Homeopathic Board

(November 6, 2007) The Arizona Board of Homeopathic Medical Examiners (ABHME) has been renewed for another two years. On November 6th, the Joint Health Committee of the State Legislature voted unanimously to keep the Board while working on some changes to the law that details how the Board operates.

The Legislature particularly questioned the role of homeopathic medical assistants and will look to clarify their role in the next two years.

Many patients attended the hearing because they felt access to alternative medicine was at stake. Linda Heming, a patient who started an organization called CHOICE, turned over to the committee a 3-inch thick bound book of petitions. It contained approximately 7000 signatures from persons asking the Legislature to keep the ABHME because it represents access to a wide variety of healthcare options.

"There are too many competitive, economic forces out there who want to dictate healthcare to us," Heming said. "We need to preserve choices for our healthcare."

The ABHME grants an MD(H) license. To pursue an MD(H) license, one must first be a licensed Medical Doctor or Doctor of Osteopathy. Additionally, one must have a minimum of 40 hours of classical homeopathy training plus 300 hours of post grad education in any one or a multiple of the different modalities. By law, the MD(H) license covers classical homeopathy, acupuncture, orthomolecular medicine, chelation therapy, nutritional medicine, neuromuscular massage therapy, and conventional medicine.

These alternative methods of treatment have been protected in Arizona since the MD(H) license was established by the Legislature in 1980. Bruce Shelton, MD, MD(H), explained to the legislative panel that homeopathic physicians primarily address chronic illness. "These are often diseases of poor diet and modern lifestyle," Dr. Shelton said.

Eighty percent of visits a doctor now are for a chronic illness. Increasingly, chronic illness is linked to nutritional deficiencies and the "body burden." This term describes the heavy load of environmental chemicals that can be found in the average person - the result of lifelong exposure to plastics, metals, pesticides, fire retardants, and more. The connection is beginning to gain traction in the mainstream news media. CNN's Anderson Cooper, Bill Moyers of PBS, and David Duncan of National Geographic undertook a complex series of blood tests and were amazed to find their bodies are full of chemicals. Moyers for example, was tested for 150 chemicals; he turned up positive for 84 chemicals including 31 different types of PCBs, 13 different dioxins, and pesticides such as DDT.

Some of the "living better through chemistry" compounds are so much a part of our daily lives, we never give them a thought. Formaldehyde makes fabrics look strong and beautiful, gasoline makes automobiles run, and aluminum hydroxide makes our sweat glands stop functioning so no one can see us sweat at that big meeting. But advocacy groups are demanding action. In October of 2007 for example, the state of California passed a law banning phthalates, a component of plastics, because of growing evidence linking it to breast cancer and a host of other hormone-related problems.

"Most of these chemicals have not been studied for their effect on human health," said Martha Grout, MD, MD(H). "Many man-made chemicals are fat soluble and the body cannot readily break them down. So they are stored in body fats and can build up to dangerous levels. Chemicals in the body can slow down or completely stop many important cellular processes leading to disease."

According to the World Health Organization, chronic diseases have now surpassed infectious diseases as the major cause of death and disability worldwide.

"Whereas many prescription drug-based therapies overwhelm the immune system, we look to strengthen the immune system so the body can ward off illness," explained Dr. Shelton. "It's kind of like rebooting a computer. If we can clean up the terrain in the body, we can get the body back to a condition where it can do a much better job of staying healthy."

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