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PHARMPACT have retrieved the report below, which was released by the Electronic Mail & Guardian, May 11, 1998 , which clearly shows that Traditional Healers are not going to stand back while multi million Rand drug companies steal their medicines and cultural heritage for their own pockets. Pharmapact's mission over the past few months has been to rally support from Traditional Healer groupings around South Africa, to warn them of the reign of tyranny that awaits them if they participate in the current Listing System proposal. PHARMAPACT facilitated an INDABA on the 24th of May 1998 and invited highly prominent members of the largest traditional healers groupings around South Africa.

PHARMAPACT have managed to secure good relations between the major Traditional Healers Organisations and have been leasing with their leaders in the past months to be on the alert for unscrupulous, ethno-pirates and even their own people who are selling out their knowledge. Many of these leaders have agreed that the theft of their medicines is a serious matter which will not be tolerated under any circumstances and that their people will fight back at those who try steal their heritage and culture for gross financial gain.

Recently, Pharmapact have been on national television (SABC3 : 29th April 1997 : 6:30 pm - 7 pm) sending out a clear message that Traditional Healers have been exploited for their knowledge by companies wanting their secret ancestral medicines for drug research. The chief instigators in the ethno-piracy gang have over the years used large amounts of State and tax payers expenses to evaluate indigenous herbs and screen them for active principles for mass pharmaceutical manufacture and export.

The MCC are also now in the bad books of Traditional Healers, since Pharmapact released scientific reports that 50% of black deaths have been attributed to their health substances. The MCC, who have supposed to be protecting the public from dangerous substances have clearly not done their job over the last thirty years, and it has been felt by some that the MCC collaborated with the previous apartheid government to deliberately conceal this information, as mass deaths of indigenous black people suited the evils of the past regime.

As can be seen from the report below, PHARMACARE and it's subsidiary S.A. DRUGGISTS have begun marketing a range of medicines under the name "Healer's Choice". It is interesting to note that Dr. Nigel Gerrike, who developed the range was the founder of the TRAMED project at the University of Cape Town under the Leadership of Professor Folb, ex-chairman of the MCC.

Dr. Gerrike now fraudulently sits on the illegal Complimentary Medicines Committee of the MCC. Dr. Gerrike has been researching African herbs by extracting information from Traditional Healers across South Africa. It is also be clearly evident that Dr. Gerrike was undemocratically elected to the Technical Committee of the CMC and is a chief role player is pushing for the pharmaceutical take-over of natural health substances under the Listing System. Pharmapact would like to question his qualifications in the natural health industry and seriously question why such a person with vast financial interests in natural health care manufacture may sit on such a committee. This is not an isolated case however, as all members on the CMC have financial interests in the natural health care industry.

PHARMAPACT will welcome an official Ministerial Inquiry into the constitution of the CMC and it's pseudo grass-roots sub-committees. The sacking of the Directorate of the MCC by Dr. N .. Zuma, Minister of Health last month, was perceived to be a great victory in a long standing battle between ourselves and the MCC, however we now expect the Minister to apply the same conditions to the sub-committees of the MCC who also have huge financial interests and a huge market share to gain by destroying all the smaller, yet important natural health care providers by insisting on a compulsory Listing System.

TRADITIONAL HEALERS have accused the pharmaceutical industry of trying to muscle in on their lucrative natural herbal market after a company was ordered to stop producing products to be sold over the counter.

Pharmacare, a division of South African Druggists, was told by the Medicines Control Council (MCC) to stop making four cure-all herbal remedies sold as "Healers Choice" because of legislative constraints. The company has refused, citing "a difference of opinion with the MCC" over an interpretation of the law. It also argues that the products are already widely available for sale in Europe and the United States.

"Local healers do not have a monopoly on these remedies. It may be that some healers will feel threatened, but we are approaching the market from a different angle and do not see any reason for conflict. Rather, they are complementary to what is sold on the streets."

Hesketh-Mare says his company is only producing a limited supply from indigenous plants - such as buchu, used for stomach ailments - which are cultivated specifically for Pharmacare's production.

"We are not plundering the environment and will provide uniform dosages with consistent quality and efficacy. They are standard formulae that offer well-documented therapeutic delivery," he says.

This doesn't satisfy Sipho Mndaweni, president of the Interim Co-ordinating Committee of Traditional Practitioners in South Africa. He complains that his members may end up being squeezed out of the market. He insists South African Druggists is just testing the water before marketing more traditional medicines to be sold over the counter.

His committee has made submissions to Parliament for recognition as a registered national council similar to that of doctors and other professional bodies. "That way we would be able to have some control over the trademark 'traditional medicines' and stop this kind of abuse," says Mndaweni.

Meanwhile the MCC admits it has reached an impasse with South African Druggists, which has failed to register the ingredients used in Healers Choice, as required under the national drug policy.

Says Bada Pharasi, chief director of registration, regulation and procurement: "The company is legally bound to ... show that clinical trials have been held and produce documented evidence of the tests carried out, but at the moment we have ... a difference of opinion." -- Electronic Mail & Guardian, May 11, 1998.