The first WHO support for our food virology study was received at UW in 1967; it came from the Veterinary Public Health (VPH) division, which had primary responsibility for food safety at that time. Our principal contact at the time was Dr. Z. Matyáš, who was then the Food Hygienist in VPH. In September of 1969, I was invited to chair a small informal consultation on virus transmission via foods at the WHO in Geneva; most of those present studied animal viruses that might occur in foods, rather than viral pathogens of humans. I was appointed a WHO consultant on virus transmission through foods on that occasion-a designation that may still survive, but is not active. Further informal consultations were held in Geneva and in Brno, Czechoslovakia, over the next few years. In addition to nominal support for our research in food virology, WHO wanted an international system of information sharing, based eventually in our group. We were the Data Collection Centre for Food-borne Virus Disease and Research on Viruses in Foods, World Health Organization Food Virology Programme, from 1971 to 1975, after which we were designated the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre on Food Virology. What evolved was a three-part program: (1) the Data Collection comprised edge-punch cards, preprinted in the UK, on which bibliographic information and abstracts of pertinent publications were recorded with a typewriter; (2) a Request for Specific Information form was designed and made available to investigators worldwide, to be completed and mailed to Madison for response from the Data Collection; and (3) a List of Food Virologists, compiled largely from authors of articles in the Data Collection. Authors were contacted by mail at their address of record and asked to provide complete contact information and a brief (B25 words) description of their study. When as many responses had been received as seemed likely to come, a List was compiled and mailed to everyone on it. New Lists were undertaken at roughly 2-year intervals. This was a time when there were no computers, word processors, or Food Environ Virol (2010) 2:1-23 9