Federal government cuts to NAHO funding

Issue: BCMJ, vol. 54, No. 5, June 2012, Pages 228-229 Letters
By: L. Eustace, MD,

It was with disbelief that I read the recent headlines reporting the Harper government’s decision to cut all funding to the National Aboriginal Health Organization (NAHO). As of 30 June, this nonprofit organization that has been working for more than 12 years to promote First Nations, Inuit, and Metis health in Canada will close its doors forever. 

As many of you may know, the NAHO publishes a peer-reviewed open-access journal called the Journal of Aboriginal Health that is an invaluable resource to both clinicians and academics involved in the field of First Nations health and cultural safety in health care. Aside from this publication, the NAHO’s mandate is to support collaborative research, indige­nous traditional knowledge, capacity-building, and community-led initiatives through collaboration with its member organizations and local communities.

To me, it is ironic and ap­palling that funding has been cut to an organization doing such unique and valuable work to promote the health and well-being of such an already disadvantaged population. It is well known, but bears repeating that First Nations, Metis, and Inuit people in Canada suffer disproportionately from chronic illness, accidental death, suicide, and infant mortality, not to mention the host of social ills resulting from the legacies of colonialism. 

Given the importance of closing this gap and creating health equity in Can­ada, these funding cuts are surely a step in the wrong direction.
—L. Eustace, MD
Prince George

L. Eustace, MD,. Federal government cuts to NAHO funding. BCMJ, Vol. 54, No. 5, June, 2012, Page(s) 228-229 - Letters.


Above is the information needed to cite this article in your paper or presentation. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) recommends the following citation style, which is the now nearly universally accepted citation style for scientific papers:
Halpern SD, Ubel PA, Caplan AL, Marion DW, Palmer AM, Schiding JK, et al. Solid-organ transplantation in HIV-infected patients. N Engl J Med. 2002;347:284-7.

About the ICMJE and citation styles

The ICMJE is small group of editors of general medical journals who first met informally in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1978 to establish guidelines for the format of manuscripts submitted to their journals. The group became known as the Vancouver Group. Its requirements for manuscripts, including formats for bibliographic references developed by the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), were first published in 1979. The Vancouver Group expanded and evolved into the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), which meets annually. The ICMJE created the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals to help authors and editors create and distribute accurate, clear, easily accessible reports of biomedical studies.

An alternate version of ICMJE style is to additionally list the month an issue number, but since most journals use continuous pagination, the shorter form provides sufficient information to locate the reference. The NLM now lists all authors.

BCMJ standard citation style is a slight modification of the ICMJE/NLM style, as follows:

  • Only the first three authors are listed, followed by "et al."
  • There is no period after the journal name.
  • Page numbers are not abbreviated.


For more information on the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, visit www.icmje.org

BCMJ Guidelines for Authors

Leave a Reply