NASH MEMBER UPDATE - November 2006

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

Administrator: Liz Bonfig, FL,
Email:  nashinfo@aol.com

Conference 2007

Mark your calendars for the next joint American homeopathic conference, April 13-17, 2007 in Denver, Colorado. NASH has been directly involved in the speaker selection process along with representatives from AIH, HANP, HNA, NCH and Dana Ullman. This year we have many new and dynamic presenters raising the bar on the depth, quality and quantity of advanced and general level presentations. Visit the NCH website at http://www.nationalcenterforhomeopathy.org for preliminary details.

NASH thanks the NCH for all the work they do for homeopathy and especially for the conference. We encourage you to support the NCH.

On Friday April 13th, NASH will conduct an annual meeting. Board members will meet with committee members from 12-1 pm followed by an open meeting for all members from 1-4 pm. Please plan on attending. We are looking forward to meeting you and having several hours together. During this meeting we will initiate the nomination process for the election of three positions taking office in January 2008. Additional details and an agenda will be sent early in 2007. If you are interested in serving on a committee, please contact the membership office.

Election Results

Recently, NASH registered members voted unanimously to re-elect our current treasurer, Julie Mann for another term. Congratulations Julie. One member noted on the ballot, "most definitely yes! Julie Mann has done a great job and we'd love to keep her on." We agree.

A Note from your Treasurer, Julie Mann

Thank you for all of your support. I look forward to continuing my role as NASH Treasurer and working with my fellow board members to further strengthen our organization. My goal as treasurer this term is to bring NASH to complete financial stability and to develop accountability protocols to insure it remains so in the future.

School Membership and Student Outreach

Rhonda Majalca and Nish Patel have been hot on the trail of enlisting schools into NASH. Currently, we have enrolled four schools each of which have appointed a student rep to our student liaison committee. Through the student liaisons we will be able to get a glimpse into the needs of current student bodies and will open a doorway to NASH for all students entering the profession. We have received many student surveys and are sorting through the responses. Our first student rep teleconference will be held in February 2007. If you are a student and want to be a rep to NASH for your school, please contact Rhonda for more information at Rhonda@integrativehealthresearch.com.

Welcome to our new school members and their student reps:

• The American Medical College of Homeopathy, Phoenix, AZ - Robin Cunningham Myers
• Homeopathic Academy of Southern California, Carslbad, CA - Katalin Cowan
• Institute of Classical Homeopathy, San Francisco, CA - Klara Fischerova
• Northwestern Academy of Homeopathy, Edina, MN - tba

If your school would like more information, please contact Rhonda@integrativehealthresearch.com.

Welcome New and Returning Members

We are delighted to welcome to NASH the following new members:


Fred Blumenfeld, Florida - associate

Cristi Lewis, Arizona - associate

John McGonigle, Rhode Island - student

Robert Resslhuber, Colorado - student

Laurie Yarborough, Nevada - student

and returning members:


Martha Derbyshire, Maine - RSHom (NA)

Diane Bueller, Colorado - student

Mary Alice Cooper, New Mexico - associate

Robin Germain, California - associate

Sarah Lyn Hutchinson, Ontario - student

Georgia Merfy, California - associate

A special hello goes out to student member Will Cassilly who rejoined NASH at the joint conference last April. We appreciate your support.

The American Homeopath, Volume 12

Watch for the journal coming soon to a mailbox by you. Enclosed with the highly anticipated journal is your 2007 renewal paperwork.

Busy office

This year has been a very busy and productive year for NASH. Not only has the board been working on communicating with the membership, developing new incentives, monitoring various activities around the continent, dialoging with the various homeopathic organizations regarding conference planning, relations, etc., the NASH office has also been bustling with activity. We are very fortunate to have Liz Bonfig working on the front line, answering dozens of calls/emails weekly, getting those mailings out, supporting the members and following through with all the activities of the board. Thank you Liz for all your hard work we couldn't do it without you.

Message from Administrator

It's hard to believe we are coming to the close of yet another year. It's been an honor for me to represent NASH, to support the members and to work with an incredible board. This past year has been a challenging one for me, and I thank the board members for all their support. Thanks to Manfred for his brilliant writings, to Kate for her perseverance, to Julie for her mentorship, to Laura for her encouragement, to Carleen for her proficiency and to Basil for his grace.

World Homeopathy Awareness Week

A message from founder, Gabrielle Traub

April 10-16th, 2007 is World Homeopathic Awareness Week. Homeopaths from 28 countries around the world will join hands in celebration and share our knowledge and love for this invaluable science. This year's theme: "Homeopathy for Women," will focus on how Homeopathy can help women in all stages of life. Activities include lectures and panels by professional homeopaths; clinics for the poor; art exhibitions, plays, and music (all with a homeopathic theme); competitions; media coverage; and much more. We are looking for enthusiastic homeopaths and friends of homeopathy to be involved. Email: lightspirals@yahoo.com.

CAMEXPO

The CAMEXPO East Complementary and Natural Healthcare Conference & Exhibition will next take place from February 8-10, 2007 at the New York Marriott Marquis in New York City. We are looking for volunteers to promote NASH.

Health Freedom Dissertation

The concept of health freedom started with a conversation in someone's kitchen in the early 1990s. From this conversation the Minnesota Natural Health Coalition was formed. They meet twice a week to discuss the problem of natural health options being illegal or unavailable due to antiquated laws and regulatory statutes. From the initiatives of this group, a road was paved as to how practitioners of particular systems of healing could practice freely without the need for governmental oversight.

The result of these five years of discussion was the passage of MN statute 146A in 2000. With this law came a clear avenue for the legal practice of homeopathy that could be simulated in the remaining 51 states. Slowly, state by state, grassroots efforts have mobilized communities to tackle the task of passing health freedom legislation in each particular state. The level of work and commitment to this process takes unwavering resolve and many man-hours of work. Currently there are health freedom laws in California, Idaho, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Rhode Island and Louisiana.

It is NASH's mission to motivate members to become involved at the grassroots level in your state's health freedom activities so that you too may enjoy the legal practice of your art. To these ends please make contact with the National Health Freedom Coalition at http://www.nationalhealthfreedom.org for more information on how you can be involved. Currently the following states have health freedom groups: Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, South Dakota, Texas, Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin.

If you are a homeopath practicing in one of these states, contact your local group to find out how you can get involved. Contact information can be found on the above listed website.

The key to understanding the problem of regulation is that the role of government is to protect people from harm. Systems of healing that have an inherent risk of harm must be monitored by a licensing board. Acupuncture, chiropractic and conventional medicine all have an inherent risk in the methodology of practice and so must be monitored and regulated at the state level. Those practices that do not pose a risk of harm do not fall in the jurisdiction of governmental regulation. Massage, flower essences, hypnotherapy, Reiki, etc. fall into this category. The practice of these modalities does not pose a risk of harm.

The question of harm with regard to homeopathy is ponderous. Most consider homeopathy as a safe healing practice; no homeopathic remedy has ever been recalled for adverse problems. Some homeopaths are taught that giving too many remedies can harm or that a homeopathic aggravation can cause some discomforting symptoms. Is this real harm? Some will argue yes and others no. The conventional understanding is that when practiced according to its clearly defined principles, homeopathy does not cause harm. Reckless abuse of the methodology can cause harm as with any other practice whether regulated or not. Only those practitioners who are uneducated in pathology, who tackle conditions out of their realm of expertise or who use homeopathic remedies in ways other than the practice was intended has the potential to cause harm. Harm, however, is not an inherent condition of the practice of homeopathy. Therefore, homeopathy is eligible to be included in health freedom laws.

Up until the development of health freedom concepts, homeopaths had been floundering in a mire of confusion and conflict between licensed and unlicensed practice, medically trained or non-medically trained, certification and non- certification, etc. The result of this confusion has lead to polarities between the various homeopathic communities, conflicts between them and a struggle for power and recognition for all those that practice homeopathy. To this day some of these struggles still exist. We hope that as you have been reading the NASH updates over that last two years you will see that these lines of division are becoming softened between the differing organizations, more tolerance is extended to all practitioners of homeopathy; licensed and unlicensed, certified and non-certified are coming together for the larger purpose of spreading the word of homeopathy. There has also been a near universal acceptance of health freedom concepts within the homeopathic community which has furthered this unity.

However, the conflict that health freedom laws do not resolve for the practice of homeopathy is the need for certification. Most health freedom laws are worded such that no educational criteria is necessary for the practice of the modality, just that informed consent and open disclosure of your training and certifications are to be given to each client who seeks your services. The key for the success of the law is that each practitioner meets each client in integrity as to their level of understanding and experience in their healing modality. The problem in this situation is that the practice of homeopathy is only as strong as each practitioner is educated. To these ends, for the strength of the profession of homeopathy, NASH supports and encourages the highest levels of training, certification and recommends registration with one’s particular professional organization. Once unified with a professional body that represents the highest level of training the strength of the profession of homeopathy will be ensured.

There are still those that want licensure based on the belief that somehow licensure will give homeopathy credence, insurance will accept and pay for homeopathy, that we may be able to practice in hospitals, etc. These reasons, however, are not sufficient to warrant governmental regulation. The effect of the government regulating systems of healing that do not pose a risk of harm is more and more governmental oversight into areas of personal freedom that detract from the basic democratic nature of the world in which we live. The seed with which medical licensing laws were established was to create boundaries, those within and those without: an illusion of better/worse, privileged/non-privileged. There is a basic need for all homeopaths to feel valued, privileged, better, included, etc. This basic need pushes us to think that licensing laws will do that for us, for homeopathy. But this is the wrong reason for licensing laws. It just creates another wall for any other system of healing that may come into existence.

It is our belief that homeopathy will be in good stead when all those that practice homeopathy are well educated, certified and registered with their respective professional organizations. To these ends we encourage you to get involved, meet with your local health freedom groups, get certified and work toward registered membership status with NASH, and tell your friends and colleagues to do the same. As a united front, we can do more for the practice of homeopathy than we can imagine.

Health Freedom Conference in Review

The first International Health Freedom Assembly was held in St. Paul, MN the weekend of September 29-31, 2006. It was an intense weekend with delegates from around the world discussing the problem of health freedom internationally. This year Kate Birch and Marylu Miller (a newly registered member of NASH) attended the assembly.

The conference was organized much like the United Nations where there is an inner circle of delegates eligible to vote and discuss on all of the issues brought forth. The delegates represent individual organizations that participate in some level of health freedom activity. The second circle of tables seated delegates from advisory organizations. Advisory organizations could participate at allotted times in the various discussions. Advisory organizations could not vote. The last circle was for the general public who could just watch. NASH was there as an advisory organization and so we were able to speak on the needs of the profession of homeopathy.

The weekend began with introductions of the voting members who were representing Health Freedom Organizations from Sweden, Canada, Denmark and the United States. New Zealand, Australia, Chile, the United Kingdom and Italy were unable to attend but were present through intercontinental telephone time in the afternoon.

The second tier of the Assembly Round Table was 25 supporting organizations of which NASH was represented and introduced with mission statement and goals of the organization.

A great discussion ensued regarding what do we want with this assembly and how can it be accomplished. The main accomplishment of the weekend was to develop a Declaration of Health Freedom to be disseminated around the world (see below) and to form as many resolutions as to the future workings of this body within the time allotted. Discussed were the most pressing issues before the Health Freedom Worldwide Community such as CODEX, Modified DSHEA, health freedom language, adverse event reporting AER SF 3546, EU food supplement directive, North American Free Trade Agreement and the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America. All of these issues have potential impact on the freedom to practice certain modalities, availability of homeopathic remedies and the reciprocal effects of laws passed in Canada, Mexico and the United States.

In the evenings we heard from authors Byron Richards "Fight for your Life" and Billy Best "Billy Best the Boy who ran away from Chemotherapy." Outstanding stories of faith in all forms of healing and the right to choose whichever system of healing a person wants for their health. We also had a great presentation from Jonathon Emond, an attorney hot on the trail of the FDA and violations the FDA has made with regard to freedom of speech. Sunday was spent working with state organizations toward developing health freedom groups and the steps required to pass health freedom laws. We all came away nourished and motivated to carry on the work. Thank you to Marylu Miller for representing NASH.