World Allergy Organization Journal (WAO Journal) at five years: updates and changes

The World Allergy Organization Journal (WAO Journal) has recently published a number of position papers, statements and guidelines on topics of global importance in allergy and clinical immunology, including hereditary angioedema [1], urticaria and angioedema [2], probiotics in pediatrics [3], biodiversity and allergic disease [4], as well as the latest ICON, or International Consensus document, on eosinophil disorders [5], an effort that the World Allergy Organization (WAO) led as a participating organization in the International Collaboration in Asthma, Allergy and Immunology (iCAALL). These key articles and more are free for download in Volume 5 of the Journal (www.waojournal.org). This significant publishing activity represents the ongoing goals of the WAO Journal to provide the most up-todate and useful information on critical topics of global relevance in the field of allergy/immunology. Since the switch by the World Allergy Organization (WAO) of its Journal to an online-only format five years ago, the Journal has disseminated timely, informative original studies and reviews that offer a global perspective. Now in the sixth year of publication, there are a number of important updates and changes regarding the WAO Journal that should be highlighted. The WAO Journal is now published by BioMed Central, as of January 2013, introducing a new era for the Journal in the open-access publishing arena. The Journal’s former publisher, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, partnered with WAO to create and develop the WAO Journal as a fully online publication, and at the time of its launch, it was one of the few of its kind. This recent move to open access publishing reinforces the vision of the WAO Journal as a fully accessible authoritative resource for allergists, immunologists and all medical professionals interested in the field. While the Journal has been freely available to all individual members of the WAO