NASH MEMBER UPDATE - July/August 2005

The North American Society of Homeopaths is dedicated to promote, represent and serve as the voice of all professional homeopaths in North America. NASH aims to develop and uphold the highest level of excellence in homeopathic practice while enhancing the role of the homeopathic profession as an integral part of health care delivery.

Board of Directors

President: Manfred Mueller, CA,
Email: homeopathicassociates@earthlink.net

Vice president: Kate Birch, MN,
Email:  Katebhom@yahoo.com

Treasurer: Julie Mann, CA,
Email:  ma13nn@aol.com

Registrar: Laura Sholtz, ME,
Email:  laurasremedies@hotmail.com

Secretary: Carleen Johnson, ME,
Email:  cjohnson@uninets.net

Canadian Representative: Basil Ziv, Ont.,
Email:  basilziv@rogers.com

Executive Director: Liz Bonfig, FL,
Email:  nashinfo@aol.com

We thank our members for their immediate responses to our last update. We want to know you are alive and well and are interested in the updates we present to you. If you have any corrections to the information we have printed here, please let us know and we will make mention in our following updates. In addition, if you have any information to share with the homeopathic community, please send to Liz our administrator at nashinfo@aol.com. NASH updates are posted every two months.

The NASH Board of Directors is pleased to announce the recent appointment of Basil Ziv, RSHom (NA), CCH, as our Canadian representative. Basil joins the board during a period of increased legislative activity throughout Canada. The NASH board is blessed to have such a capable representative for our Canadian members.

Basil Ziv Bio

Basil began his homeopathic studies in 1990 when he joined the Toronto Homeopathic Study Group. He began his practice in 1992 and became a member of NASH in 1995. Basil was born in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe and graduated from the University of Cape Town, South Africa. He has a background in small business and experience as a mediator in civil and family law matters.

He is a teacher, tutor and mentor to homeopaths and students of homeopathy throughout North America. Basil has taught at the Homeopathic Academy of Southern California in San Diego, The Toronto School of Homeopathic Medicine and an Advanced Clinicians Program at his own Centre of Homeopathic Medicine. In addition to his general practice in Classical Homeopathy, Basil holds a certificate in developmental neurology and provides therapy for brain injury at the Association for the Neurologically Disabled in Ontario.

Basil's vision is for NASH to become the preeminent association for professional homeopaths in North America. His vision is to promote NASH to fill the needs of all professional homeopaths whether they are graduates from other medical disciplines or schools of homeopathy. Basil's vision is one where all homeopaths work together for the common good of humanity and the health of this planet.

There is currently a movement toward the regulation of homeopathy in Ontario, Canada. Basil believes that the outcome of this movement in Ontario can affect the practice of homeopathy throughout North America. At this time in 2005, there is division within the homeopathic community. Basil believes that he can help promote healing within the community. He has helped create a coalition of organizations and schools of homeopathy in order to negotiate with HPRAC. Their objective is to work together to find a common voice to protect the public interest and to establish acceptable standards for the practice of homeopathy in Ontario.

Canadian Overview

The Ontario Homeopathic Association had introduced a petition to the Ministry of Health in 1999 to regulate homeopathic practice in Ontario. This initiative recently came under review by the Ministry with a request for public input.

The scope of practice and training requirements proposed in the petition by the Ontario Homeopathic Association, include blood taking, injecting of remedies and other allopathic procedures that would require medical training that most NASH homeopaths do not have. The implied scope of practice not only conflicts with the homeopathic practice definitions of NASH, but also with those held by the homeopathic community in North America. If the Ontario initiative, as it stands, were to become law, these restrictions would exclude NASH registered homeopaths and CHC certified homeopaths from practicing in Canada.

With the help of our new Canadian representative Basil Ziv, NASH responded with a letter from the President voicing NASH's concerns while educating the Ministry about classical homeopathic practice and explaining NASH's position on scope of practice and training requirements for NASH registered and CHC certified professional homeopaths.

The scope of practice submitted to the Canadian health Ministry was developed by the board in conjunction with a Minnesotan homeopath Beth Knudson-Spears for Alternative Link.

Scope of Practice

As defined by the North American Society of Homeopaths for Alternative Link ABC coding system for insurance billing; for a modifier code for professional homeopaths with the initials CHC or RSHom; for practitioners without a secondary license.

A professional homeopath, through an in-depth interview and careful observation, evaluates the symptoms and state of health of the client and maintains detailed records of symptoms, health history, family history and other circumstantial factors. Professional Homeopaths are trained to interpret mental/emotional, physical and general symptoms as a totality and to determine the appropriate homeopathic remedy, potency and dose. A professional homeopath attends to acute and chronic conditions according to homeopathic principles.

Consultations may include:

Initial interviews
Follow up visits
Telephone consultations
Limited visits for acute conditions
Home and/or institutional visits
Preparation of homeopathic remedies

Homeopathic practitioners abide by their professional code of ethics.

Conference

We are excited to announce that we are planning our next annual NASH conference for April 2006 in San Jose, CA, conjointly with NCH, AIH and HANP. This is truly an historic event. For the first time, the homeopathic community of North America is coming together to join forces in building a strong and "vital" force. We encourage our members to participate and attend this conference. If you are interested in being a speaker at the 2006 conference, please contact us or Dana Ullman at dullman@igc.org with your presentation details. It is exciting for us to share this opportunity with the other homeopathic organizations and we would like to have a fair representation of our wonderfully talented registered homeopaths speaking. Please do consider applying to speak.

It is important to provide an avenue for NASH members to come together; therefore, we are also looking into the possibility of holding our annual meeting along with the National Health Freedom Annual Conference scheduled for October 28-30, 2005 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. We feel this would be a wonderful opportunity for our members to become acquainted with each other as well as with the legal and legislative issues of homeopathic practice. We will keep you posted. For detailed information about the conference, please visit http://www.nationalhealthfreedom.org/ or contact Jerri Johnson at (651) 688-6515 / email: jerrijohn@aol.com.

Homeopathic Action Alliance (HAA)

This is a group of leaders from all the homeopathic organizations including NCH (National Center for Homeopathy), AIH (American Institute of Homeopathy), HANP (Homeopathic Academy of Naturopathic Physicians), NASH (North American Society of Homeopaths), CHC (Council for Homeopathic Certification), HNA (Homeopathic Nurses Association), AAHP (American Academy of Homeopathic Pharmacists), AHVMA (American Holistic Veterinary Medical Association), AVH (Academy of Veterinary Homeopathy), CHE (Counsel for Homeopathic Education), and HWB (Homeopaths Without Borders). The HAA meets quarterly to bring together the homeopathic community. The HAA annual meeting was held in Florida last April at the NCH annual conference. Vice president Kate Birch attended the meeting and remains the liaison with HAA. From this gathering the concept of doing joint conferences with NCH, AIH, HANP and NASH arose.

The Alliance has allowed the member organizations to define their roles within the homeopathic community and in relation to one another. A wonderful example of this interaction is evident in the HANP’s statement that they are working to ensure that naturopathic bills introduced into state legislatures are written in such a way as to not make homeopathy an exclusive function of naturopaths.

2005 Registered Members

For the first half of 2005, NASH is delighted to welcome back Giri Wescott of California and announce the addition of these eight new RSHoms. Congratulations!

Carleen Johnson, Maine
Kenneth Silvestri – New Jersey
Tami Herndon - Texas
Michalene Seiler – California
Gene Sullivan – California
Rosemary Hyde – California
Pam Prosser – Minnesota
Mercedes Christ-Barney - New Jersey

Website

NASH thanks registered member Giri Wescott for generously donating many hours improving and updating the NASH website. If you haven’t visited lately, please take a moment and view the recent changes. Also, Giri has offered to create a bio page (click here for sample) for our registered members who do not have their own website. Currently, visitors to the online directory may access member websites using a direct link. If you would like NASH to create a bio page with a direct link, please contact Liz at nashinfo@aol.com for details.

American Homeopath, Volume 11

We are pleased to inform you that the 2005 edition of the journal is well under way and in process of editing. Thank you to Melanie Grimes for her unprecedented level of commitment and devotion to the publication of this world class journal. We expect to have the journal hot off the press this fall.

Legislative Policy

NASH put out a call in a previous update for input from members to help develop a NASH legislative policy. We have heard from two members, both legislative leaders in their state. They support criteria for legislative strategies that have succeeded in passing health freedom legislation, based on the health freedom doctrine developed by Diane Miller and others.

Health Freedom doctrine holds, among other things, that as long as a healing profession does not represent a risk to the public, the state should not place restrictions on it. It holds that people have a fundamental right to obtain and provide healing services. Health freedom legislation should remove any existing infringements on these rights.

Health freedom laws have been passed in five states so far: Minnesota, Rhode Island, Oklahoma, Idaho and California. One other state, Louisiana, is expected to sign health freedom legislation into law shortly (see legislative update). In these states homeopaths can legally practice without fear of prosecution for "practicing medicine without a license."

Legislative strategies that affirm health freedom are most likely to produce results creating the best legal climate for us to practice our profession. NASH supports any legislative effort enhancing our members' right to practice homeopathy and opposes any restrictions on this right. When creating new laws perhaps it would be wise to consider what George Washington said about government:

"Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action." --- George Washington, speech of January 7, 1790 in the Boston Independent Chronicle, January 14, 1790.

Legislative Activity

New York amended two previous registration bills, SB 3334 and HB 4404 into Health Freedom bills by dropping the registration clauses.

Louisiana Governor Blanco signed into law Health Disclosure Bill SB189 on June 30, 2005. This affords homeopaths some protection under the law.

North Carolina Health Committee failed to vote on the the Health Freedom Act H1303 before the cross-over date; in the end the bill was referred to a study committee. NCHFF expects to reintroduce it next year.

Florida Health Freedom Action decided they did not have enough support to file its Health Freedom Act earlier this year. Instead, they put their efforts toward defeating a naturopathic bill, which would have imposed felony charges, fines and jail sentences on anyone else practicing what they define as "naturopathy" including homeopathy, i.e. professional homeopaths.

Please send us legislative news from your state for future updates.

Volunteer Opportunities

Registered member Kim Kalina has graciously offered her time to coordinate the revisions of the NASH By-Laws. The revisions are needed to ensure long-term practicality and stability. If you are available to assist Kim and the board with this project, please let us know.

An on-line newsletter still remains high on our wish list; unfortunately, no member has come forward to serve as its editor. If you are interested in learning more about this opportunity, please contact us.

There are other opportunities as well, please contact Liz for more information.

Publishing Opportunity

SIMILLIMUM, the journal of the Homeopathic Academy of Naturopathic Physicians (HANP) is looking for articles and case reports from all practicing homeopaths and advanced students. Please contact Editor Neil Tessler @ ntessler@shaw.ca.

Treasurer’s Report

A complete financial statement for the period ending June 30, 2005 is available upon request. Click here to view the balance sheet.

State/Province Associations

We are still looking for state/province association contact information. If you are a member of a state/province homeopathic organization and we do not list your information below, please contact us so we can be expedient in our communications especially when it comes to legislative action.

United States

Arizona Homeopathic and Integrative Medical Association
Lisa Platt
PO Box 38184
Phoenix, AZ 85069-8184
602-263-3589

California State Homeopathic Medical Society
Richard Hiltner
169 E. El Roblar
Ojai, CA 93023
805-646-1495

Connecticut State Homeopathic Medical Society
Box 529
Old Greenwich, CT 06870

Florida Homeopathic Medical Society
1539 Hunters Stand Run
Oviedo, FL 32765
407-766-3710

Illinois Homeopathic Medical Association
Timothy Fior
400 E 22nd Street, Suite F
Lombard, IL 60148
630-792-9311

Maine Association of Homeopaths
Tim Hagney
14 Limerock St.
Camden, ME 04843
207 236-3929

Michigan State Homeopathic Medical Society
Patricia Kelly
311 S Fifth Ave
Ann Arbor, MI 48104
313-995-5982

Minnesota Homeopathic Association
Sally Tamplin
P.O. Box 1081
Minnetonka, MN 55345
612-836-1424

Homeopathic Medical Society of the State of New York
R. D. Whitmont
6250 Route 9
Rhinebeck, NY 12572
845-876-6323

New York State Homeopathic Association (NYSHA)
P.O. BOX 231003,
New York, NY 10023
212-725-9244

Ohio State Homeopathic Medical Society, Inc
Leonard Torok
5779 Wooster Pike Road
Medina, OH
330-721-9990

Homeopathic Medical Society of Pennsylvania
Joseph McCahon
637 W Lincoln Highway
Exton, PA 19341
610-269-0255

Southern Homeopathic Medical Association
Sandra Chase
10418 Whitehead Street
Fairfax, VA 22030
703-273-5250

Texas Homeopathic Association
Norman Ralston
12500 Lake June
Mesquite TX 75180
972-557-1747

Texas Society for Homeopathy
Karl Robinson
4200 Westheimer Ste 100
Houston, TX 77027
800-637-5275

Canada
West Coast Homeopathic Society
101-1001 W. Broadway, Box 120
Vancouver BC V6H 4E4
604-803-9242

Ontario Homeopathic Coalition
Basil Ziv
343 Carrville Road
Richmond Hill ON L4C 6E4
905-886-1060

Ontario Homeopathic Association
1043 Bloor Street West, Suite 205
Toronto, Ontario, M6H 1M4
416-516-6109