Page 18 - Autumn 18

IAVH President Edward de Beukelaer
Dear All,
It feels to me that the IAVH has been caught in a process of moving on from being more like a club of friends and colleagues talking about homeopathy to having an international presence on a number of platforms. This not only due to gaining more members outside of Europe.
We are present in eurocam (Brussels lobby group to promote CAM to the EU). This organisation is also creating a good contact with the Who. Therefore, the IAVH can, though Eurocam, also serve its non-European members. Please follow and share their Facebook and Instagram efforts. They have now a very good communication team trying to get the attention of the public.
Our membership of the WVA (World Veterinary Association) gives us an existence amongst all other veterinary associations of the world. Through this organisation, we have made good contacts with the world veterinary students organisation (IVsA). Their educational officer will be at our Sofia meeting 16 -18 November. (I hope to see some of you there). Further, the future president of the WVA stopped me in the street after the WVA board meeting saying that we should not give up our work because we have a very valuable message to bring to the profession.
We have been very busy in relation to the eU Veterinary Medicines regulation. This is much thanks to the amazing energy of petra Weiermayer, who used her experience, connections and bright mind to take us on this journey. Even though our efforts have not produced the outcome we would have liked, what we have achieved is that homeopathy has been discussed at the highest level in Brussels, for days. The negotiating EU countries (in the council) could not come to an agreement in relation to the
place of homeopathy in the cascade. This has resulted in a regulation, which is of very poor quality. This in itself may well prove to be an asset. In any case, the anti’s, who were hard at work in Brussels, did not manage to get rid of homeopathy. We are still finding out how to deal with the new EU regulation.
What this journey certainly has done is to raise the status of the IAVH in the eyes of others and give us a wealth of knowledge and experience. We have become an appreciated partner of the ech (European homeopathic doctors), which has resulted in excellent cooperation and also the congress two years ago and an interesting meeting to come in November this year in Sofia. The theme is how to integrate homeopathy into modern medicine. This is an important theme, because in my meetings at Eurocam I can see how the subject of integrative medicine, where the patient becomes the decision maker, is becoming a more and more important subject in medicine. Homeopathy will be able to use this Trojan horse to gain the place it deserves.
Further to the international nature of homeopathy: next year we will have our board meeting in Colombia at the occasion of a South-America conference organised by Marcela Muñoz. It is the last weekend of October 2019. Put this in your diaries! This meeting is going to be a milestone in the life of the IAVH bringing homeopathic vets together from all over the world talking about homeopathy.
However much we may well find it difficult to have to sometimes suppress our knowledge and opinions on medicine to be able to work together with our conventional colleagues, we have to find the strength to do so and, at the same time, make sure our prescription technique is sufficiently good to be effective, even in less perfect situations.
Not all in the IAVH agree with my opinion on this. I can understand how hard this view weighs on the daily
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