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Posted by Lani on Wednesday, September 26th, 2007 at 7:47 pm
Rep. Antonio Alvarez of Palawan (first district) thinks that doing so would minimize “pharmaceutical misuse or abuse” and would “empower consumers” who are often beguiled by unproven claims of food supplements, which are all written in English.
Translating not necessarily drug names, which are highly technical, but at least drug indications, contraindications and precautions would immensely benefit consumers. Makes sense to me. Come to think of it, most product labels (even of those made in the Philippines), advertising billboards, and other signage are in English, taking for granted that not all Filipinos are proficient in English. In the US and other countries, companies cater to their Filipino employees by translating corporate documents into their employees’ native tongue, Ilocano included; entire HMO handbooks are translated into Philippine languages; documents on clinical drug trials are translated into the patient-subjects’ primary language; and school administrations communicate (in writing) with parents in their dialect. Google is currently in the process of localizing its range of services (social networking sites, terms of service, advertising policy) into Filipino while Nokia’s product manuals have Tagalog subtitles. If multinational companies and other countries bother to give importance to language differences and cater to the Filipinos’ native tongue, why can’t we in the Philippines? After all, Filipino (or Tagalog) is our national language.
Filipino may be our national language, but many of our kababayan in Visayas and Mindanao do not understand Tagalog. Assuming most of the Filipinos understand Tagalog, Rep. Alvarez’s proposal will be helpful only to those who buy medicines in bottles or boxes, which include information about the drugs in the packages. Those who buy tablets and capsules at retail may not find this useful. I wonder how majority will react once they find out what “No approved therapeutic claims,” found in many supplements that DO have therapeutic claims (for heart conditions, joints disorders, etc.), REALLY means?
1 | Joy October 19th, 2007 at 3:21 pmYes, that’s true about retail buying, as they don’t really get the information on indications and even dosage. Maybe it’s also about time doctors cater to the dialect of their patients when prescribing medicines and writing the dosages in prescription pads?
2 | Lani October 20th, 2007 at 4:35 pmI say, it should be both in English and Pilipino (Tagalog) or what every the dialect maybe. As a Filipino, I still don’t understand some of the words in Pilipino and what more to prescription medications? Perhaps, if not grasp the word in Pilipino (or other dialect) by the drug labels, we could switched back to English labels???!! I may have to have a pharmacology book (did they translate it in Pilipino?) or English-Pilipino dictionary handy.
3 | Jane October 23rd, 2007 at 9:47 pmActually, med schools teach the future doctors to write the prescriptions in the languages that the patients understands. A patient can request his doctor to write his prescriptions in the local dialect, if he wants.
4 | Joy November 1st, 2007 at 11:27 amTranslate “Tylenol” in Tagalog, please!!!! A “purely Tagalog” instruction will be disastrous. I say instructions should be in both English and Tagalog BECAUSE 97% of Filipinos speak English, Hello!!! The other 3% can always find one of the 97% to translate for them. Don’t these “lawmakers” have anything better to do like, maybe, run the country? Medicine labels are not “high” priority. Educate the people first, make them learn English, give them good living conditions, they won’t need medicines, hence, no need to read instructions, agreed?
5 | cee-cee November 11th, 2007 at 9:15 pm