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Ontario’s Homeopathy Act received royal assent today. The move will regulate the field in a similar way to how doctor’s and nurses are governed. But the act is being met with skepticism from critics in the medical community who say homeopath has no basis in science.
Homeopath Tatiana Tesker is in the process of registering to the newly created College of Homeopaths of Ontario. “I think it’s a big day today for the profession and for the public as well.”
Homeopathy’s main principle is ‘like cures like’. “It says if something causes the disease in homeopathic preparation… it can cure the disease.” Patients can be treated for almost anything from the common cold to terminal cancer using highly diluted doses of natural substances, like minerals and plants, that in larger amounts would produce the symptoms of the ailment. For example Tatiana Tesker explains how a homeopath might treat a bee sting “you would use homeopathic preparation of a bee sting. By taking it you will diminish symptoms in minutes.”
Some patients say it’s helped where western medicine has failed. Jannine Markou’s naturopath turned her on to homeopathy 7 years ago. “Rowan, my son had poison ivy last year and nothing was working and then we got some homeopathy pellets and he took it and it started clearing up.”
Critics fear the Ontario Homeopathy Act will lend legitimacy to the profession, which has been debunked by some as having no basis in science.
“If there was a problem yesterday you would have to go to the traditional court system.” Ontario Research Chair for Health Human Resources, Arthur Sweetman, says the act should save the taxpayers money because the college is supported by the revenue of the dues of its members, and the college deals with discipline. “In part what this is dealing with is that going through the court system is very expensive and very time consuming.” Legislation was passed in 2007, but it has taken until now to work out the details of how it would be enforced. It provides a legal framework for homeopaths to govern themselves. “Which is exactly the same legal framework that doctors, that is to say physicians, have to regulate themselves and nurses have to regulate themselves” says Mr. Sweetman.
Up until today, anyone could call themselves a homeopath. Tatiana Tesker says it costs about 1000 dollars for the first time registration and then around 750 dollars a year to renew the membership.
