Homeopathy as Green Medicine

What exactly is Green Medicine? Green or Sustainable Medicine recognizes the link between the environment, medicine and human health and seeks to provide better health care while protecting our limited environmental and medical resources.

It stimulates the body's own resources and extraordinary abilities to repair and rebuild itself, and help reverse even serious illness, using natural medicines and not usually drugs, to move our bodies in a healing direction (personal green). It means living a clean life at home, avoiding exposures, as much as possible, to toxic synthetic chemicals (local green). It also means working to keep the larger world around us cleaner, greener, as it was originally meant to be (global green). There are numerous reasons to pursue sustainability within health care, including; responsibility toward the environment for both nature and ourselves, ethical duty for the welfare of future generations, just and equitable allocation of resources, financial benefits of avoiding increasing costs, improved public health and health care delivery, and a spiritual call to stewardship.

Homeopathic medicine is one of the safest forms of medicine on the planet. It provides a more gentle, less toxic form of medicine. It can be effectively used in pregnant women and newborns. It minimizes the amount of chemical waste and leaves virtually no chemical waste footprint on the environment. The Hippocratic Principle of Do No Harm requires that we develop sustainable practices and prevent harm to humans, our community, and the natural world.

Homeopathy uses natural medicines that come from mineral, plant and animal worlds.  Minute amounts of the substances are used so that plants and animals do not need to be destroyed to prepare these medicines.

Homeopathic medicines and homeopathic treatment is relatively inexpensive.  A recent national research study indicated that homeopathic medicines average 1/5 the cost of conventional medicines and homeopathic treatment.  This relative inexpensiveness reduces the financial imprint of homeopathic medicine and is why homeopathy is often referred to as the “People’s Medicine”.

One of the keys to Green Medicine is the concept of Individualization. Homeopathic medicines are individualized to uniquely match the right medicine to the right patient. This reduces waste and reduces side effects in treatment.

Homeopathic medicine is holistic. It treats patients on all levels of their being including physical, emotional, mental and spiritual.  In doing so, it reduces stress in the process of healthcare. The long length of visits and supportive care helps patients feel listened to and heard.  Homeopathic medicine is also useful for all types of diseases including human disease, animal disease and plant disease.

Homeopathy is highly sustainable medicine—ecologically, financially, and socially. Medicines cost just pennies to dispense, and create no drain on natural resources, and no pollution. It is practiced all over the world, often in the poorest regions where pharmaceutical companies have no interest. Mothers and fathers use it safely at home to treat stings, bruises, fevers and more; at the same time that homeopathic practitioners use it to treat serious illness such as malaria in India and AIDS in Africa. Recently completed studies have linked global warming, climate change and greenhouse gases to a wide range of health problems, including lowered immunity, heart disease, asthma, allergies, cancer, and diabetes. These are all conditions treatable using homeopathic medicine.  Homeopathic medicine has also shown considerable efficacy in the treatment of epidemic disease.

Homeopathic medicine supports the bodies own natural defenses making it less susceptible to disease. Homeopathic medicines have been used successfully to prevent contracting disease during epidemic outbreaks.

Removing obstacles to cure (local green) in homeopathic treatment requires patients to lead a cleaner, more healthy green lifestyle.  This may include eating organic foods, drinking clean water.

Homeopathic research is continually investigating new and natural substances from around the world. Homeopathic practice generates minimal waste.  Currently hospitals create two million tons of waste each year. Homeopathic practice reduces carbon footprints. This reduces our contribution to increasing concentrations in nature of substances extracted from the earth's crust, reduces our contribution to increasing concentrations in nature of substances produced by society and reduces our contribution to increasing degradation of nature by physical means.

Homeopathic education is also designed to be green.  It focuses on a holistically based training that is individualized and sustainable.  The American Medical College of Homeopathy in Phoenix, Arizona offers an online course in affiliation in partnership with Teleosis Institute, called the Green Health Care Online program. This is an 8-week online course offered four times per year. Participants collaborate online to exchange strategies and pioneer ideas for affecting change within their communities and medical practices. The goals include:

The purpose of the course is to prepare health professionals to become leaders in the emerging discipline of Sustainable Medicine. The Green Health Care Online course reviews up-to-date theory and research behind Sustainable Medicine and introduces participants to the best practices for initiating green health care—from greening their offices, to offering affordable and renewable†medical treatments, and promoting community and environmental health.