SECRETARY REPORTS

Report from the General Secretary
Dr. Ulrich Fischer (Germany)

During the last months the General Secretary´s office was occupied with the following issues:

Moving the LMHI Archives

After successful negotiations, the archives of the LIMHI could be moved from London to the Institut für Geschichte der Medizin in Stuttgart, Germany. This institute is the most important German library for history in medicine and keeps valuable homeopathic volumes like Samuel Hahnemann`s and Clemens von Boenninghausen's, plus patient records and many other books and letters from the founder of homeopathy up to the present. The Institute offered to maintain our Archives free of charge, to have them available for public viewing and to develop a system for a scientific registering. From now forward, all upcoming relevant data concerning the LMHI will be filed in Stuttgart.

Individual and Institutional Membership

New membership forms for the LMHI were designed by the Treasurer and mailed by the General Secretary to all National Vice Presidents and contacts. Questions concerning membership in the LMHI were discussed and answered by the General Secretary.

Executive Committee

With continuous and regular communication between the members of the Executive Committee the following important matters were discussed like: the new statutes and procedures of the LMHI, research projects, and the Internet page of the LMHI.

Secretary for Archives
Dr. Alberto Soler Medina (Spain)

No report received.

Secretary for Education
Dr. Cesar Luis Cremonini (Argentina)

After the last meeting of the International Council in Amsterdam, the Liga Education Secretary has been reviewing the different programs of education from various countries and various schools around the world. The desire is to strive to achieve logical international standards in homeopathic education, an crucial task, indeed.

In August 1998 the LMHI Secretary for Education attended a meeting on education for the Mercosur on Gravital near San Pablo, Brazil. As a result of the discussions, four hospitals decided that they had interest in adding homeopathic patient consultations to their organization.

Colombia homeopaths sent a short letter to the LMHI Educational Secretary announcing that homeopathy has been given legal status in that country.

In regard to the law authorizing homeopathic practice at Cordoba, Argentina, it received full passage in both legislative chambers, but later was vetoed by the governor as he deduced that the law was not needed, because, as medical doctors, we could choose any kind of "remedies" or "techniques" that we deem necessary. This outcome is really for the best for homeopathic medicine in Cordoba.

Secretary for Pharmacy
Dr. Amarilys de Toledo Cesar (Brazil)

Considering that the next LMHI Congress will be held in Brazil, I would like to tell a little about our Homeopathy and Pharmacy in our country, and also about what we are planning for this area during the Congress.

Homeopathic remedies are official in Brazil, since the first edition of the Farmacopœia Homeopatica Brasileira, the Brazilian Homeopathic Pharmacopoeia, printed in 1977. A second edition appeared at the end of 1997 and presents polemical aspects, not found in Pharmacopoeias of other countries, and maybe because of that, it was not totally implanted yet. It limits the remedies up to the 100,000 potency, either made by the Continuous Fluxion or the Korsakovian method. It is not permitted that homeopathic remedies for external use, as ointments, contain mother-tinctures. Of course, positive aspects appear also, like the description of the remedy of the 6th edition's Organon of Hahnemann, the LM or Q potencies. The fact of having a Homeopathic Pharmacopoeia is always positive, too.

The Brazilian homeopathic pharmaceutical industries are very few and very small comparing to the French and German ones, that are not established here. Around the country, our model is that of hundreds homeopathic pharmacies preparing their own remedies. This has a positive aspect, that is, many pharmacists trained in Homeopathy, present in the pharmacies, exchanging information with the homeopathic physician and informing the public. The difficult side is the standardization of the remedies. The Ministry of Health is working on the GMP for pharmacies, that includes homeopathic ones.

Another different aspect is that there are 2 different sets of regulations for pharmacies: the traditional pharmacy that is not allowed to prepare homeopathic remedies, but to sell them made from industries. The few industries are interested to sell complexes, but not individual classic homeopathic remedies. The homeopathic pharmacies are allowed to prepare only homeopathic remedies. The may sell all kinds of conventional remedies, although they usually do not do. They prefer to commercialize natural products, including food, books, aromatherapy, flower essences, products related to health, instead of those related to disease, and this is not an easy subject between pharmacist and regulatory authorities. Because there are pharmacies in small cities that may have only 1 or 2 homeopathic doctors, we discuss if it would be best to try to change the law to have a "unique pharmacy", that would be allowed to prepare and sell homeopathic and allopathic remedies.

The Brazilian Homeopathic Pharmaceutical Association has more than 600 members. This Association created an examination to qualify pharmacists as specialist in Homeopathy.

In Rio de Janeiro will be held the II Brazilian Homeopathic Pharmaceutical Congress in April. For that event, we expect 500 homeopathic pharmacists and the presence of Jacques Imberechts from Belgium and Friedrich Dellmour from Austria.

There is a lot to do for the future, like to work on provings of Brazilian remedies, to improve the courses for training pharmacists in Homeopathy, to encourage pharmacists to do research in their pharmacies, etc.

Secretary for Veterinary Medicine
Dr. Sergio Canello

The number of owners using homeopathy for their dogs and cats in increasing, but this increase is not very significant. In fact, the number of homeopathic vets is variable because of the difficulty of the homeopathic method. So, unfortunately, there is a constant number of vets leaving this form of medicine and, often, the new colleagues take simply the place of the former vets. So the total number of the operators is not clearly increasing.

The veterinaries LMHI members are less than 10. This ridiculous number is principally caused by the chronic trend of the Italian vets to work alone and not in team.

Most of the colleagues use human products, but there are more than three laboratories making specific products. The homeopathic teaching is not part of veterinarian University programs, but some Universities, as Padua, organize some seminars and stages about homeopathy.

Several vets are invited to those seminars, and I am often one of them.

Secretary for Public Relations
Dr. José Matuk Kanan (Mexico)

Summary Report
The Secretary of Propaganda changed its name to the Secretary of Public Relations of the LMHI. This is a new form of relationship with all the members of the Liga. This Secretary has the firm intention of being the real union between the Liga and everything concerning propaganda of the correct information of what is the LMHI. He has already been working on the Web Page of the Liga which is modernized currently and has the purpose of spreading in a serious way the image of our organization, as well as homeopathy in several different countries which is represented by our Vice Presidents and Representatives. We actually have representation in more than 40 countries in which we stay in contact through their LMHI vice-presidents, trying to give all the information around the world. If one visits the Page at https://lmhi.net, one will see the different countries and the names of all the members of the International and Executive Committee of the LMHI. Many National Vice Presidents have e-mail and one can send them a message through the website. We have this access and the appropriate communications. For the future, we think that this method of communication may be used for doctors and patients by answering all the necessary questions for each country, and by disseminating quality and concrete answers about homeopathy. The Secretary of Public Relations takes charge of the preparation and distribution of the Annual Directory of the Members from the Executive Committee and the International Council of the Liga, facilitating the communication between them.

Currently, we have in progress the creation of a multilingual information pamphlet, so that each National Vice President will have a simple method for inviting homeopathic doctors to be members of the Liga and to present the advantage of belonging to a professional, scientific organization. In addition, we are translating the Statutes in different languages for distribution to the vice-president of each country. We are expecting the new Statues in order to proceed to their definitive as we voted in Amsterdam, Holland. We are concerned that the project will never be concluded; the work is going slowly, as the support and help of all the National Vice Presidents and Representatives is needed in order to finish the Web Page of the Homeopathic history of each country. We have already 10 countries in this section and we hope to have the rest of the histories before the next Congress of the Liga, in Brazil, Bahia, next October. I would also like to receive any suggestions the reader's have, and am thankful for the many I have received already and appreciative of the support offered for this Secretary in order to continue working in for the correct diffusion of information about homeopathic medicine.

Secretary for Research
Dr. David Riley (USA)

No report received.