The third session of the sixth Executive Committee (EC) of WFAS was held on 24 November 2006 at Sanur Paradise Hotel in Bali, Indonesia. Fourteen members including Deng Liangyue (President of WFAS), David P. J. Hung (Ex-president of WFAS) were present and eight members were absent. From the Department of International Affaires of JSAM, TAKASAWA Naomi and I attended the meeting on behalf of Japanese EC members, KUROSU Yukio (Vice president of WFAS) and TSUTANI Kiichiro (Counselor of JSAM). TOGO Toshihiro, a member of our department also attended the meeting as an observer.
The meeting started with opening remarks from Li DaNing, vice-Director of SATCM (State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine) and the session was chaired by Shen ZhiXiang (Secretary-general of WFAS). In the meeting, the following issues were discussed and approved.
1. A cooperation plan between WHO and WFAS, 2007-2009 was presented.
2. Four proposals from the WFAS secretary-general were presented.
  2-1 Proposal on holding an academic conference
  2-2 Proposal on strengthening work of the World Journal of Acupuncture-Moxibustion.
  2-3 Proposal on the establishment of committee offices
  2-4 Proposal on developing member societies of WFAS.
3. Another four proposals regarding the establishment of four Committees were also presented by the secretary-general; Science and Technology Committee, University Cooperation Committee, International Volunteer Working Committee, and Management Committee of Acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicinal International Standardization Foundation.
4. Nine new groups were approved for admission to WFAS as member societies.
5. A new working committee nomination list was introduced and executive committee decided to contact committee members in three months for a vote.
6. The secretary-general of WFAS reported on the present state of WFAS website (www.wfas.org.cn) and a plan about the WHO internet tool case program on Traditional Medicine.
7. Li Weiheng, president of the China association of acupuncture-moxibustion, introduced the preparation of the 20th anniversary of WFAS and international acupuncture congress.
Lastly, President Deng made a closing address to conclude all of the issues on the agenda.

20th anniversary congress of the World Federation of Acupuncture-Moxibustion Societies (WFAS) was held in Beijing, China on 20-22 October 2007. The congress was characterized by 1) cerebration of 20th anniversary of WFAS, 2) distinguished guests from World Health Organization (WHO) were invited, and they gave us a lecture, 3) WFAS executive committee showed a strategic plan for future 10 years.
Although WFAS strategic plan has not carried out properly in the past 10 years, it could be completed in the next 10 years. WFAS is changing from what it used to be. Therefore, JSAM has to reconsider its strategic plan for WFAS and for the worldwide spread of acupuncture and moxibustion.

WFAS Executive Committee meeting was held on 6 November 2008 in Beijing, China. Firstly, WFAS secretary reported what they have achieved since last meeting in 2007. Then some important issues such as revision of membership certificate and revision of WFAS constitution were proposed and discussed. The 7th WFAS World Congress of Acupuncture had been decided to be held in Korea in 2009, but it was cancelled because of the recent economic crisis. The alternative venue for the next congress was not decided but France and/or Germany could be the candidate. In addition, Dr. Tsutani made a suggestion about the WFAS ethic codes on the WFAS website and it was approved.

An International Symposium for Developing an Acupuncture Standard of WFAS was held at the WFAS Office Building in Beijing on 18 May 2010. The aim of this meeting was to make the WFAS Industry Standard and to further develop the International Standard of Acupuncture and Moxibustion.
JSAM dispatched two representatives to the meeting as informal observers. The reason why JSAM did not send representatives formally is that there was a serious discrepancy regarding the resolution of the EC meeting between WFAS and JSAM. However, after the several discussions with WFAS, JSAM eventually decided to send informal representatives who have a right to speak. JSAM presented the necessary information about Japanese moxibustion as well as its techniques.

[Objective]To investigate if "Japanese acupuncture treatment"is effective for "Japanese patients with lower back pain"by reviewing randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of acupuncture conducted in Japan.
[Methods]Using several databases in Japan, such as Igaku Chuo Zasshi (Japana Centra Revuo Medicina) and PubMed, we searched for RCTs conducted in Japan. In addition, we collected RCTs by a manual search of 5 journals published in Japan. These included the Journal of the JSAM, Kampo Medicine, etc. Then, we examined the abstracts of all RCTs and sorted them according to inclusion and exclusion criteria. After that, we evaluated the quality of extracted RCTs by calculating Modified Jadad Quality Scores and Modified Charmers Scores. Lastly, we performed meta-analysis (MA) using Cochrane Review Manager 5.
[Results]We extracted 19 RCTs. For the Modified Jadad Quality Score 2012, the highest score was 5, the lowest was 1, and the average was 3.5. For the Modified Charmers Score, RCTs with scores over 50 numbered only two, and the average score was 34. In addition, we performed three subgroup meta-analyses:(1) MA of five RCTs, to compare the effect of a retained needle technique with that of sham acupuncture evaluated by a visual analogue scale;VAS (standardized mean difference:SMD -1.79 [95%CI -2.89, -0.69];P = 0.001), (2) MA of three RCTs to compare the effect of retained needle with that of sham acupuncture, evaluated with the Roland Morris Disability Questionnaire;RMDQ (SMD -1.23[95%CI -2.07, -0.38];P = 0.004), and (3) MA of three RCTs to compare the effect of a sparrow-pecking technique with that of sham acupuncture, evaluated by VAS (SMD -0.49 [95%CI -0.98, -0.00];P = 0.05). The results revealed the superiority of real over sham acupuncture for all three subgroup MA.
[Conclusion]Our results demonstrated that evaluations with Modified Jadad Scores were relatively high, but those with an advanced method using Modified Charmers Scores were not satisfactory, indicating a need for further improvement regarding the quality of clinical trials. Although MA revealed that real acupuncture was more effective than sham acupuncture, the RCTs that we extracted in this study were conducted by very few researchers, suggesting the possibility of bias. Therefore, more clinical trials by a variety of researchers are needed to confirm the effectiveness of acupuncture for LBP in Japan.

Low back pain (LBP) is one of the most common complaints of Japanese citizens, and is a symptom for which acupuncture has been applied since ancient times. We empirically recognize that acupuncture is effective for LBP, but in recent years, it became necessary to show evidence regarding its efficacy and effectiveness.Currently, to elucidate the effect of a medical intervention, randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are considered the gold standard and outcomes of RCTs are integrated as a systematic review (SR), and these are used to establish the degree of recommendation in the clinical practice guidelines (CPGs). Eventually, practitioners make their clinical decisions according to the recommendations in CPGs.In this report, the author compared CPGs of acupuncture for LBP between those of the United Kingdom (UK) and United States of America (USA). The NICE guideline development group of the UK did not fully understand Japanese-style acupuncture, and they considered clinical trials with placebo/sham as a control to be the most important, leading to underestimating the effect of acupuncture. On the other hand, the ACP guideline of the USA considers clinical trials with conventional treatment as a control to be more important, and accordingly the effect of acupuncture was evaluated realistically.

WHO Congress on Traditional Medicine was held in Beijing, China from 7 to10 November 2008. Dr. Margaret Chan, Secretary General of WHO addressed a speech at the opening ceremony, emphasizing the role of traditional medicine (TM) /complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in primary health care and preventive medicine. During the congress, the Beijing Declaration was adopted. The Declaration affirms the importance of government action to promote the integration of TM /CAM into their health care system.
In addition, there were four satellite symposia, including the symposium of the World Federation of Acupuncture and Moxibustion Societies (WFAS). In line with the principle of the congress, a session regarding the present status of legislation, education and research in each member country was presented. In the executive committee meeting of WFAS, revision of the constitution and other issues were discussed. The university cooperation working committee of WFAS proposed a project editing an international textbook on acupuncture and moxibustion.

On this coming June 12, 2009, the 2nd JSAM International Symposium on Evidence-based Acupuncture on "Evidence of the Effectiveness of Acupuncture for Low Back Pain"is to be held in Saitama. We briefly outline the background and expected controversial points in this symposium.
There are three sessions including 1) Present status of RCT research on low back pain, 2) Treatment method for low back pain in China, Korea and Japan based on the database research, and 3) Sham acupuncture. When we assess the effectiveness of acupuncture for low back pain within the realm of Evidence-Based Medicine, the following discussions may be expected:
1) Therapeutic effect of sham needling -are we able to distinguish placebo effect?
2) Masking using sham needle -are we able to conduct double-blind trials on acupuncture?
3) Specific treatment technique -which factors contribute to "more effective acupuncture technique"?
Most of invited speakers are specialists who published their papers on RCT or sham needle in top medical journals in the world. We hope that issues, such as working together with other medical professionals and reflecting evidence to medical policies, to be tackled in the future for the development of acupuncture will become clearer in this symposium.

The Fifth Session of the Sixth Executive Committee (EC), the Seventh General Assembly (GA), and the First Session of the Seventh EC and 2009 World Acupuncture Congress of the World Federation of Acupuncture-Moxibustion societies (WFAS) were held at European parliament in Strasbourg, France on 3-7 November 2009.
New EC members for the year of 2009-2013were elected in the GA. The Seventh EC commenced and now consists of 49 members. Host countries for the future meetings were also approved.
In the Seventh EC, the Japan Society of Acupuncture and Moxibustion (JSAM) made a proposal regarding WFAS administrative duties. It consisted of eight items, and among them, the request for making the minutes of EC meetings was most important because WFAS EC meeting minutes have never been sent to the EC members except once, for the Bali, Indonesia meeting in 2006.
Papers regarding acupuncture education, legislation, traditional research and scientific research were also presented in the academic meeting.
JSAM will continue to support the enhancement of the academic level of WFAS and make any necessary proposals toward the further development of WFAS.