of death to competent forensic pathologists”.

Sen. Joseph Victor “JV” Ejercito, chairman of the Senate Committee on Health and Demography, in a separate interview, said he agreed with the call for PAO to stop conducting autopsies because it could add to the “hysteria and panic”.

He added that it would be better if the autopsy be conducted by the team of medical experts from the University of the Philippines-Philippine General Hospital (UP-PGH).

Meanwhile, the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee will present documents that would show Sanofi’s deficiencies that the DoH failed to report when it resumes its hearing on February 6, Sen. Richard Gordon said.

Gordon, committee chairman, said the committee was initially looking at possible graft related cases to be recommended against former president Benigno Aquino 3rd, former budget Secretary Florencio Abad and Janette Garin, who headed the DoH at that time.

He said the three were liable for graft because there was obvious haste in the procurement of the vaccines.

Gordon said the vaccine was procured and were given to more than 800,000 school children even though it has not completed the clinical trials.

“If it can be determined that that there have been deaths because of their actions, then they could also face reckless imprudence resulting in homicide,” he said. JEFFERSON ANTIPORDA