Membership Sweden

By 1965, the value of the Yellow Card Scheme was clearly established and two other countries had introduced a similar scheme. By the beginning of 1967, the Committee was also cooperating in the WHO s Pilot Study on the Monitoring of ADRs at an international level. By the end of 1968, a total of 10 countries were participating in this Pilot Study. This study matured into the international WHO ADR Monitoring Centre based in Uppsala (Sweden), with a membership that now stands at 67 coimtries with six others enjo)dng associate status. 

One interviewee described that employer opposition to the Worker Safety Advisor scheme has halted its development across all industry sectors in the UK [395, 396]. French interviewees described several safety representative state-sponsored schemes in France, but the resources appear far more restricted than in Sweden. There was no evidence from the interviews or literature review to indicate that Germany has such a scheme. Evidence from the interviews indicates that such schemes in France and Sweden link to their strong social health care system, with very high union membership distinguishing Sweden from France. 

A vital aspect in the founding and running of an association is its economy. All societies agreed on certain membership fees intended to cover all or part of the expenses. Some societies, such as the ones in Denmark and Sweden, had to rely on membership fees only other societies were more entrepreneurial or blessed by sponsors. The pubUcation of one or more journals could represent a basic expenditure or could be used to create a regular income, as could the sale of other pubUcations, which created a fair income for the Portuguese society. The British Institute of Chemistry had as a consequence of its unique foimdation other sources of income, not least examination fees. 

The IFMBE web site was moved from Amsterdam to Sweden in March 1999 and it got a new address, www.ifmbe.org. since it had been before under the lUPESM web address. In the AC-meeting in Seoul 1999 I presented an offer from a professional company to develop the web site. This offer included new layout, a discussion forum for the membership, an electronic meeting place for the committees and divisions, a news site for the membership, a message board, document archive and list-server function. Unfortunately this offer was tabled in Seoul and more offers were taken in late September 1999, but none of them were cheaper than the first one and none of them were accepted. Therefore, I decided to design and make the first step, i.e., the layout, of the new web site by myself. The new web site was launched on the Internet in December 1999. 

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