Alex Wodak, doctor, trained at St. Vincent's Hospital, Melbourne, then worked as a medical registrar in several London teaching hospitals before beginning research on alcoholic liver disease. In 1982 he became Director of the Alcohol and Drug Service at St. Vincent's Hospital, Darlinghurst. Here he developed his major interests, prevention of spread of HIV and hepatitis C among injecting drug users, brief interventions for problem drinkers, treatment of drug users in prison and drug policy reform. He helped establish Australia's first needle syringe program and Australia's first medically supervised injecting room, both of which have since become legal. One-time President of the Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation, and the President of the International Harm Reduction Association from 1996 to 2004, he is a member of a number of state and national committees including the National Expert Advisory Committee on Alcohol. He has often worked in developing countries to help control HIV infection among injecting drug users, and his recommendations attract increasing international interest. Wodak has published over 200 scientific papers, and co-wrote the book Drug Prohibition: a call for change (1996). He has recently been inducted into the Australian National Council on Drugs Hall of Fame.
