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History

The First World Congress of Nuclear Medicine was held from September 30 to October 4, 1974 in The Pacific Hotel, Tokyo and on October 5, 1974, in Kyoto Kaikan, Kyoto, Japan. This meant that new links were now forged between all Americas, Europe and Asia and Oceania, and these were gradually strengthened in subsequent years.

Year	City	President	Secretary General	Treasurer
1974	Tokyo & Kyoto	Hideo Ueda	Masahiro Iio	S Kato
1978	Washington DC	Henry Wagner Jr	James J Smith	John L Kuranz
1982	Paris	C Kellershohn	Claude E Raynaud	J Ingrand
1986	Buenos Aires	Victorio Pecorini	Hernan Garcia	Aldo Mitta
1990	Montreal	Etienne Lebel	Leonard Rosenthall	Raymonde Chartran
1994	Sydney	Ian PC Murray	Richard C Smart	Brenda M Walker
1998	Berlin	Hans Biersack	Giorgio Ferlin	Roger JM Bart
2002	Santiago	Horacio Amaral	Patricio Gonzalez	Pilar Orellana
2006	Seoul	Myung-Chul Lee	June-Key Chung	Jong Doo Lee

The World Congress 1978 in Washington was attended by approximately 1700 people. By that time the attendance from United States was quite low. The next conference in 1982 was organized in Paris. Claude C. Kellershohn, the president, and Claude Raynaud, the secretary general, are still alive and in quite good health.

During the 1986 conference in Argentina, the Hevesy-Medal was handed over by Aldo Mitta to the then president of the WFNMB, Victorio Pecorini. Prof. Horst from Zuerich was the president of the former Hevesy Society.

After the wall came down in 1989, there was a strong move to organize a conference in Berlin. Prof. Udalrich Büll decided to run for the 1992 EANM-Meeting in Düsseldorf so that Hans Biersack was left as the only German candidate. The election took place in the of fall 1992, on the occasion of the European Conference in Lisbon. There was only one other candidate (Dr Abdel Razzack from Egypt). With strong tailwinds blown by the Glasnost, Prof Biersack got the majority of votes and became President Elect of the 1998 conference in Berlin, with Gergio Ferlin as secretary-general elect. Hans Biersack took over the office as WFNMB President during the Sidney meeting in 1994.

In 1996 Georgio Ferlin fell sick, suffering from a colorectal cancer. Hans Biersack had to combine the offices of the president and of the secretary general. Giorgio developed liver and lung metastases and passed away in 2001.
The 1998 conference in Berlin was a joint meeting of the EANM and the WFNMB because it was felt that two major conferences would suffer severe financial problems. The conference in Berlin, with Frans Corstens as chairman of the scientific committee and European Congress President was quite a success, with more than 4 000 people attending. As the EANM had to be compensated for the annual conference, 280 000 Deutschmark (Euro 140 000) had to be set aside so that the surplus for Santiago was in the range of 80.000 DM (Euro 40 000). The Germans had received from Australia a surplus of 20.000 Australian $.


WFNMB First exec president	WFNMB First exec secretary	WFNMB First exec treasurer

The interim meeting to elect the President for 2002 took place in Kyoto, on the occasion of the Asia and Oceania Conference of Nuclear Medicine, Junij Konishi being the President of this association. There were two main candidates, namely Myung-Chul Lee from Korea and Horacio Amaral from Chile. The night before the election, Myung-Chul Lee withdrew after consultation with the “Senior“ Korean colleagues so that Amaral won the election.

In 2000, Myung-Chul Lee was elected as President of the WFNMB, on the occasion of the Annual European Congress in Paris chaired by Serge Askienazy. Apart from a highly successful congress held in Seoul, Korea in October 2006, the Koreans will be remembered for the Korean Nights which they organised during major Nuclear Medicine meetings around the world.

The meeting in Santiago in 2002 went well. Horatio Amaral (president), Patrizio Gonzalez (secretary-general) and Pillar Orellana (treasurer) formed the executive of the WFNMB. Since the meeting took place shortly after the 11 September 2001 catastrophe in the United States of America, the organising committee experienced serious problems attracting delegates, especially from the USA. Ultimately approximately 1000 delegates attended the meeting.

In 2004, during the AOFNMB meeting in Beijing, China, South Africa won the bid to host the WFNMB from 2006 – 2010. The executive are Prof Annare Ellmann (president-elect), Prof Mike Sathekge (secretary-general elect) and Dr Gerdus Kemp (treasurer-elect).

The last three serving presidents of the WFNMB: Prof Horatio Amaral (1998 – 2002), Prof Annare Ellmann (2006 – 2010) and Prof Myung-Chul Lee (2002 – 2006)