The Food and Drug Monitoring Agency delayed the announcement of test results of contaminated medicines that caused acute kidney injury on children for days.

BPOM Chief Penny Lukito responds to the allegation that her agency has been slow in handling acute kidney injury cases.

Since the start of the pandemic, BPOM Chief Penny Kusumastuti Lukito often found herself at the center of Covid-related polemics, from drug claims, emergency use authorizations, vaccines, ivermectin to the Nusantara vaccine. How does she deal with these?

The fatwa (edict) commission of the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) declared the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine haram (forbidden by Islamic law) because it used trypsin enzyme from pigs in its viral multiplication process. The fatwa runs counter to the drug monitoring agency (BPOM)’s ruling that the enzyme is already broken up thus no longer present in the vaccine making process. Penny Kusumastuti Lukito, Chair of BPOM, considers the end product to be free of porcine material. Given the limited supply of halal (permissible by Islamic law)-certified vaccine Sinovac, the government has no choice but to turn to other vaccines including AstraZeneca.