Kava regains shelf space in Wales

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Posted on December 4, 2003 08:01 AM
by [email protected]

Dear colleagues, dear friends

The International Kava Executive Committee (IKEC) is proud to announce a major success in its continuous efforts to lift the kava bans in numerous of countries worldwide. In the press release of the 29 November (Link) the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed that it had decided to re-evaluate kava.

At the end of August this year, we organized an international Kava Stakeholder Meeting in Brussels, which was attended by two representatives< of the WHO. Within the framework of this meeting, we presented the major findings of our Phytopharm report "In Depth Investigation on EU Member States Market Restrictions on kava products" ( Link) and provided the WHO representatives with the complete report, with the request to forward it to the responsible division within the WHO. Now it looks as if our report and the follow up activities have made an effect.

In the first meeting of the Advisory Committee on Safety of Medicinal Products (20-22 October 2003, WHO, Geneva) the committee endorsed the recommendation to obtain data / assessments from countries from which kava-use associated adverse re-action reports are available, including comprehensive literature reviews. According to further reports, the WHO has involved two of their Pharmacovigilance Centers in the evaluation process, one in Europe and one in the Pacific.

We see this as a great chance to get a new, comprehensive evaluation of kava, which should include all the data and publications that been published before and after kava was banned in several countries.

Meanwhile the IKEC is actively supplying all available information to the press, stakeholders from the Pacific (e.g. Fiji, Samoa, Tonga and Vanuatu), Europe and worldwide, as well as all other interested parties. Furthermore, we are preparing a large information campaign, to be accompanied by several actions to soon follow.

Please circulate this information to all interested parties and let us know if we should add further addresses in our mailing list. Whenever you have interesting news about kava, please send us a mail, we will then distribute the information.

We keep you updated.
Best regards,

Joerg Gruenwald

Dr. Joerg Gruenwald
Executive Director
International Kava Executive Committee (IKEC)
Co: Phytopharm Consulting
Waldseeweg 6, 13467 Berlin/Germany
[email protected]
Tel: +49 30 4000 8111
Fax: +49 30 4000 8500
www.analyze-realize.com

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