The Pretoria High Court this week heard a challenge to the regulation of complementary medicine in South Africa. Tendai Mafuma and Julia Chaskalson explain why the case is important and why Section27 and the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) got involved.
Those who manufacture or sell complementary medicines often make claims about what these medicines contain and all the diseases they can prevent or cure.
As the public, we might assume that the claims must be true since some authority would stop the sale of these products if the claims were untrue.