THE TNHA TEAM
Dr. Bernard Brom, MBChB (UCT), CEDH (USA)
Chairperson
Bernard graduated as a medical doctor at the University of Cape Town (UCT) in 1965, and started his integrative medicine practice in 1977. He studied acupuncture in Singapore and homoeopathy in France, and has been a pioneer and leading light in the field of integrated medicine in South Africa.
Bernard is the Founder and present Chairman of The South African Society of Integrative Medicine (SASIM).
He started the first South African journal of Natural Medicine called ‘Complementary Medicine’ in 1996 which became ‘The South African Journal of Natural Medicine’.
Bernard served on the Complementary Medicines Committee (CMC) of the Medicines Control Council for two years.
He initiated the first Integrative Curriculum accepted by the department of Family Practice at the University of Stellenbosch Medical School in 2009.
He written numerous articles; has run many seminars supporting the practice of Complementary and Integrative medicine and offers a intensive course to medical practitioners on the Principles and Practice of Integrative Medicine.
T/Dr Phephsile Maseko, THO
Exco Member
Phepsile is the National Coordinator for the Traditional Healers’ Organisation for Africa, a 72,000 strong traditional medicine practitioner association in Southern Africa. She has been at the forefront of the campaign to repeal the Suppression of Witchcraft Act through the SA Law Reform Commission, which was passed by the apartheid state apparatus to suppress traditional medicine.
She is also uniting aggrieved traditional health practitioner groups who are aggrieved with the fact that the Department of Health gazetted the Traditional Health Practitioners’ Act in 2007, and that for seven years no progress has been made in opening the registers for traditional health practitioners. She is presently gearing up to launch a constitutional challenge in this regard.
Phepsile presides on the National Department of Science and Technology’s Committee on Intellectual Knowledge and Indigenous Property Rights, where she has successfully lobbied government to protect indigenous intellectually property rights for decades in the realm of pharmaceutical research on indigenous plant species.
Currently she is working on projects to protect the country’s biodiversity, and establishing a scheme for the sustainable harvesting and propagation and beneficiation of indigenous medicinal plant species.
Anthony Rees, HONERI (SA), H.Dip. Herbalism (SA), Dip. Herbology (USA)
Founder & General Secretary
Anthony is a trained herbalist. He completed his Higher Diploma in Herbalism at the South African College of Herbal Medicine in 1994 and studied further post-graduate courses in Ethno / Herbal Medicine abroad.
Anthony has served as Chairman of the South African Naturopaths and Herbalists Association, which assisted in leading Phytotherapists to be statutorily recognised by the Allied Health Professions Council of South Africa (AHPCSA). Anthony was registered as a Phytotherapist (Medical Herbalist) by the AHPCSA in 2000, and is no longer currently practicing. He has since deregistered with AHPCSA.
He ran his own private college, the Herbology & Optimal Nutrition Education and Research Institute, which provided two-year distance education in herbal medicine and optimal nutrition for seven years.
He served on the expert sub-committee for Western Herbal Medicines under the Complementary Medicines Committee (CMC) of the Medicines Control Council. He has served as an advisor to the official South African CODEX Alimentarius contact point at the Dep. of Food Control, and has been a delegate of the South African Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses (CCNFSDU) and the Codex Committee on Food Labelling (CCFL).
Anthony has been active in local and international health freedom organisations and is the co-coordinator of PHARMAPACT, a South African health freedom organization which has co-coordinated since 1996. He also spent time in Canada, assisting with the running of Citizens Voice for Health Rights, a non-government organization opposed restrictive legislation for natural health products.
He has delivered many lectures on natural health product regulatory threats for similar organizations abroad, such as the International Advocated for Health Freedom (USA), The Dr Rath Foundation (EU), The Health Action Network Society (Canada) and the Alliance for Natural Health (UK).