Moxafrica derives much of its inspiration from a Japanese doctor (Hara Shimetaro) who used MOXA for the treatment of TB in the 1930s when it was a very common disease in Japan. He treated many patients by using MOXA before the discovery of the first drugs and reported successes. He also conducted his own scientific research (using animals) to suggest how MOXA could support people who were suffering from TB and help them recover.

 

Dr Hara also recognised the social devastation that TB brought to poor families and to their communities, and he was convinced from his experiences that MOXA had particular relevance to help powerless people regain control over their destinies.

 

In post-war Japan new drugs and improved standards of living saw rates of tuberculosis shrink, and his treatments lost their earlier relevance and so were largely forgotten.

 

The Moxafrica treatment protocols have been adapted from Dr Hara’s approaches, and the charity is introducing them into new environments in a different era.

 

Our core knowledge and beliefs:

 

The Moxafrica charity is committed to its objectives because of certain known facts or beliefs:

 

1. We believe there is a good reason to re-develop those original investigations today.

 

2. We know that TB flourishes most among the poor and the powerless, and that, in turn, it can create devastating poverty itself. 

 

3. We believe that drug-resistant TB has been shamefully neglected as an issue of public health which is still not being recognized as a cogent focal point for global concern as is warranted. 

 

4. We believe the development of the drug-resistant disease is currently running far ahead of all the efforts that have so far been put in place to stem its tide. 

 

5. We know that the sophisticated biomedical resources needed to fight this disease remain most deficient in those countries most affected by it.

 

6. We believe that, even if new and innovative pharmaceutical treatments are developed, they will remain largely out of reach of those who need them most for complex political, biomedical and socio-economic reasons.

 

7. We are certain that some parts of the world are now facing a growing epidemic of untreatable drug-resistant TB with no resource available to fight it.

 

Our Principles:

 

Our investigations are founded on particular commitments and principles:

 

1. The principle that all human life has equal value regardless of race, gender, age or status.

 

2. The principle that MOXA treatment for TB should be preserved in its simplest form so that it remains unpatentable - and therefore affordable to those most in need of it.

 

3. The principle that, in every possible circumstance, MOXA treatment should be offered to communities in ways which allow the communities themselves to choose to adopt and adapt it as they see fit - so as to be most appropriate to their respective indigenous cultures.

 

4. A commitment to developing non-directive collaborative partnerships through which all active partners might share and learn from each other.

 

5. The principle of fostering sustainability within all future developments in which the charity is involved.

 

6. The principle of sharing rather than the owning of all ideas, experiences, and findings relating to these investigations.

 

7. A commitment to pursuing our objectives in the most responsible ways available to us, and to establishing confirmable scientific evidence wherever and whenever it is possible.

 

8. A commitment to exploring the efficacy of this simple treatment in the environments where the disease thrives, in the hope that we can show that it makes positive and measurable differences for the people who live in those same environments.

 

9. A commitment to advocating better care for TB patients everywhere, and to promoting a wider awareness of the current disease pandemic.

 

Moxafrica acknowledges the uncertainties of researching the complexities of TB. By investigating the use of MOXA in the fight against TB we embrace the contrasts between the small and the immense, the simple and the complex; and we acknowledge chasms between the poor and the rich, and the powerless and the powerful.