Thank you for the opportunity to bring this matter to your attention.

At the outset we wish to formally record our full support for Minister Zuma's amendment bill, and in particular the provision that the MCC shall be a juristic person and hence subject to legal obligation and accountability for its decisions and actions.

However, PHARMAPACT and others believe that the bill falls far short of addressing the MCC's reign of tyranny against proactive health building and disease preventive natural health substances and as far as the proposal to increase the powers of its inspectorate is concerned, we believe that by doing so Parliament will be encouraging rather than detering such unconstitutional behaviour and hence we request that legislation clearly circumscribe the circumstantial scope of even the existing powers of all arms of the MCC.

Kindly note that due to the current free reign of the MCC over its own affairs, both the Minister and Director General of Health have been unable to intervene in these matters and hence Dr Steven Hendricks, D-G's representative has specifically referred PHARMAPACT to the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Health as the correct forum at which to raise these issues.

Our priority is to alert Parliament to the nature and extent of the unconstitutional, illogical and double standard activities of the MCC, the secretariate and inspectorate over the past few years and in particular since November 1996, and also the legal ramifications and adverse publicity that is likely to ensue should the Ministry not take responsible action against the MCC's abuse of Act 101, clearly contrary to original legislative intent, and iro which we have exercised considerable restraint and actively assisted the Department with documental expose of this untenable situation.

Our position in this regard is firmly reinforced by the United States's congressional rebuke of the FDA's prejudicial regulatory practices against the natural health substances industry by way of timeous legislative ammendments in the form of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994. This development is directly pertinent to our dilemma by virtue of Act 101/65 having been modelled on US legislation and the ammendment being necessitated by similar regulatory abuse.

Our position in fact is far more moderate than that adopted in the US in that we believe that a separate category and more socially responsible regulatory mechanism be adopted for those products occupying the grey area between health products/dietary supplements and genuine traditional medicines. It is for this reason that we are proposing the adoption of an appropriately less stringent 2nd World version of the United Kingdom's licensing system for those products which are to be marketed as natural remedies suitable for specific non life-threatening conditions and where safety and efficacy are reasonably established documentationally or epidemiologically.

PHARMAPACT wishes to impress on you the fact that herbs nutrients and food factors are not in themselves drugs and even when used as medicines, deserve to be evaluated and regulated by a separate and more appropriate system to that executed by the allopathically biased Medicines Control Council who were empowered by Act 101 to protect consumers from toxic systhetic drugs and certainly not to witch-hunt God-given traditional natural health substances bearing little to no threat to public safety.

We believe that pro-active preventive and nutritionally remedial natural health substances have a very significant positive role to play iro the Government's public health plan, especially for its contribution in reserving increasingly limited state resources for the most needy. To elaborate the legitimacy of our predicament and to complete our presentation, I wish to draw your attention specifically to aspects of the final Constitution of the Republic of South Africa which not only affords us specific rights which have been violated, but also affords you one and all both the obligation and the necessary mandate to facilitate our noble cause in accordance with the following provisions:

This Consitution is the supreme law of the Republic; law or conduct inconsistent with it is invalid and the duties imposed by it must be performed.

(2) The State must respect, protect, promote and fulfil the rights in the Bill of Rights.

(1) The Bill of Rights applies to all law and binds the legislature, the executive, the judiciary and all organs of State.

(3) The State may not unfairly discriminate directly or indirectly against anyone on one or more grounds, including...ethnic (or social) origin,..., conscience, belief ... (or) culture... .

(4) National legislation must be enacted to prevent or prohibit unfair discrimination.

(5) Discrimination on one or more of the grounds listed in subsection (3) is unfair unless it is established that the discrimination is fair.

This section is invoked in terms of the dominant allopathic bias of the MCC and in particular discrimination against the International natural health traditions without equal treatment of the African natural health traditions, which latter represents too hot a political potato.)

(2) Everyone has the right to bodily integrity and psychological integrity, which includes the right:

(b) to security in and control over their body.

Everyone has the right to privacy, which includes the right not to have:

(a) their person or home searched;

(b) their property searched;

(c) their possessions seized; or

(d) the privacy of their communications infringed.

(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of ... belief ... .

(including that in subtle healing energies in nature).

(1). Everyone has the right to freedom of expression which includes -

(a) freedom of the press and other media;

(b) freedom to receive and impart information and ideas; and

(d) academic freedom and freedom of scientific research.

(1) Everyone has the right of access to -

(a) any information held by the State; and

(b) any information that is held by another person and that is required for the exercise or protection of any rights.

(2) National legislation must be enacted to give effect to this right .... .

(1) Everyone has the right to administrative action that is lawful, reasonable and procedurally fair.

(2) Everyone whose rights have been adversely affected by administrative action has the right to be given written reasons.

(3) National legislation must be enacted to give effect to these rights and must -

(a) provide for the review of administrative action by a court, or where appropriate, an independent and impartial tribunal;

(b) impose a duty on the State to give effect to (1) & (2).

Everyone has the right to have any dispute that can be resolved by the application of law decided in a court or, where appropriate, another independent and impartial forum.

(1) When interpreting the Bill of Rights, a court, tribunal or forum -

(a) must promote the values that underlie an open and democratic society based on huma dignity, equality and freedom; and

(c) may consider foreign law.

(2) When interpreting any legislation, and when developing the common and customary law, every court, tribunal or forum must promote the spirit, purport, or objects of the Bill of Rights.

Virtually every right listed above has been violated by the MCC and the remaining clauses reflect the mandate afforded to the Health Department, Ministry and in particular Parliament.

Yours sincerely

National Co-ordinator, PHARMAPACT