The 63^rd Liga Medicorum Homoeopathica Internationalis (LMHI) Congress was held in Ostend, Belgium from 20-24 May 2008. The main topic of the conference was ‘Evidence Based Homeopathy: more than results of double blind studies’. The congress was attended by close to one thousand participants.

The congress also celebrated the twentieth anniversary of the Unio Homoeopathica Belgica, the Belgian organisation for medical homeopathy. Homeopathy has a long-standing tradition in Belgium, first introduced at the beginning of the nineteenth century by Dr Pierre Joseph De Moor (1787 - 1845) and G.H. Jahr (1801 - 1875). Dr F.F. Quinn, who founded the London Homoeopathic Hospital (later to become the Royal London Homoeopathic Hospital) in 1849, was the personal doctor of Prince Leopold (later King of Belgium). He studied for a year with Hahnemann.

Christian Boiron, chairman of Boiron, gave a remarkable and thought-provoking opening speech. Referring to differences and even conflicts within the homeopathic community, he stressed the need to come back to a culture of mutual respect that recognises the common ground of its representatives. “The League must not remain the temple of ‘unicists’ or ‘traditional homeopathy’ with a fundamentalist approach but must open its arms, as here at Ostend, to embrace all trends and practices in homeopathy, whatever they be: unicism, pluralism or complexism, anthroposophy or homotoxicology,” he said.

The extensive lecture programme included presentations of provings, clinical cases, clinical studies, RCTs and pharmaco-epidemiological studies, as well as presentations in the field of basic research.

In addition, there was an exhibition attended by some twenty companies active in homeopathic products or literature. Major booths were those of Boiron, Heel, Guna, Labolife, and Metagenics. CEOs of these companies were also present, some throughout the congress. During the breaks participants showed a great deal of interest in the information presented by the different exhibitors and their homeopathic therapeutic concepts and experiences.

During a four day parallel programme on pharmacology, there were two presentations on the regulatory environment of particular interest to ECHAMP. Dr Emiel van Galen, Chairman of the Homeopathic Medicinal Products Working Group (HMPWG) of the Heads of Medicines Agencies (HMA), announced the start of the first Mutual Recognition Procedure for a homeopathic medicinal product. There has been evident reluctance of the industry to enter into this procedure due to its enormous administrative burden since requirements for documentation often reflect those for conventional medicinal products. However Dr van Galen did not comment on this, rather he recommended a system of ‘work-sharing’ amongst applicants and amongst competent authorities in order to help overcome the workload and the lack of experienced staff in the medical agencies of most of the EU-Member States.

A second presentation in regulatory matters dealt with the problem of creating a list of first safe dilutions for homeopathic medicinal products. It was given by Mme Maria Mouyart, an expert and head of department from the Belgian medicines agency. She took a clear position on the requirement of Article 14(1) 3^rd indent of Directive 2001/83/EC that sets a general limit for homeopathic mother tinctures in finished products, requiring their concentration to be diluted at least 10 000 times in order to be considered safe. Mme Mouyart recommended an amendment to this requirement as it was “arbitrary” and “not based on scientific criteria”. This amendment, which can be introduced via a rather simple legislative process by the European Commission, the so-called Comitology Procedure, is urgently needed in order to make the system work.

In fact there are already a number of lists of First Safe Dilution for homeopathics from several official sources in Europe and USA. However these are not yet valued by the European agencies, who are still looking for their own (expensive) and ‘validated’ solution to a safety problem which does not exist in homeopathic practice. This is evident from the general positive safety profile of homeopathic products and the absence of negative safety reports, in contradiction to many conventional pharmaceutical products. 

Lively debate after both presentations on regulatory affairs showed the concern in the homeopathic community that European overregulation is increasingly affecting availability of homeopathic medicines all over the Community.

Once again, the Ostende LIGA Congress proved that this yearly event is a very important conference in the field of homeopathy and a valuable platform to demonstrate the political presence of the sector, to network and to promote homeopathic products among an increasingly homogeneous and open target group.