Page 13 - Winter 13

IAVH Newsletter
President’s Letter
On 20th November I attended a meeting of the Homoeopathic Medicinal Products Working Group (HMPWG) in Bonn, Germany. This fol- lowed an invitation sent to me as President of IAVH. The working group was established in 2004 by the EU Heads of Medicines Agency (HMA) in order to ‘harmonize the assessment of homeopathic products and create a network of assessors to facilitate cooperation in national and Mutual Recognition procedures’. From time to time the group invites interested parties to make a presentation on the day before the meeting proper takes place. On this occasion 9 groups were invited, which included the European Committee for Homeopathy (ECH), 3 bodies representing anthroposophic medicine, the European Council of Homeopaths and the European Federation of Homeopathic Patients’ Associations. We each had 15 minutes to intro- duce our organization, comment on the recent work of the HMPWG and advise, what we would like the group to do in the future.
In order to properly represent the Association I requested comments from our members and found that there are important issue throughout the EU on availability of veteri- nary homeopathic medicines, particularly in Denmark, Italy and Holland. This has come about mainly because of differences in inter- pretation by member states on the use of unregistered homeopathic medicines. In some countries there are no registered veterinary homeopathic medicines – there are, for instance only 7 in UK. This is largely due to the cost of registration, which is counted in thou- sands of Euros. In UK, Germany and Austria, for instance, there is no problem: a vet can use an unregistered product (though there may be restrictions on marketing products), but other
countries do not have the same policy; Italy is a particularly severe case, where many remedies have already been lost from the pharmacies. Furthermore, according to EU regulations it is permissible to import medicines from another member state, but, again, some states seem to have created rules, which do not allow this.
So in my presentation to HMPWG I stressed that the field of veterinary homeopathy is very different from the situation, where here the patient is a human – obvious differences involve withdrawal periods in food producing animals and the role of homeopathy in organic farming. I also emphasized the difficulties that the present regulations create in terms of avail- ability of homeopathic remedies to veterinari- ans in the EU. The problem seems to be that Member states are free to interpret the regula- tions in different ways and to create local rules, so harmonization (the prime purpose of the EU) is not taking place, particularly on the use of unregistered medicines.
Similar concerns were expressed by other speakers and the conclusion, I drew, from lis- tening to the other presentations is that the present regulations are not ‘fit for purpose’. They have derived from attempting to include homeopathic medicines under the same legis- lation as conventional veterinary medicines. This clearly does not work, and some presen- ters called for the establishment of a separate EU body to regulate homeopathic medicines. This is unlikely to happen, especially in the near future, so we must do what we can within the present set-up, but I added my voice to the vision of a separate regulatory body. I reminded the group that it is the 150th anniversary of President Lincoln’s Gettysburgh address, where he called for ‘Government of the people
hugely positive, if we could look forward to ‘reg- ulation of the homeopaths by the homeopaths for the homeopaths’. Something we might be able to work towards, perhaps, but as we might say in Australia ‘don’t hold your breath mate’.
Finally I had to report to the Group that, despite their good intentions and hard work, none of the papers, they had published recently, had any relevance to veterinary homeopathy. This is probably not surprising, as among the 20 or so members of the group there is only one veteri- narian, a toxicologist, who is involved in regu- lating homeopathic medicines in Germany but who has no direct experience of veterinary homeopathic practice.
My general feeling after this meeting was one of frustration and powerlessness in the face of the mighty EU but we are at least now recognized and our network of contacts is growing – this can only be positive, and who knows where it may take us in terms of influ- encing the future of veterinary homeopathy in the EU. And that influence can have global repercussions.
At this time of the year we can all celebrate the turning of the seasons on the solstice, the shortest or longest day December 21st and the beginning of a secular New Year on January 1st. My calendar tells me that December 25th is not only Christmas Day but also Jinnah day in Pakistan; December 26th is Independence Day in Slovenia; January 1st is also Revolution Day in Cuba and Gannjitsu in Japan - so much to celebrate for our global family.
Thank you all for your support in 2013 – on to the next year with confidence and friendship!
Peter
by the people for the
people’; it would be
IAVH Officers Meeting in Avebury
IAVH office had a great time in discussing current issues of IAVH and the steps for a further development of veterinary homeopathy.
After a profound overview of the financial structures of the associa- tion and the accounts we agreed on steps to simplify the setup to guar- antee smooth international money transfer without complications. Although the payment of membership fees is not always on time, IAVH finances are solid.
With major input from Don Hamilton we analysed the current situa- tion of Veterinary Homeopathy in the United States and defined points to improve IAVH publicity in the US.
To optimize discussion and communication between our worldwide members during our annual board conference we agreed on offering an online system next year. With this technical support every interested IAVH member can join the discussion, if it is not possible to be at the meeting in person.
To give a fundamental overview of IAVH work and the issues the association is dealing with the office created a power point presentation. Every member, who visits a seminar or international congress, can help
Continued on page 12
During the weekend of the 5-6 October 2013, Avebury was the focal point of IAVH activities. The quiet and peaceful surrounding was the per- fect place for an officers meeting! So president Peter Gregory, treasurer Don Hamilton, me as general secretary and Markus Mayer as head of the
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Helene, Peter and Don