Chiropractic Poster Draws Praise at WHO Assembly

A new anti-smoking poster, jointly developed by the World Federation of Chiropractic (WFC) and Life University, was launched amid praise at the World Health Organization's (WHO) annual meeting held in Geneva, Switzerland, May 13-18, 2002.

"Sets of the poster in English, French and Spanish were received with great enthusiasm and displayed prominently on the wall of the United Nations Palais des Nations," reported Rand Baird,DC, of Los Angeles, who attended the WHO Assembly as chairman of the WFC's WHO Health-for-All Committee.

The poster, which carries no-smoking and second hand smoke messages, is the first of several being developed by the WFC and Life University in support of WHO's public health campaign against smoking. It will be available to chiropractors, together with background information on smoking issues, through their national associations in the months ahead.

The 10-member WFC delegation to the WHO Assembly included chiropractic leaders from Brazil, Canada, Israel, Switzerland, Turkey and the U.S. Highlights of the meeting included:

• the WHO's first meeting on strategy for the advancement and integration into national health systems of traditional and complementary medicine, including chiropractic;


• meetings between WFC and WHO representatives to continue the development of the WHO's database of information on chiropractic education, practice and legal recognition internationally;


• meetings with ministers of health and senior health officials from many countries to discuss chiropractic issues;


• gathering of recent WHO publications on professional issues relevant to chiropractic. For example, WHO has just published a new International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health that replaces its former concepts of impairment/disability/handicap with new language that includes "neuromusculoskeletal function" and "mobility of joint functions" (Chapter 7). For more information on that publication, visit www.who.int/dsa.

The 10-member WFC delegation to the WHO Assembly included:

Rand Baird,DC,MPH
Chair, WFC Health-for-All Committee, Los Angeles

David Chapman-Smith
WFC Secretary-General, Toronto

Medhat Alattar,DC,MD
Life University

Gary Auerbach,DC
Life University

Michel Aymon,DC
Vice-President, Swiss Chiropractors' Association

Sira Borges,DC,MD
Past President, Brazilian Chiropractic Association

Aysegül Öztürk,DC,MD
President, Turkish Chiropractic Association

Barry Sauser,DC
Member, Canadian Chiropractic Association

Michel Tétrault,DC
Chiropractic Diplomatic Corp, a WFC Associate Member

Yael Weiss,DC
President, Israeli Chiropractic Society

For more information on the WFC, which represents national associations in 77 countries, including the ACA and the ICA, visit www.wfc.org.