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Lifetime Achievement Award shortlist: Professor Judith Longstaff Mackay

BMJ 2009; 338 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.b273 (Published 29 January 2009) Cite this as: BMJ 2009;338:b273

Judith Mackay was a lone voice when she started campaigning against the tobacco industry in Asia in 1984. The impact of her activities was illustrated by her being labelled “one of the three most dangerous people in the world” by the industry only five years later and being voted one of Time magazine’s “60 Asian Heroes” in 2006.

Based in Hong Kong since 1967, and working as a hospital physician until 1984, she took a stand on public health issues, writing a weekly newspaper column on health topics, publishing the first survey in the region on spouse abuse, and chairing the committee that established the first refuge for battered women in Asia.

Since becoming a full-time public health advocate in 1984, Professor Mackay has worked with most of the governments in the Western Pacific to help them establish national tobacco control legislation and taxation policies. Much of her work has been with China.

At a global level, she is a consultant to the World Health Organization and was instrumental in developing the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which is now ratified by 162 countries. She is currently director of the Asian Consultancy on Tobacco Control, senior advisor to the World Lung Foundation, and senior advisor to WHO and a range of tobacco control organisations throughout Asia.

Notes

Cite this as: BMJ 2009;338:b273

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