The 37th ICMART World Congress on Medical Acupuncture (ICMART) was held on Jeju Island, South Korea, from September 27 to 29, 2024. The theme of the congress was "Future of Integrative Healthcare, Convergence of Acupuncture, Medical Science, and Technology," and the event was organized by the Society of Korean Medicine (SKOM), which officially became a member of ICMART in 2019. During the ICMART General Assembly on September 28, 2024, the formal membership of our society was officially approved. This article provides an overview of the process leading to our society's membership in ICMART, and the proceedings of the ICMART General Assembly. It also summarizes the ICMART 2024 Congress and highlights a joint session between our society and the Korean Acupuncture & Moxibustion Medicine Society (KAMMS) focusing on facial nerve paralysis.

The Japan-Korea Symposium was held on Saturday, May 25th, 2024 as a special program in the 73rd Conference of the Japan Society of Acupuncture and Moxibustion in Miyagi. The topic of the symposium was "The Collaborative Education and Treatment utilizing Acupuncture", which was introduced previously at the Korea-Japan Symposium during the 50th Anniversary Ceremony of the Korean Acupuncture and Moxibustion Medicine Society (KAMMS) in Seoul, Korea in November, 2023. In this article, we summarize the overview of the symposium.

The Japan-Korea Symposium, which was held face-to-face for the first time in three years, was held at the 72nd Academic Conference of the Japan Society of Acupuncture and Moxibustion in Kobe (June 10, 2023). The theme of the symposium was " The Current status and the Safety of Moxibustion" and four representatives from Japan and South Korea each gave presentations on the current status of moxibustion treatment in their countries, and a lively discussion took place. This paper provides an overview of the symposium.

The 2023 World Federation of Acupuncture-Moxibustion Societies (WFAS) annual conference was held in Bangkok, Thailand, from Thursday, November 16 to Sunday, November 19, 2023. Due to the pandemic of COVID-19, we, the members of the International Affairs, had to participate via web in 2020 and 2021. Therefore, this was our first on-site participation in four years. The first session of the 10th executive committee (EC) meeting was held in the afternoon of the first day, the 16th. In this article, we report the EC meeting and the scientific conference entitled "Inheriting the Essence and Promoting the Innovative Development of Acupuncture-moxibustion of TCM". The EC reported with emphasis on the steady progress being made in building relationships with WHO and other international organizations. In the academic exchange, WFAS President Liu Baoyan, in his keynote speech, consistently conveyed his intention to promote high-quality acupuncture and moxibustion research throughout his talk. Abstracts of the conference were distributed on-site, but only 35 abstracts (49%) of the 72 total presentations were published.

The World Federation of Acupuncture and Moxibustion (WFAS) General Assembly and International Conference were held online in combination with on-site administration in Singapore on 18th-20th, November 2022. Members of the new Executive Committee (the 10th EC) were elected and future host cities were discussed in the General Assembly. Activities during the 9th EC term including collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO), activities in the standardization working committee, financial report and proposals from EC members were reviewed in the 9th EC meeting which was held prior to the General Assembly. In the present article, we report the results of the EC meeting and the General Assembly and key topics from the International Conference.

The 2022 International Conference for Global Cooperation in Traditional Medicine was held in a hybrid meeting at the Novotel Ambassador Seoul Dongdaemun Hotel in Seoul on the 1st and 2nd of November 2022. This international conference was hosted by the Ministry of Health and Welfare of South Korea, organized by the National Institute for Korean Medicine Development, and supported by The Society of Korean Medicine. At this conference, a bilateral exchange of acupuncture and moxibustion therapies between Japan and Korea was held at the Republic of Korea-Japan Symposium I. The aims of the symposium were to combine conventional and traditional medical knowledge of frailty and sarcopenia and to share possible ideas to develop proper treatment for frailty and sarcopenia.

The WFAS Annual Conference 2019 was held between November 14th and 17th at Kaya Palazzo Hotel, Antalya, Turkey. The WFAS executive committee was convened on the 14th. In the EC (Executive Committee) meeting, the JSAM proposed inclusion of the Declaration of Helsinki (DoH) in the WFAS Code of Ethics. Other issues discussed in the EC meeting included approval of the special consultative status by the the United Nations ECOSOC (Economic and Social Council) and preparation of the next WFAS symposium in the Netherlands in 2020. Individual presentations and other exhibitions in the symposium are also introduced in the present report. In addition, recent large-scale RCTs of acupuncture conducted in China were reviewed.

The "Japanese Orthopaedic Association (JOA) Clinical Practice Guidelines on the Management of Low Back Pain 2019, 2nd Edition" was published in May, 2019. We found multiple issues of serious misinformation on acupuncture; these included, but are not limited to inappropriate conclusions due to errors in literature selection, data extraction and data input. Accordingly we point out each error and provide the correct information. 1. A published paper of meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) on Japanese acupuncture for low back pain in Japanese patients is ignored. 2. Regarding acupuncture for acute low back pain, some RCT data has been incorrectly inputted and analyzed. The wrong numbers have been mistakenly inserted into the analysis software (plus instead of minus) leading to the opposite and incorrect conclusion that acupuncture is not superior to the control group. Furthermore, in a meta-analysis on the effect of acupuncture on functional disorder, data on pain are incorrectly inputted and analyzed. 3. The Guidelines' meta-analysis on acupuncture for chronic low back pain included five RCT papers. The papers included acupuncture (1 article), auricular point acupressure (2 articles), laser acupuncture (1 article) and acupressure backrest (1 article). Only one article in the meta-analysis used needle-inserting acupuncture, therefore, this is not a meta-analysis on acupuncture. There are also many errors in data input. Moreover, there is mislabeling of the forest plot figures: Figure 7 is incorrectly labelled "pain", but actually shows data on "functional disorder" (Figure 8), and vice versa. 4. A published paper of meta-analysis on the cost-effectiveness of acupuncture is ignored. Additionally, although a paper of "meta-analysis on the health economic effects of yoga" is cited, the health economic effects of yoga are not actually addressed or mentioned in that paper. Although the Guidelines state they have fully complied with "Minds Manual for Guideline Development 2014" (Minds: Medical Information Network Distribution Service, Japan Council for Quality Health Care), they did not set up a systematic review team, and do not state whether or not they organized an external review committee. Such circumstances may have contributed to the serious errors in the Guidelines. Because we have also recognized many errors regarding other therapies addressed in the Guidelines, we fear that the present Guidelines may destroy the credibility of the entire clinical practice guidelines published in Japan. We strongly hope that a corrected and revised version is published as soon as possible.

The Japan-Korea Workshop on Acupuncture and EBM is an academic exchange between the Japan Society of Acupuncture and Moxibustion (JSAM) and the Korean Acupuncture and Moxibustion Medical Society (KAMMS). The theme of the 9th and 10th Workshop was clinical practice guidelines (CPG). Three Korean and two Japanese speakers presented in the 9th Workshop held at Osaka, and two in each country did in the 10th at Jecheon, Korea. Since Korea has already developed some Korean Medicine CPGs, the present state and protocols for improvement process were reported. On the other hand, Japan has not developed such CPGs on acupuncture. The Japanese speakers therefore presented results of a survey on Japanese CPGs that include “acupuncture-moxibustion” as a treatment option and quality assessment of those CPGs. Although there are some differences on circumstances surrounding acupuncture practice between Japan and Korea, it was a good opportunity to obtain useful information for developing CPG on acupuncture in Japan and to discuss on this issue with Korean researchers preceding in this area. We reaffirmed the need for continued academic exchange between JSAM and KAAMS.