Bracko Bats for Big Pharma
Geovanni Brackett
Former President Geovanni Brackett of the Citizens Organized for Liberty through Action, COLA, has gone the solo route as an independent activist and this morning he invited the media to the Radisson for an hour-long press conference. In his live presentation, Brackett took aim squarely at the Ministry of Health for reportedly passing a statutory instrument that essentially prohibits the wholesale import and retailing of F.D.A. approved pharmaceuticals. This, he says, is a move that favours the sale of generic medications coming from within the region. According to Brackett, he has been carefully studying procurement practices in light of this recent SI, and has found that it only benefits a handful of businesses that have been green lighted to import nonspecific pharmaceuticals.
Geovanni Brackett, Activist/Journalist
“The ministry is using that implementation of this new set of requirement to put pressure on the pharmaceutical companies who have been here for decades, who have legitimate contracts, some of them exclusive, some of them not exclusive with FDA approved manufacturers. And what is happening is that while you have a shipment in customs or at the airport and you have maybe three months before that shipment comes and a provider submits their good manufacturing practice certificate and the others that the ministry is requiring, the ministry, from my research is giving a lot of bureaucracy and red tape for those to be released from the customs. However, if you read the SI, and I will back all of these with evidence I will send to the media, the SI states that the minister has the right to waive or to make exception and the complaints that have been coming to me is that a lot of these newly-formed pharmaceutical companies who are bring pharmaceutical products from Central American countries; namely Guatemala, Nicaragua, even Mexico, what they are doing, El Salvador, those have been having easy access to our Belizean market while you have a name-brand product that is hold up because they are not able to meet the requirements, and I will explain this more, and those are being left until sometimes they are expired and have to be burned or destroyed or have to be returned and in some cases the ministry, I am told, don’t even want you to return it.”
