Page 15 - Autumn 12

Office Report September 2012
Members
The IAVH has currently 460 members.
In 2013 around a further 100 new collective members from Japan and about 20 new collective members from Turkey are expected.
Members have the possibility to publish offers for employment, job train- ings and work experiences on our website. In addition they are able to publish advertisements for books and literature written by members or other authors.
The number of visitors on our website www.iavh.org has risen to 300 per month.
Website
The project is almost completed.
Board Meeting 2013
The Board Meeting 2013 will take place in Nuremberg, Germany on 7th April 2013 as part of the 13th Congress for Holistic Veterinary Medicine.
UK National Report
OurConferencewaswellattended,bydelegatesfromseveralcountries andwashighlysuccessful.Welistened,learnt,ate,drankanddanced. Now we have another conference coming up in October. This is the British Homeopathic Congress, held every two years by the Faculty of Homeopathy. ThisyearittakesplaceinTortworth,nearBristol.Delegatescomefrom aroundtheworldtoattend,andtheprogrammeisveryvaried,covering theprofessionswhomakeupthemembership.Theseincludedoctors, dentists, nurses, pharmacists and podiatrists, and of course veterinari- ans.AmongthosemakingpresentationsareIAVHMembersChrisDay, John Saxton, Geoff Johnson and myself. If anyone else is attending, pleasemakeyourselvesknowntous,sowecanshareourexperiences andmaybeadrink.Weareatlasthavingsomesunshinehere,afterwhat must be the wettest summer for years. So best wishes to everyone from all your friends in UK and Ireland.
part of the appeal process (in regard to CE refusal) to have an in-person meeting. Richard said that they were polite and listened for about 20 minutes,whileheexplainedthattheprogramwasforveterinarians,the onlytrainingintheUS.Hemadeapointoftellingthemthatunlessvet- erinarians were trained (in homeopathy), the lay people would take over. He closed by explaining the situation with RACE (committee with final say on CE approval), that they would no longer approve homeopathic programs(specificallyhis,butallinfact)).Therethenfollowedalong discussionoftheboard,withseveralmembersinfavourofapprovingthe program.ThechairmanmadeamotiontoonceagainrefusetheCE,but there was no second to the motion. Then another member proposed approvingitanditpassedwithonlythechairmandissenting.Inregards to the complain of his practicing without a license, it turns out, the com- plainttotheboardwasbyaveterinarianinEngland!Hecomplainedthat Richardwasontheforumansweringquestionsabouthisbook!There was another long discussion, with the majority voting that Richard should no longer participate on the form, so he decided to stop for now. Richardwasverypleasedwiththeoutcome,anditseemsaprecedent was set for the future.
2. TheAmericanHolisticVeterinaryMedicalFoundationparticipatedin the Joseph Mercola-Karen Becker fundraiser at Mercola.com. These funds will be matched 2:1 by Mercola-Becker. Moneys are to be used for education and research in alternative medicine.
3. The 2013 AVH conference will be in Tampa Florida next year, April 26-28. Theme:anEnduringParadigm.SpeakerlineupincludeKimElia,talking about ‘Old Remedies' and Sue Armstrong among others.
Marcie Fallek
National report USA
Some good news!
1. The final chapter in the saga of Dr. Richard Pitcairn, the founder of theAcademyofVeterinaryHomeopathy,whowasaccusedofpracticing medicinewithoutalicenseinhishomestateofArizona,forparticipating on the Minimum Price Forum and was denied CE credits for his Homeopathic Professional Courses, took up the offer by the board as
PeterGregory
Bird Brain
“In theory, theory and practice are much the same, in practice they are not”
Albert Einstein
Researchers at Cambridge (this one is genuine I promise!), led by Lucy Cheke, have been experi- menting with comparing the intelligence of chil- dren and birds (the Eurasian Jay, a member of the crow family). The work was based on the old tale of birds putting stones in water to raise its level so they can get at some ‘prize’ floating on the surface.
What they found was that, in two identical experiments with a single tube of water, there was no difference in the speed, with which both the birds and seven year old children mastered
the problem. A third different experiment, how- ever, produced a different result with the children proving significantly better than the birds at solv- ing that particular problem. This test involved a U-shaped tube with the U-bend buried so that there appeared to be two separate tubes. The arm of the tube containing the prize was too nar- row to get stones into it, but the other arm was wide enough to take them. The children were able to work out that putting stones in an appar- ently unconnected tube produced the desired result and to accept the fact that it worked with- out understanding why. The birds were unable to make any progress at all.
The conclusion of the research team was that “Essentially, the children were able to ignore
the fact that it shouldn’t be happening and con- centrate on the fact that it was happening” whilst the birds “were put off by the fact that it shouldn’t be happening”
I am sure, everyone can see the parallels between the above experiment and the situation that exists in relation to supporters of homeopa- thy and the ‘it can’t work therefore why try to see if it does’ brigade. The obvious implication is that those of us, who accept the fact that homeopa- thy works and are prepared to utilise that truth, are of a different level of intelligence to those, who don’t accept its reality. Equally, our oppo- nents cannot complain if they are called ‘bird brains’ – after all, it’s been proved scientifically!
John Saxton
13