Recent HPCUS Meetings and Updates

By Eric Foxman, Pharm. (Ret.), AAHP Secretary

The Homeopathic Pharmacopoeia Convention of the United States held its annual meeting in the latter half of April. This included both the Board and general membership meetings. Many of the working committees also held meetings within the same time frame. For the third consecutive year, all were hosted virtually.

During the meetings, one submitted monograph completed its final review and approval and will be posted to the HPUS website in the coming weeks. The Clinical Documentation Guidelines also received its final approval; the present draft on the website will be replaced by the approved document. When posted, they will be announced in an HPUS updates notification email. (Sign up for these free emails here.)

A review was made of factors related to toxicological data sources; these will be utilized in finalizing the upcoming draft of the Toxicity and Safety Committee’s SOP First Safe Attenuation calculations.

Much of the past year has focused on crafting up-to-date SOPs for various committees; this overall project is time intensive. Yet it has the potential to be a basis for an independent certification of the Convention’s procedures, should that step be appropriate for the Convention.

In conjunction with the SOP updates, the Convention is implementing a behind-the-scenes document management system to streamline committees’ activities and document archiving. While this will not be visible to the subscribers or the public, a new website design is also being created to update the software structure underlying the website. Importantly, it will also provide a better user interface and experience for subscribers and other visitors. These two projects are expected to be complete in the next six months.

The Convention has a concurrent focus on drafting and revising white papers on specific technical issues. Two have been posted for public comment; those who have signed up to receive HPUS’ emails were informed of the start of both comment periods and were provided with a link to the draft documents. Revisions and subsequent guideline implementations are ongoing; notice of changes will be distributed through the notification emails.

All of these topics, plus information about attenuation changes, changes to monographs, and new warning statements will be addressed in an upcoming webinar. A second round of input regarding desirable website components will also be solicited at that time. This short, concise webinar, What’s New in the HPUS and What’s Coming?, will take place Wednesday, June 8, from 12:00 - 12:30 pm EDT. Find out more and register.