Page 4 - Autumn 12

BAHVS President’s letter (October 2012) by Mark Elliott
It seems just moments ago we all got together for the [BAHVS] Conference in Eastbourne. Feedback would sug- gest that folks felt this was one of our best conferences so far. Thanks again to the organizing team of Jane Keogh, Ed De Beukelaer, Tim Couzens and Barbara Jones.
Thoughts now clearly turn to next year and the eagerly
anticipated plans for Ireland 2013 and in 2014 the plan to
showcase UK emerging talent on the Friday and Sunday
and invite colleagues from the wider profession to the
Saturday, where we can roll out our key experienced
speakers to tell them about what we do. These will be very
different and exciting events and need to be considered in terms of how we move forward as an association.
We have lived in interesting times, with a lot of attacks on the home- opathic and complementary medical world, often led by professional skeptics who make a living by creating chaos, and who care little for the damage, they leave in their wake. For now, much of the debate has moved on to other parts of the medical world, and for which, as president, I am grateful. However, I have no doubt they will return to us at some stage.
My view is, that we have all learnt from the last few years and the pro- fessional homeopathic organisations have taken large steps to put in place a structure to respond pro-actively and more quickly to these prob- lems in the future. If you are not a member of the Faculty [of Homeopathy] or similar organisation, I would urge you to give them your support and join, as you help everyone by doing so.
As a small membership association we are not well placed to con- tribute to that defense to a large degree, and certainly we cannot con- tribute the significant funds some of the defense groups seek for
participation and a seat at the table. We do though, by our very existence, support our colleagues, as the argument of veterinary evidence is so strong. This is where we should focus efforts and I would urge anyone publishing a case report, seeing a paper in a journal that has animal based research etc. to send it in to me to add to our growing database of research in veterinary homeopathy.
But we need also to think about funding and growing our membership in this small window of opportunity. This is your organisation and we have almost nil in the bank after putting on the conference, publishing the mag and
running the media stuff such as the website etc. We depend on volun- teers for almost everything, which is not completely healthy. It is difficult to ask for more fees in a recession, but I would ask everyone to think ahead to Conference 2014, and contribute thoughts, brain-waves, any- thing in fact that might help us with showcasing ourselves to the profes- sion, that might help attract new members and hopefully encourage some to train as homeopathic vets. We need to recreate the energy of the 90’s and early years of the millennium. Send those ideas in to your com- mittee, and especially to Stuart [Marston] as secretary. Also ideas for fundraising are needed and thoughts on that issue will also be gratefully received.
I feel privileged to be tasked with leading this association for a short while. It must be unique in the professional world to be able to say that pretty much the entire membership is like friends and family. I like to think I will hand BAHVS on to Jane [Keogh] stronger, more dynamic and more modern than it has ever been before. In fact this is the task I have set myself.
Have a great Christmas and New Year
Homeopathy is Bad for You by Rosemary Fitzgerald, UK
(Number in sample, n=1). Anecdotal evidence.
Seven years ago, having heard previously sensible colleagues advocat- ing homeopathy, I attended a one day introduction to homeopathy course with the main aim of proving that homeopathy is rubbish. My theory was that if I learnt just enough to be able to use remedies for their indicated conditions, i.e. there should be reasonable expectation of positive results, then when nothing happened, I could satisfy myself that I didn’t need to ever bother with the subject again. I hit a bit of a snag, when the clinical improvements started to rear their inconvenient heads.
So, Oct 2011, I was heading for darkest Oxfordshire for the VetMFHom clinical/oral [exam]. I have a long and distinguished record of going to pieces entirely and in the grand manner during oral exams (that’s been the whole way through vet school and two RCVS certifi- cates – most people just quit, when they’re ahead, I’ve got a ‘dim’ gene), so was not looking forward to what might happen this time. The difference was that all my previous exams mainly relied on written exams and I had pretty much passed before I went into the oral – this time I did not have that luxury. The day before the exam, I noticed a bit of inflammation in each axilla. Odd. I’m not prone to skin problems. Ignore it, it’ll go away. True to form, the day of the exam was a cracker. (A certain Mrs Armstrong some time later did a debrief with me on how many ways I had messed up. She spoke for 25 minutes straight, barely drew breath and didn’t repeat herself much.) So, having made an exhi- bition of myself, I had failed, and I knew it before, I got told. That funny itchy red area in my armpits spread a bit.
Two weeks later both armpits were a fiery crusty itchy mess, I could barely move my arms and I was on topical cortisone/antifungal and sys- temic antibiotics. That improved things a lot, and provided both me and my GP with a lot of entertainment – shedloads of conventional treat- ment required with homeopathy as a direct aetiology.
The red patches appeared again, this time around the outside of the original area. Liberal application of topical cortisone/antifungal got rid of it. For a while. I did find that Ars alb helped somewhat, 200c several times daily, whenever I remembered (yes, a well-thought out dosage regime). I experimented with Ars 1M, but it didn’t work. So, not quite the right remedy, but I didn’t have enough spare time to work out anything else. Blotchy red itchy patches appeared on my upper arms. Topical treatment, and they reappeared just distal to the previous ones. Hey, suppression in action! Lesions then jumped to my legs, same again, topical, reappear distally. Fascinating. And itchy.
Only way out of this was sit the b****** exam again...
Ars alb 200c popped as sweeties (no, I don’t worry about aggravations in me, only in my patients, life’s too short) for the few days pre-exam seemed to help, and this time round I didn’t disintegrate. And actually passed. Skin lesions cleared almost on the spot, and there have been no skin problems since.
Conclusions:
Homeopathy is bad for you. Sitting any exams is probably bad for you, but homeopathic exams can cause disease.
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