On September Fourth, Nineteen Hundred and Ninety Three, on the Island of Kos, the members of the International Study Group of Diabetes in Children and Adolescents (ISGD), assembled at their nineteenth annual international scientific meeting and in the process of transforming ISGD into the International Society for Pediatric and Adolescent Diabetes (ISPAD), renewed their Hippocratic oath by proclaiming their commitment to implement the St Vincent Declaration to promote optimal health, social welfare and quality of life for all children and adolescents with diabetes around the world by the year 2000. They took this unique opportunity to reaffirm the commitments by diabetes specialists in the past and, in particular, unanimously pledged to work towards the following:

• to make insulin available for ALL children and adolescents with diabetes.
• to reduce the morbidity and mortality rate of acute metabolic complications or missed diagnosis related to diabetes mellitus.
• to make age-appropriate care and education accessible to ALL children and adolescents with diabetes as well as to their families.
• to increase the availability of appropriate urine and blood self-monitoring equipment for ALL children and adolescents with diabetes.
• to develop and encourage research on diabetes in children and adolescents around the world.
• to prepare and disseminate written guidelines and standards for practical and realistic care and education of young patients with diabetes - and their families - emphasizing the crucial role of health care professionals - and not just physicians - in these tasks around the world.