NASH MEMBER UPDATE - September 2007

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

Bi-national Liaison: Basil Ziv, Ont.,
Email:  basilziv@rogers.com

Executive Director: Liz Bonfig, FL,
Email:  nashinfo@aol.com, 954-749-9943

Committee Chairs

We will soon be announcing the results of the 2007 elections currently being voted upon by our registered members for the positions of president, vice president and secretary.

Welcome New Members

RSHom (NA)

Raquel Blech, CA
Jerry Kantor, MA
Linda Morse, CA
Deborah Noah, AZ
Stevie Ricks, TX

Associate

Placide Colas, MA
Steven Dulla, AZ

Students

Jennette Cable, WI
Amy Cohen, NJ
Claudia Heil, LA
Joan Keay, CA
Shauna Kovach, BC

Conference Plans

The conference committee, which consists of representatives from the NCH, IAH, HANP, HNA and NASH, has been working hard to review solicited input from our members and other organizations to plan the 2008 and 2009 conferences.

A speaker selection process has begun and we are pleased to announce the pre-conference speaker on Friday will be Andre Saine. He also is the keynote presenter on Saturday morning, discussing his soon to be published book which meticulously chronologs documented homeopathic research and clinical results in the treatment of epidemics for the last two hundred years. Jeremy Sherr will be the Monday/Tuesday speaker with a presentation on the syphilitic miasm, reviewing new and old remedies that address this miasm. Jeremy will also be a keynote speaker on Sunday with a discussion of AIDS cases and noble gases. The breakout session speakers are still being decided.

The NASH annual meeting will be held over lunch on Saturday (April 12th), which will be included in the conference registration fees.

NASH would formally like to thank Sharon Stevenson, NCH’s Executive Director, for her wisdom and diligence in being the main coordinator for these much needed community events.

NASH invites our members to take the time to invest in attending these joint conferences as a way to facilitate greater unity in the homeopathic community and to share in these community building events. We look forward to seeing you there April 11-15, 2008 in Warwick, Rhode Island at the Crowne Plaza at the Crossings.

A location will be selected soon for the 2009 conference.

Conference Poster Session

Come participate in the 2008 Annual Homeopathy Poster Session!

Next year's Joint Annual Homeopathy Conference will feature our Second Annual Poster Session. The Poster Session will take place during the opening evening of the conference, Friday April 11, 2008 beginning at 7:30pm and ending at 9:00pm.

A poster session is a dynamic forum for professionals, students, and the public to share their knowledge, ideas and work with others. Presenters must create a poster to display and be present to discuss their material, answer questions and converse with the attendees, who peruse the posters in a relaxed, social setting. Possible topics include new clinical ideas, provings, organizational work, and educational work.

If you are interested in presenting a poster please submit a one-paragraph poster proposal to NCH Board Member, Amy Lansky, electronically to: lansky@impossiblecure.com, Subject Line: Poster Session Proposal

All Poster Session Presenters are required to be a registered attendee of the 3rd Annual Joint American Homeopathic Conference. Exceptions on this requirement will be considered for students. * Please note: Poster session presenters are not given any free admissions.

All Poster Session Presenters are responsible for developing and transporting their poster to the conference. A poster is typically composed of graphic and printed material placed on a 2'x3' or 3'x4' cardboard. The conference will provide an easel for the poster and two chairs for you during the session. You are free to bring additional handouts to distribute. However, you are responsible for photocopying and bringing the handouts yourself.

DEADLINE: All Poster Session proposals must be received by December 1, 2007 and selections will be made by January 15.

Health Freedom

We are pleased to announce that Marylu MillerPeterson has stepped forward to volunteer for the position of NASH’s Health Freedom Committee Chairperson. Marylu is a resident of Minnesota and has been practicing homeopathy for 11 years. She was a board member for the National Health Freedom Action for five years, the sister organization to the National Health Freedom Coalition, and she is the sister of internationally known and respected health freedom expert Diane Miller. Marylu will be representing NASH at the National Health Freedom Conference in Minnesota, October 12-14, 2007. She is available for questions and as a resource for those homeopaths interested in developing health freedom groups in their state. Marylu has been a NASH member since 2004. We are pleased to have such an experienced person available to our members.

Malpractice Insurance

The NASH office continues to receive inquiries about professional malpractice insurance coverage. Please see below NASH's position on this complex matter:

NASH has a defined scope of practice, standards of practice, code of ethics, grievance procedure, educational and certification requirements. Members sign up voluntarily to self-regulation under NASH’s standards to protect the public. However, the question of what legally constitutes malpractice has never been decided by either legislative or judicial authorities. So far, no state or province has enacted NASH’s standards under professional practice laws. Even in states where health freedom laws have been enacted, no determination has been made on the issue of malpractice. Insurance companies promise to pay, should a court find a practitioner has committed malpractice. Since a determination of what constitutes malpractice has never been made, it remains uncertain under what conditions if any such a promise would apply.

For this reason, at this time, the Board cannot make any recommendation for any malpractice insurance for any of our registered members. The link on our website, as we have explained in a previous member update, was sent to us by a member and is intended for those members who wish to check into this coverage on their own. The Board has not evaluated this coverage and does not take any responsibility for the choices of NASH members, should they decide to sign on to it.

If you have researched and/or purchased this type of coverage, we would like to hear from you about your experience.

Volunteers for the Journal Committee

With Volume 13 of The American Homeopath entering its final stages, we are putting out a call for articles for Volume 14. Richa Eland will continue managing this publication as Chief Editor. This position crafts the journal, helps writers develop ideas and oversees the coordination of many parts to become whole.

Many of the copy editors and proofreaders who volunteered their time this year will continue to do so next year. We are in need of several more experienced copy editors. These are people who really know their grammar rules and enjoy nit picking everything from footnotes to comma placements. They love the best use of grammar.

We are in search of a Chief Copy Editor to complete our editorial team. The Chief Copy Editor will coordinate the many drafts of a given piece and will consult with the Chief Editor on each piece as it develops. Organization is key here along with good communication skills. The load is heaviest from May 31 - September 15. If you are interested, please let Richa know. She can be reached at nashjournal@msn.com.

Submissions are being gathered for Volume 14, so if you have a case, proving or discourse on homeopathic philosophy, please consider submitting it for publication. We are also looking for experienced writers willing to take on an assignment and run with it!

Students and practitioners from any and all homeopathic schools in the USA, Canada and abroad are most welcome to contribute. We always need book reviews written. We also need fresh ideas!

The new submission guidelines can be downloaded from the NASH website in October.

Members of the editorial committee are encouraged to attend the 3rd Annual Joint American Homeopathic Conference next April in Rhode Island to meet with Richa. Meeting time TBA.

Public Relations Campaign

As previously reported, NASH has contributed to a media campaign in support of Dana Ullman's new book -- The Homeopathic Revolution: Famous People and Cultural Heroes Who Chose Homeopathy, which chronicles the use of homeopathy through the ages by the wealthy, famous and elite.

In anticipation of increased requests by the media following the book’s October publication, the public relations campaign has requested names of registered members who may be interested in talking to the media. If you are interested, please send Liz your contact information by October 15th and include degrees, certifications and any special body of knowledge and/or experience in homeopathy (i.e. pediatrics, AIDS, cancer, mental illness, etc).

For more information about the campaign, visit http://www.homeopathicrevolution.com.

Student Rep Meeting

The first student rep meeting for the 2007/2008 term was held on Monday, September 17, 2007. It was announced that board member Carleen Johnson will be taking over for Kate Birch at the end of Kate’s term. Carleen reported on the state of homeopathy in Maine where they continue to press for health freedom legislation.

Timmi Stein from the Toronto School of Homeopathic Medicine presented a synopsis of homeopathy’s status in Ontario in light of the new regulatory bill. Everyone is happy and pleased that the Ontario government elected to separate out the Naturopathic College from the practice of Homeopathy. There is general appreciation of NASH’s involvement and support in the process. Currently the Ontario government is creating the Transitional Council which will oversee the establishment of a Homeopathic College which will be given the responsibility of evaluating competency in the practice of Homeopathy.

Rhonda Majalca, the program liaison, reported from the Homeopathy School of Southern California. We discussed the latest case of a 17-year-old child being taken away from his parents as they failed to have him treated conventionally for his cancer, even though the alternative medicine she chose helped cure him of the disease. Furthermore after he was taken away from his parents and put in a foster home, he was force vaccinated! The group discussed health freedom concepts and how this case demonstrated a violation of those concepts. Also it was discussed that within the state of California, practitioners are not allowed to dispense homeopathic remedies. They must be purchased by the patients from remedy distributors or in half dram sealed vials from practitioners.

Klara Fischerova from the Institute of Classical Homeopathy in San Francisco talked about the need for more international projects/clinics in areas where acute disease is a problem.

Kate Birch reported from the state of Minnesota which has a strong and lively homeopathic community boasting approximately 150-200 homeopaths. Kate noted the relative freedom of practice that has been granted for homeopaths in Minnesota under the Health Freedom Law. Kate gave a small dissertation of the history of the law and health freedom concepts. A small group of homeopaths in MN under the guidance of Diane Miller, met weekly after several practitioners and a farmer where harshly dealt with by the medical licensing board for practicing medicine without a license. This group traced the history of the creation of medical licensing laws in the U.S. and found that their initial intent was to protect people from harm, not to define the practice of medicine. Every case that has come before the courts centers around whether a person was practicing medicine; not whether they were harming a patient. Even within the homeopathic community there has been controversy over whether homeopathy is medicine or not. The real debate is whether there is risk of harm inherent to homeopathic medicine, and if not, then this modality does not need regulation or legislation – except to go so far as to protect people from harm as in fair business practices.

The full minutes from the teleconference are available by request. The next teleconference will be in January 2008. If you are involved in a school and would like your students to be informed of the happenings of the NASH-student teleconferences, please contact us for registration information.

International Council of Homeopathy (ICH), Inaugural Meeting

Oct 18, 2007, Heidelberg, Germany

The Agenda for this landmark event has been set and will include a brief presentation by vice president Kate Birch as NASH’s representative. We look forward to bringing you details from this meeting in upcoming updates. Agenda items include: Purpose/aims/objectives, Constitution, Membership criteria , Fees, Admin, Follow up of associations interested in obtaining ICH membership, as well as identification of potential candidates for membership, Future focus of ICH, National/continental reports (15-30 minutes each): Japan, Australia, Europe, USA, ICH PR: web-site, flyer.

Storage

Many years ago, a storage unit was rented in Oakland, CA for NASH journals and other miscellaneous files. We need a couple of volunteers to arrange for shipment or transport to our office in Florida. If you are able to help, it would be greatly appreciated. We spend around $1,500/year for the storage unit and feel that the money should go to more useful things. Please contact Liz for more details.

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