Maturinol case will be investigated by Prosecutor’s Office and Medicine Ethics Commission

The director of the Center for Mother and Child, Ion Ilinciuc, risks being penalized by the Ministry of Health, while the Maturinol case will be investigated by the Prosecutor’s Office and the Medicine Ethics Commission. The statement was made by the Minister of Health Andrei Usatai at a meeting with members of the ProHealth Club, Info-Prim Neo reports. “Maturinol wasn’t registered because a new drug cannot be created from several already existing drugs. It’s a mixture, not a drug. But Ion Ilinciuc gave it a name and sold it in drugstores, although he didn’t have the right to”, said Andrei Usatai. The Minister thinks the Maturinol problem is an artificial one. “Ion Iliniciuc was warned about the procedure. He had the right to prescribe this mixture, but not to make it a new drug”, said the Minister. Andrei Usatai added that no institution could forbid a doctor’s prescription, as long as it’s called a prescription and not something else. “Every doctor with a license in medicine can issue a prescription. Nobody had the right to forbid Ion Iliniciuc to prescribe this mixture. Its ingredients are authorized, can be sold in Moldova and aren’t harmful for patients”, the Minister stated. The college of the Ministry of Health had a meeting regarding the Maturinol case scheduled for Friday, July 29, but it was delayed because Ion Ilinciuc got sick. The Maturinol case came to attention by the end of July, when 12 bottles of mixture with this name were found in a drugstore in Chisinau. According to some information, the doctor prescribed Maturinol for 2,000 children, although he obtained funds to test the drug on animals only this year. Ion Ilinciuc stated at a press conference that the scandal was based on personal interests and was started by Petru Stratulat, vice director of the Center for Mother and Child. The latter denies the allegations.