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{
    "id": 116274,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/116274/?format=api",
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    "content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we should also appreciate that as much as we have become modernized, there are too many traditions in this country. These people believe in traditions and even Members of Parliament, people in universities and medical doctors themselves visit herbal doctors. It seems like this is part of our society that is difficult to disengage from, even with people who have had very high education. Therefore, we must recognize that there is a need to look at these kinds of people and respond to their needs. If you go to places like Western Kenya where Dr. Khalwale comes from and some places in Nyanza, you will find that some doctors have more faith in herbal doctors than they have in their own callings because of traditions and because it is recognized as a good way of dealing with problems. Thirdly, there are problems even where we have facilities like hospitals and dispensaries because the facilities are very limited. Again, a lot of people are forced to look for alternative solutions. Then there are quacks. In a situation whereby you do not have what you can afford and where anybody will cheat you that they can treat you, you tend to go to whoever tells you that he has a cure. So, there must be a way also of reigning on these kinds of people and ensuring that a lot of people who are being misled and are paying for it and sometimes at great costs in terms of their lives are also taken care of. But some of these products can also be poisonous. We have read, for example, of herbal medicine even from China in the form of Viagra that has led to deaths of people because of that lack of standardization. Fourthly, there are certain diseases in this continent that can best be dealt with what has been used to treat them in Africa and a good example is malaria. We have not found a vaccine or cure for malaria for years and yet it is a problem that was with us for centuries and there were ways of curing it. The problem is that with the onset of modern medicine, that treasure, even the possibility of exploiting that, we did not get to the bottom of it. So, when we standardize and recognize herbal medicine, this will also give us an opportunity to go back to those traditional cures for diseases such as malaria that can best be cured in the African situation and by African practitioners to give them an opportunity to develop even further. Also related to this is the whole issue of what else Africans did apart from just traditional medicine that we can try to standardize, look at and see how that can be moved forward. I understand that the Kisiis had a way of doing traditional surgery, even brain surgery. This kind of knowledge has been forgotten. Therefore, as we look at herbal medicine and other traditional forms of medicine, let us think about other forms in terms of traditional gynecological methods of supporting births, brain operations and other types of surgery. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we also will need this kind of expertise at the Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS). The reason that we have a lot of quacks"
}