The article in the October 20 issue about the September meeting of the Committee of Women Leaders for Mental Health headed by Rosalynn Carter with hemispheric health ministers at PAHO [Pan American Health Organization] was informative but incomplete and, thus, possibly misleading. The committee is in fact a committee of the World Federation for Mental Health (WFMH). Although this meeting, convened by WFMH in collaboration with the Carter Center and under the auspices of WHO [World Health Organization], PAHO, and Harvard University, was the first face-to-face gathering of some of its members, it has been in existence for some time.

The primary purpose of the meeting was to inaugurate the new "Nations for Mental Health" Program (NMH) of WHO, aimed especially at low-income populations. It also facilitated further WHO/PAHO work with women leaders in countries not benefitting from the NMH initiative. WFMH, which since its founding in 1948 has had an official consulting relationship with WHO, is the first nongovernmental organization to collaborate in the new NMH program. It did so by stimulating the sensitivity of the PAHO ministers, first ladies, and their representatives to the importance of women's health and well-being for national mental health as a whole. This follows our participation in last year's United Nations forum on women's health held in Beijing, where we had a major delegation headed by our 1995-97 president, Beverly Long. In consequence of that meeting, women's mental health was chosen the theme for our globally observed World Mental Health Day, which, this year, took place October 10.

In addition to Mrs. Carter, the September 28 meeting was addressed by WHO Director General Hiroshi Nakajima; PAHO Director Sir George Alleyne; WHO's Mental Health Division director, psychiatrist Jorge Costa e Silva; Beverly Long; and psychiatrist Arthur Kleinman of Harvard, whose study of world mental health issues has provided an outline for the NMH program. Sir George invited all of the ministers of health to participate; many were from the English-speaking Caribbean countries, and representatives of Canada and the United States were present as well.

WFMH is proud of the support it receives from Mrs. Carter and the Carter Center, of its Women's Committee, and of its nearly 50-year relationship with WHO.

Eugene B. Brody, M.D.

Past President and

Secretary General

World Federal for

Mental Health

(Psychiatric News, January 3, 1997)