The Founding of the EDTA: Facts and Lessons

From WEDA to EDTA to ERA: 60 years of supporting European nephrology and counting

“…The three experts (Fig. 1 ) thus created the WEDA, envisioning it as a small association, with a limited number of active members from a few Western European countries [ 1 ]. Later that year, Gabriel Richet suggested name alteration to avoid raising suspicion of being politically biased, and so the European Dialysis and Transplantation Association (EDTA) was born [ 1 ].…”

“…1 ) thus created the WEDA, envisioning it as a small association, with a limited number of active members from a few Western European countries [ 1 ]. Later that year, Gabriel Richet suggested name alteration to avoid raising suspicion of being politically biased, and so the European Dialysis and Transplantation Association (EDTA) was born [ 1 ]. The first EDTA congress, which took place in Amsterdam in 1964, was a great success, with guest lecturers such as Willem Kolff and Sergio Giovannetti, and 210 participants from 16 European and several non-European countries, including the USA, Australia, Panama and Ghana.…”

The history of the ERA/EDTA. Memories of a former president

“…A brief history of the EDTA was published years ago in Nephrology, Dialysis, Transplantation [ 1 ]. The EDTA was conceived on 2 September1963 in London in the wake of the ‘Symposium on Acute Renal Failure’ held at the lecture theatre of the Royal Free Hospital.…”

“…Kerr ( Figure 4 ). It was at this meeting that the ‘Gang of Three’, as David Kerr named it, planned the creation of the European Dialysis Association [ 1 , 2 ].…”

“…Thus, a few years after the first congress, the EDTA had to reimburse the excess charge. This nearly caused a premature bankruptcy of the financially still vulnerable association [ 1 ].…”