Dr Alex Wodak AM is a physician who was Director of the Alcohol and Drug Service, St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney from 1982 until he retired in 2012. Together with colleagues he helped establish Australia’s first needle syringe program, Australia’s first Medically Supervised Injecting Centre, when both were pre-legal, the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, the Australian Society of HIV Medicine and the NSW Users AIDS Association. He was the Foundation President of the International Harm Reduction Association from 1996-2004. Major interests included prevention of blood borne viruses among and from people who inject drugs, drug harm reduction and drug law reform. Major interests since retiring have been drug law reform and vaping (as an example of tobacco harm reduction).
