The WFOT strikes back!

Abstract

In October 2014 I was elected President of the WFOT. I want to thank here the support of Dr. Lamberto Re, Professor Nabil Mawsof and Dr. Mark Weisser, that encouraged to me assume this task. Six society members and 20 individual members from 10 more countries were awaiting to grow. Our bylaws, written 9 years before, were not adapted to the current worldwide situation of the ozone therapy; even inside WFOT, some situations needed formalization, so updating the bylaws was a mandatory task. With the huge help of Dr. Re, now President of the FIO, I was able to update the WFOT bylaws, so we started regularizing the minor issues inside WFOT and, together with Dr. Re, we both started an international call for supporting our Federation. Only one year later, WFOT embraces 21 society members, 7 national sections from 7 countries and individual members from 5 more countries without national associations. This means that 2/3 of the countries that are practicing ozone therapy are represented in the WFOT. After the retirement of Professor Marco Leonardi, Centaruo srl, the publisher of the International Journal of Ozone Therapy – IJOT, was sold to SAGE editors. 24 issues of this journal have been published from 2002 to 2013, formerly named Rivista Italiana di Ossigeno-Ozonoterapia until 2007, when the name changed to IJOT. I personally contacted SAGE editors to try to re-start the publication of our IJOT (the official Journal of the WFOT). They kindly told me they had no interest in publishing new issues of it. Talking with my friend Marco, he said, “Jose, you are free to start a new journal for the WFOT”. Of course, this was not what I wanted to hear, but, in fact, it was the only clear solution, so I did it. My second mandatory task was to create this new journal. Neither easy. As I had the idea of holding only en electronic journal, instead of contacting standard editors I looked for a group specialized in Internet health marketing, and found Effyciens group. They were very happy with the project of creating a journal and here I also want to thank them for their help in developing the web site of the new journal, together with all the legal advice, official registration and the workflow inside the journal that makes and will make things rolling on. Journal of Ozone Therapy – JO3T was the name elected and registered and with this first issue, always complicated to publish, WFOT has again its own official journal. My third task was establishing a strong and well reputed Scientific Committee inside WFOT that, as its first duty, reviewed all the publications and wrote a document about basic ozone therapy. I entrusted this task to Dr. Lamberto Re, that had helped so much in the new bylaws and in the international call for WFOT and has a great reputation as scientist in the ozone therapy field. We two made a call for ozone therapy investigators all over the world and made a group that in 10 months, wrote the “WFOT’s review on evidenced based ozone therapy”, recently published in WFOT’s web site, both in English and Spanish. Italian and Portuguese versions are almost ready. Comments on the text have arrived and the Committee will soon start a revision for a second version of this document. My fourth and last task was the 2016 WFOT congress. Although the IOAH had offered to organize the meeting in Florida (USA), internal problems of the association led them to resign. To celebrate the 10th WFOT anniversary I thought it would be a good idea to ask OFI (Ozone Forum of India) if they would accept organizing the WFOT meeting, as WFOT was founded in Delhi but India had never hold a WFOT meeting. The were very happy with the idea and assumed holding the meeting next year in Mumbay, from 18th to 20th of November. Please, book these days in your agenda. Having all tasks done or in resolution, I have seen the huge success of the V Ibero-latino-american – FILAOT meeting in Lima (Peru) last October, organized by the Peruvian Association – ASPO3. I agreed with its President, Dr. Herny Mendoza, and the meeting’s President, Dr. John Olivera, to publish the abstracts book in the first issue of our JO3T. Finally, I cannot forget our friends that passed away this year, Dr. Roberto Dall’Aglio and Professor Nabil Mawsouf. Both devoted a great part of their life to study and teach ozone therapy all over the world. Great men, top doctors and very good friends, all positive adjectives are scarce compared with the goodness of their souls. They will always be in our hearts. I apologize for this long editorial, but as you can see, many things have happened in the past two years. I hope 2016 will be a year for consolidation, for both, the WFOT and the JO3T, and the next President elected in Mumbay will find a strong association and a well established and referenced journal.