Control to Australia

Sir, How many people know that, next week, a report is due back from a parliamentary select committee on a bill that hands over control of all Maori, Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine in New Zealand, all vitamins, supplements and herbal remedies, to ANZTPA – a corporation managed and directed from Australia, and not accountable to any New Zealand authority.

The history of the Australian Therapeutic Goods Agency, officially set up to “protect the health and safety of all Australians”, actually is a history of frequent and often unsubstantiated recalls of herbal and natural products, while pharmaceutical drugs known to have adverse effects – including deaths – escape recall.

This sounds like conspiracy theory stuff, but is well documented: 10,000 “fatal events” occur annually in Australia connected with dangerous/inappropriate drug treatments and medical interventions.

For small businesses producing health products, the future is bleak. It is difficult to compete with the pharmaceutical giants when the cost of having each ingredient certified in every remedy sold is the same, regardless of the size of the operation. Do we support freedom of choice and access to a variety of medicines tested by time, or do we hand ourselves over totally to the multinationals?

FIONA GUYAN

Motueka, June 6.

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