TO : Dr. O.Shisana

Director-General

Dept. of Health

Pretoria

13 November 1997

Dear Dr Shisana

Thank you for your reply fax of 8 November

We regret to inform you that your response to our very serious objections to the Interim Professions Councils' central role in writing a new bill for traditional & natural health & therapeutic substances is grossly inadequate. You seem to have missed the import of several points raised and I reiterate that the Interim Professions Council are inappropriately tasked with driving the writing of a new bill:

a) By virtue of their inherent bias towards disease management rather than prevention and hence cannot be trusted with controlling products to which the consumer has right, in most cases, to equal access without undue restrictions which may arise from said vested interests in restricting access to pro-active natural health and also natural therapeutic substances.

b) By virtue of the unacceptable direct links with and allegiances to the same big industry interests which dominated the listings debacle and to which both you and the MCC turned a blind eye when brought to your and their attention previously , and appears now to be repeated again;

c) By virtue of their having jurisdiction only over their registered practitioners and not even over the many good practitioners who have been refused registration by this Council for no sound reason;

d) By virtue of their having no jurisdiction over the vast majority of other role-players, including manufacturers, importers, distributors, retailers and especially the consumers, who above all , have the most fundamental right to freedom of choice without undue influence from said vested interests , and ;

e) By virtue of chairman O'Brien's documented dismal record in terms of transparency, accountability, representativeness, democracy and honesty of portrayal of facts to state authorities, parliamentary representatives & the public itself .

We understand that a meeting is scheduled for 25th November with the honourable Minister of Health and yourself, Prof. Folb, Dr. O,Brien and the Health MEC's. Would you kindly demonstrate to us your commitment to the abovementioned essential principles of good governance by extending an invitation to us to attend this meeting.

We look forward to an early positive response.

Yours sincerely

Stuart Thomson

National Co-ordinator , PHARMAPACT

Anthony Rees

Co-co-ordinator, PHARMAPACT

cc The Honourable Minister of Heath

cc Mrs. S. Baloyi