WHO Senior Policy Adviser Mackay wins BMJ's Lifetime Achievement Award
Judith Mackay, a senior policy adviser on tobacco control to the World Health Organization, has been awarded the British Medical Journal Group's first-ever Lifetime Achievement Award.
Dr Mackay was praised for her tireless and courageous campaigning on behalf of patients and public health care.
Dr Mackay was instrumental in developing the WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which obligates countries to control tobacco for the good of their populations. More than 160 countries have ratified to the international treaty.
Dr Mackay was given the award on Thursday, 2 April 2009, at a ceremony in London.
"Public health has always been the poor relation to curative medicine when it comes to funding and recognition," she said. "This award is therefore a great acknowledgment of the importance of public health in general, and tobacco control in particular. I think my biggest contribution has been motivating and supporting others, moving tobacco control in low-income countries from the very lonely job of a quarter of a century ago to one today involving hundreds of people.”