After six year battle poison scandal victims get a deal

Victims and relatives of Panama’s diethylene glycol scandal which killed over 300 people who took cough mixture made with the anti-freeze will get pensions of $600 a month.

The deal came six years after the tragedy that killed 305 an affected hundreds more.

After reaching a consensus with the members of the Committee of Relatives for the Right to Health and Life and the Government, the Minister of the Presidency, Roberto Henriquez, said the government will present a bill authorizing an annuity of $600 per month to those affected by the toxic mixture
Henriquez said the proposal will be submitted to the National Assembly.
Daniel Sarmiento, vice president of the Relatives committee said the agreement was reached with the Government, after two months of meetings.
The consensus reached also contemplates revising that amount every two years, tand people who have not filed for toxic effects continue medical evaluation for five years and nobody should sign some kind of settlement with the State.
The president of the Health Commission of the National Assembly, Mario Lazarus, said he submitted a motion that the bill be discussed urgently as requested by the families and victims of the poison, according to a statement issued by the Ministry of Communications..
Sarmiento said they will ask that the project be discussed during this legislative period. Last year the government proposed a pension ranging between $235 and $1,250 thousand, accompanied by , a pledge not to take civil legal action for against the Panamanian government.
The offer deemed “miserable”was rejected by the Committee.
Since 2006 the families of affected and patients who have sequels to the poisoning, continued a struggle that led to closing the Transístmica and other areas of the country dozens of times to demand better quality health care and a pension consistent with the reality of the experience.

Last year, just after six years since the poisoning, the director of the Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences (Imelcf) Humberto Mas, said they hadconfirmed 305 deaths by poison and another 1,250 people were still waiting to certify that their cases are positive or negative.
In 2003 the Social Security Fund (CSS) bought “glycerine” from the company Medicom S. A., but received s an industrial type containing the poison diethylene glycol, which was used in the production of sugar-expectorant drugs such as diphenhydramine and calamine.
International Rasfer was the intermediary who sold Medicom Panama the substance that caused the mass poisoning, and obtained from a Chinese company. No one has been charged and no government officials or politicians resigned.