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NZHT News

Newsletter no 21

Hello again to all our subscribers.
 
The battle continues to protect New Zealand's future health freedoms.
 
In this issue;
  • Govt likely to announce yet another delay to their plans
  • Overview of the NZ scene post election
  • Update from Australia
  • Adverse Reaction Reports
  • SOS Post cards progress

Another delay likely
The NZ Health Trust is pleased to report that as expected the Government has announced, yet again, that their plans to start the TTTGA have to be delayed.  You may recall that this agency was planned to have started operations 1 July 2005.  The Government though underestimated public opposition and found itself unable to get the support it needed in Parliament.  Despite the PR spin they tried to pass off on us, this lack of support was the reason they were forced to delay the proposed start date by 12 months to 1 July 2006.
 
Well NZ and Australian Parliamentary representatives have met again in Australia to discuss the need for yet another delay.  The Government, despite all its considerable resources being directed into trying to convince fellow politicians and industry that this agency is necessary and a good thing, still can't get enough support and won't risk putting the legislation before the house unless they are sure they have the numbers to get it passed.
 
The result is that the proposed start date has been put off further but this time without giving any new target to risk further embarrassment of this type. We can all take this as a small victory - without the support we have received and the work that has been done by many people  - we would have lost the health freedoms that this agency seeks to take from us many months ago.
 
The official line  once again is along the lines of the decision to put it off further being so they can "undertake further consultation and ensure the new agency meets the needs of New Zealand"  - as the billboards say, "Yeah Right!"

NZ Scene post election
 
As the dust settles we are very pleased to see that Labour is still a minority Government with an even more tenuous grasp on power than it had previously.  It cannot force the TTTGA on NZ without convincing several of the minor parties to support it.  We know that so far all the major opposition parties have refused to support Labour and we will continue to work with them as much as we can in this regard.
 
The New Health Select Committee has been named and Sue Kedgley from the Green Party, who have been staunch supporters of NZ's health freedoms throughout this issue, has been named as the Chairperson.  We are also very pleased to announce that once again the Labour party will not have a majority on this committee.  While rumours suggest that Labour may try and have the draft legislation sent to a different committee that may have a more 'favourable' membership, we will not permit any such attempts to manipulate the system to go unnoticed.  Watch this space.....
 
Finally we have noted that although Annette King has been deposed as Health Minister, she has some how retained her status as the Labour front person for the TTTGA proposal.  Could it be that no one else in Labour wants to get tarred with the looming defeat in this matter?

Australian Update
 
Thank you for all the submissions you sent to the Australian Senate Inquiry into the proposed Therapeutic Goods Amendment Act via the Contact your MP’s page, this is the Act that would make the penalties the TGA can impose even more draconian than ever. We understand that these submissions received considerable attention in the Australian Parliament. 
 
You may have seen some press coverage recently about the TGA 'agreeing' to an informal review system for the infringement notices they can now impose.  But we have serious concerns as to the true impartiality of any such review panel.  Also note that the TGA can still make a media announcement about any steps they take even if those steps are later shown to have been without any justification.  Anyone in business though will know that the damage is done by the media reports, being cleared some months later will never make up for the "death by press release" the TGA may already have inflicted. 
 
More recently a report has been released by Deloitte which was highly critical of the TGA procedures.  As the NZHT has been saying for years - the TGA is a disaster and the Deloitte report confirms this.  Like the Australian National Audit Office report last year, the Deloitte's report criticizes the agency's structure and transparency, accountability and governance.  This emphasizes yet again that NZ should NOT be looking to take on an agency that is becoming to be so widely recognised in its home jurisdiction as dysfunctional.

Adverse Reaction Reporting
New to the NZHT web site is the adverse reaction reporting facility created in conjunction with Helen and Donald Saville-Cook of Dunedin who are the coordinators
of this important service. http://nzhealthtrust.co.nz/ar.html.
 
This system has come about as a result of the indications that adverse reactions to prescription medicines in New Zealand and significantly under reported.  These new pages allow consumers to directly report what they believe to be adverse reactions they have experienced to prescription medication to assist the health authorities to properly monitor the effect of such medicines.
 
The reports can be filled in on line or printable forms can be downloaded filled in and sent by mail or fax. The completed forms will to be sent to (CARM) the Centre for Adverse Reaction Monitoring as well as the Ministry of Health.  A confidential copy is also retained by NZHT to ensure the data released by the regulators properly reflects the information we know they have received.
 
If you lodge a report you may be contacted by your health professional or a Ministry of Health official in response to your report.  We encourage anyone who believes they have suffered or are suffering an adverse reaction to prescription medication to complete the reports to ensure proper post market surveillance of such medicines.
 
Any good information or links for this page you may have would helpful. Click here to send http://nzhealthtrust.co.nz/contact.html or use the email at the bottom of the page

 Save our Supplements Cards
 
The NZHT "S.O.S." support cards are going really well and have helped us to build up an impressive bank of supporters that can't help but have an impact with the MP's when the time comes for them to cast their votes.  What we have noticed though is that the return rate of cards we send out is lower than we would like.  What we have found to be the most successful method is to ask your friends and contacts to complete the forms straight away and then you can gather the completed cards together to send back to us in one envelope.  Saves postage and we get a better hit rate. Click here to order on line http://nzhealthtrust.co.nz/support_forms.html
 
 
Our thanks as ever to those of you who commit your time to having these cards completed and spreading the message about the concerns related to the TTTGA.  Even after the last four years of talking to people and media contacts, there are still so many people who know nothing about this issue.  People often ask us - what is the best thing they can do to help, for now the answer is sign the cards, get your friends to sign them and then tell as many people as you can about this problem and send them to our web site for more information.  If they sign up to receive this newsletter then they can be sure they'll be kept up to date about what's happening and what we need to do to win this fight.
 
As ever we thank you for your ongoing support and invite you to pass this email to as many of your friends and contacts as you can.

 
Kind Regards
Dave Sloan

 
 

 

 
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