ATCM held its 2014 AGM on the 9th November 2014 at Middlesex University. There were about 150 members from London and other areas of UK attended the meeting.
In the morning, the meeting was chaired by Dr. Huijun Shen. Dr. Kaicun Zhao, the president of ATCM, presented the annual report on behalf of the council. The report summarised the works carried out by the council in 2014. Dr. Zhao reported the details of the legal action taken by ATCM against the medicine regulator, Medicine and Healthcare Products Regulation Agency (MHRA), on stopping the “sell through” of patent herbal medicines. ATCM accused that MHRA caused significant financial lose to its member by breaking its promise to allow practitioners to “sell through” all their stocks of patent herbal medicines purchased before the EU Directive 2004 was fully implemented in 2011. ATCM also accused the regulator gave a misleading guidance in 2010 before the EU Directive 2004 was fully introduced. The misleading information made members over-store herbal medicine products. By taking the case to the High Court, ATCM applied for a judicial review on the decision made by the medicine regulator. MHRA rejected ATCM’s claims and insisted it did not give misleading information. ATCM made a strong argument against the regulator’s statements. However, due to potential long lasting and high cost, ATCM council was not able to pursue the case any further (see below for details). Although we did not win the case, the legal action has enhanced the publicity of ATCM. (See below for details of the report).
Dr. Huijun Shen, the vice-president, updated the progress of the Herbal Medicine Working group. The working group has had 4 meetings since it was established at the beginning of 2014 by the Department of Health. Potential ways for herbal medicine practitioners to access herbal medicine products and the way forward for practitioner’s regulation were discussed in the working group. But still no decision has been made.
Dr. Yu Han presented the financial report for the year 2013-14 in the meeting. In 2014, the ATCM continues to remain financially in balance between income and expenditure. The surplus for this year is small due to expenditure on the London Forum in the middle of 2013.
This year, the term of the current council reached to the end. A new ATCM council has been elected on the annual meeting. There were 10 candidates standing for the election and 9 of them were elected to form the 13th ATCM council. The new council members elected are as follows: Kaicun Zhao (210 votes), Huijun Shen (202 votes), Fanyi Meng (201 votes), Mingzhao Cheng (200 votes), Shulan Tang (196 votes), Yu Han (194 votes), Tiejun Tang (178 votes), Liqin Zhao (172 votes) and Tianjun Wang (155 votes).
In the afternoon, the academic session was chaired by Dr. Shulan Tang. Prof. Yisheng Wang presented a report on the use of Gui Zhi and Gui Zhi decoction with his opinion of “Yi Fen Wei San” (three aspects of one thing). Dr. Yi Zhu reported her experiences in the treatment of skin diseases using Chinese herbal medicine. Finally, Dr. Tianjun Wang introduced the use of MYMOP in clinical trials of Chinese medicine. These speeches caused active discussions. Dr. Xiaoping Zhai, advisor of ATCM, explained the petition organised by her on TCM treatment of male infertility and call for ATCM members to sign the petition to support the proposal. Dr. Zhai also suggested the new council to give more weight on the public relations in its future works.
On the AGM, 2014 Prize for Excellence in TCM Studies (PETS) was awarded to 5 students graduated in the year from Middlesex University, Glyndwr University and College of Naturopathic Medicine respectively. ATCM advisors Dr. Xiaoping Zhai and Dr. Liyi Qi presented the prize to the winners on behalf of ATCM.