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Dr. Rath Health Foundation
Africa
15 Floor
34 Bree Street
Cape Town
8001
Tel : (+27) 21 – 441 2000
Fax:
(+27) 21 – 441 2101
www.dr.-rath-foundation.org.za
October 14, 2004
To the Minister of Health of South Africa,
Dr. M.E. Tshabalala-Msimang
Union Buildings
Pretoria
Submission to the Minister of Health by the
Dr. Rath Health Foundation
concerning the proposed amendment
of the Regulations to the Medicines and
Related Substances
Act
It is the position of the Dr. Rath Health Foundation that
the ban on natural health and traditional medicine
proposed by the Medicines Control Council must be rejected
and replaced with legislation that makes unrestricted access
to natural health and traditional medicine a constitutional right for
the people of South Africa.
1.
1.
Introduction
1.1.
This proposed legislation that would take away free access
to natural health and traditional medicine is not proposed
in order to protect or improve the health of millions of
people in South Africa, but instead to protect and promote
the economic interests of the multi-trillion dollar investment
business of the pharmaceutical industry.
The
new regulations proposed by the Medicines Control Council
(‘MCC’) amount to a radical attack on the freedom
of the people of South Africa to make informed decisions
about how best to maintain their health and recover it
when they are unwell, and directly threaten their health
and their lives.
1.2.
This proposed legislation that would take away free access
to natural health and traditional medicine is not proposed
in order to protect or improve the health of millions of
people in South Africa, but instead to protect and promote
the economic interests of the multi-trillion dollar investment
business of the pharmaceutical industry.
2. BACKGROUND
TO THE AMENDMENT PROPOSED BY THE MCC:
THE PHARMACEUTICAL INVESTMENT
BUSINESS
2.1. The
pharmaceutical industry is not a health industry serving
the health interests of the people, but it is one of today's
largest and most profitable investment industries, driven
by the financial interests of its investors.
2.2. The
multi-trillion dollar returns on investment of the pharmaceutical
industry are based on two main factors: a) the continuation
and expansion of diseases as drug markets and b) the extraordinary
profits deriving from patent royalties of synthetic – non-natural – drugs
as the merchandise for these expanding markets.
2.3. Effective,
safe and affordable natural health approaches threaten the
very existence of the pharmaceutical ‘investment
business with disease’ for two reasons: a) they are not
patentable and therefore have low profit margins and b) many
natural substances such as vitamins and other essential
nutrients correct the cellular root cause of diseases and
eventually lead to their eradication, and thereby destroy the
multi-trillion drug market.
2.4. Effective,
non-patentable, natural health therapies are incompatible
by their very nature with the pharmaceutical
‘investment business with disease’. As a direct consequence
of this antagonism the pharmaceutical investment business must
eliminate any competition from natural health approaches that
can effectively control diseases. This economic factor is what
really drives the MCC's proposed legislation to ban natural
health therapies.
2.5. In
turn, the biggest obstacle for the eradication of today's
most common diseases is the pharmaceutical investment business,
because it is dependent on maintaining and expanding diseases.
Only by implementing effective, safe and affordable natural
health therapies as the foundation of national health policies
will the control of today's most common diseases in South
Africa become reality, including cardiovascular disease,
cancer and HIV/AIDS.
2.5. If
the legislation now proposed by the MCC to ban natural health
therapies becomes law, it would effectively eliminate the
possibility for millions of South African people to control
today’s most common diseases by natural means and for
generations to come
3. Background To the amendmenT proposed by the MCC: Recent developments threatening the survival of the pharmaceutical
investment BUSINESS
3.1. The
first factor threatening the survival of the pharmaceutical
investment business is the progress made in the area of science-
based natural health. Recently, discoveries have been made
that have identified a deficiency in vitamins and other essential
nutrients as the primary cause of today's most common diseases
including cardiovascular disease, cancer, HIV/AIDS, osteoporosis
and other common health problems.
Our foundation’s web site, www.dr-rath-foundation.org,
archives thousands of clinical studies and research data in
natural health.
3.2. The
second factor threatening the very survival of the pharmaceutical
investment business is the epidemic of life-threatening side
effects of almost all pharmaceutical drugs. The known deadly
side effects of pharmaceutical drugs prescribed by doctors
have reached epidemic proportions and have become the fourth
leading cause of death in the industrialized world, surpassed
only by heart disease, cancer and strokes.
3.3. The
epidemic of deadly side effects of pharmaceutical drugs is
no exception – it is the rule. It is the direct and
inevitable consequence of the synthetic nature of the chemical
drugs produced by this industry. These chemicals have no
natural, physiological function in the billions of cells of our
body. On the
contrary, they are recognized by these cells as toxic chemicals
that need to be detoxified in the liver. Doctors, politicians
and millions of people around the world have yet to recognize
the fact that the epidemic of deadly side effects from
painkillers such as Vioxx and from cholesterol-blockers such
as Baycol are not exceptions, they are inevitable.
4. The Background
To the amendmenT proposed by the MCC:
The Ban on Natural and traditional Medicine is the key tool to
maintain pharmaceutical colonialism
4.1. The
global monopoly of the pharmaceutical investment business
is one of the most deadly forms of corporate colonialism
today. This ‘investment business with disease’
is orchestrated from corporations based in just half a dozen
rich countries at the expense of the health and the lives of
billions people in almost 200 less wealthy and developing
nations. Two out of three pharmaceutical pills currently
marketed anywhere in the world come from corporations based in
the US or the UK.
4.2. In
order to maintain its monopoly on world health the pharmaceutical
industry is dependent on instruments that artificially stabilize
their global monopoly including protectionist legislation
at the national and international level.
4.3. The
principal tactic to accomplish this goal is a legal ban on
the dissemination of information about the health benefits
of natural therapies.
The legislation proposed by the MCC is consistent with
similar attempts by the pharmaceutical cartel in other
countries, regions and at the global level:
4.3.1.
In 1992 the Pharma Cartel attempted to outlaw natural
health therapies in the USA by abusing the Food and Drug
Administration (FDA), the American equivalent of the MCC in
South Africa. This attack was triggered by a breakthrough
discovery in natural health: the fact that cardiovascular
disease is an early form of the vitamin deficiency condition
scurvy, and therefore is preventable by natural means. The
attack backfired when millions of Americans rose in protest.
In August 1994 the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act
[www.fda.gov/opacom/laws/dshea.html] was passed unanimously by
both houses of US Congress guaranteeing free access to natural
health to the people of America.
4.3.2. In 1999 a similar attempt was made by the Pharma Cartel
in the United Kingdom. The Medicines Control Council - the
British equivalent of the MCC in South Africa - proposed
legislation under the code name MLX 249 that would have
essentially outlawed natural health therapies in the UK. Once
again this attempt failed because the people in Great Britain
stood up against it.
4.3.3.
After its defeat in the USA, the Pharma Cartel regrouped
at the international level by abusing the United Nation's Codex
Alimentarius Commission. Since 1996 it has been seeking a global
ban on natural health information for all member countries of
the United Nations - that is worldwide. Opposition worldwide has
prevented the Pharma Cartel from achieving this goal. Since 2003
the opposition against the Pharma Cartel’s intention to outlaw
natural health worldwide has had a voice within the Codex
Alimentarius Commission: the government of South Africa has
become an international leader in resisting the Pharma cartel's
plan and in promoting natural health instead to the benefit of
the people of the world.
4.3.4. It is obvious that the amendment proposed by the MCC is
in direct contradiction and opposition to the official position
of the South African government to make natural health
accessible to all people in South Africa and the world.
4.3.5. Dr. Rath and the Dr. Rath Health Foundation have been
instrumental in promoting this international movement for
natural health freedom in two main areas: First, by advancing
the scientific knowledge about the profound health benefits of
natural therapies in the fight against today's most common
diseases. Second, in advancing the international battle for
unrestricted access of the people of the world to this
life-saving health information. This decade-long battle is
documented in detail on the web site of our foundation.
5. Background To the amendmenT proposed by the MCC: WHY South Africa NOW
5.1.
The South African government is already a threat to the
global interests of the Pharma Cartel. It has taken the lead
in the global battle against the patent-based drug investment
business and its devastating effects on the lives of hundreds
of millions of people in the developing world.
5.2. The
Minister of Health of South Africa is internationally recognized
for her opposition to the Pharma Cartel and is a vocal advocate
of natural health alternatives to harmful synthetic drugs.
5.3.
South Africa, the host of the African Parliament,
holds a key position within the African community of nations
and is a leader of the developing world. The MCC's proposed legislation
is part of a global containment strategy of the Pharma Cartel
to limit the influence of South Africa on other nations in their
efforts to liberate themselves from the shackles of
pharmaceutical colonialism and ensure affordable health for
their people.
5.4. The
greatest health problem in South Africa today is the HIV/AIDS
epidemic. The Pharma Cartel has capitalized on this epidemic
to loot the South African economy and increase its dependency
on the international drug investment business. To that effect
it is financing and promoting so-called treatment action
committees and funding opposition political parties with
the strategic goal to pressure the South African government
to spend ruinous amounts of money on useless and toxic drugs.
5.5.
The pharmaceutical cartel's bogus
claims to hold the answer to the problem of AIDS was demolished by the publication
of a landmark study on July 1, 2004, in the New York Times. This study involving
more than 1000 HIV positive pregnant women showed that a combination of vitamins
- natural substances - were able to slow down the development of disease by 50%. This
study confirmed that safe and affordable vitamins were more effective in controlling
the AIDS epidemic than any expensive patentable pharmaceutical drugs. And,
as opposed to the deadly side effects of nevirapine and AZT, these natural
compounds had no ill effects.
5.6. It
is appalling that instead of promoting this life-saving information,
the MCC should seek to restrict it, thereby deliberately
withholding critical health information and jeopardizing
the lives of millions of patients.
6. the MCC as an instrument of the
pharmaceutical cartel
6.1. The
MCC is an organization that primarily serves the profit interests
of the pharmaceutical cartel rather than the health interests
of the South African people.
Its members are medical and pharmacology academics
dependent on the pharmaceutical cartel for research funding,
dependent on this cartel, and therefore incapable of making
independent recommendations in the interest of the people of
South Africa.
6.2. The MCC in South Africa
is modeled on similar organizations in the homeland of the
Pharma Cartel, the US FDA and the UK MCC, by which the Cartel
pressurizes the government and manipulates public opinion.
6.3. The
MCC gives the deceptive impression to the public that it
speaks on behalf of the South African government in trying
to ban free access to natural health therapies. In fact,
the position of the MCC is diametrically opposed to that
of the South African government.
7. THE
FALSE JUSTIFICATION OF THE PROPOSED LEGISLATION
7.1. The
MCC deceptively claims on behalf of the pharmaceutical industry
that this ban on natural health is necessary in order to
protect the people of South Africa from the alleged side
effects of natural therapies. This argument is a sham.
7.2. The
fact is, however, that no one ever died from safe natural
therapies, while the known deadly side effects of pharmaceutical
drugs kill more than one million people worldwide every year.
7.3. The
MCC is using this deception in order to disguise its intentions
and to rally support for a change in the law that is directed
against the interests of millions of people in South Africa.
8.
THE DISASTROUS consequences of the proposed
legislation
8.1. As
a direct result of this proposed legislation millions of
people in South Africa would continue to die from preventable
diseases.
8.2. As
a direct result of this proposed legislation the people of
South Africa would be made dependent on the pharmaceutical
cartel by force of law. They would be exclusively dependent
on pharmaceutical drugs that do not cure, while creating
side effects and new diseases in epidemic proportions as
future markets for the expanding drug business of the Cartel.
8.3. As
a direct result of this legislation proposed by the MCC the
people and the government of South Africa would be forced
to continue financing the multi-trillion dollar drug investment
business and their stakeholders in the US, the UK and other
rich countries. This would happen at the cost of further
impoverishing of the people of South Africa and strangling
the economy of this country.
9. Recommendations
to the Government of South Africa
9.1. Protect
by law my fundamental right to free access to natural therapies
and traditional medicine.
9.2. Reject
the attempt to outlaw free access to natural therapies and
natural health information. This attack on the health and
freedom of the people of South Africa serves only the interests
of the trillion-dollar pharmaceutical ‘investment
business with disease’.
9.3. Specifically
reject the amendment to the Medicines and Related Substances
Act proposed by the Medicines Control Council (MCC) that
would effectively outlaw all natural therapies and traditional
medicines in South Africa in favour of patented synthetic
pharmaceutical drugs.
9.4. Disband
the MCC, an agency whose members are directly or indirectly
dependent on the international pharmaceutical industry, and
whose decisions have consistently served these foreign interests
at the cost of the health and lives of the people of South
Africa.
9.5. Establish
an independent, accountable and transparent government body
with its focus on protecting the health interests of the
people of South Africa from one of its greatest threats:
the epidemic of deadly side effects of pharmaceutical drugs
that are already the fourth leading cause of death in the
world.
9.6. Promote
research and implementation of safe and affordable natural
therapies, effective in the fight against cardiovascular
disease, cancer, AIDS, tuberculosis and other widespread
diseases in order to end pharmaceutical colonialism, save
millions of lives and billions in health care costs.
10. Call to the people of South Africa to support
their government in the fight against pharmaceutical colonialism
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