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Dr. David Yen Memorial Lecture
Dr David Yen (1921-2002)
Chairman of the John Tung Foundation, and First Honorary Life President of APACT
Dr Judith Mackay
13th Asia Pacific Conference on Tobacco or Health
Bangkok, Thailand
3-4 September 2021
The late Dr David Yen was one of the three revered grandfathers of tobacco control in Asia, along with the late Dr Takeshi Hirayama in Japan and Dr Weng Xin Zhi in China.
Dr Yen was born to a well-off family in Shanghai in 1921. After studying in China, Japan and the USA, Dr Yen went into business in Brazil, then finally settled in Taiwan in 1965. He mastered six languages including Japanese, Spanish, Portuguese, and English.
He started smoking at the age of 11 years and chain smoked 40 cigarettes a day for over 40 years. This led to removal of his right lung at the age of 52. From that moment on, he dedicated his life to reducing tobacco use.
During the 1980s, the trade arm of the US government threatening several countries in Asia with unilateral trade sanctions unless these countries opened their markets to, and allowed advertising of, US tobacco products, even in countries with national advertising bans. Dr Yen decided that a regional organisation and a pan-Asian strategy were needed to combat these threats, so in 1989 he founded and funded the Asia Pacific Association for the Control of Tobacco (APACT), of which he later became Honorary Life President. APACT submitted a petition to the US government and lobbied the US Congress, urging it to stop using trade threats on tobacco.
Currently, APACT has members from virtually all the countries in the region. David Yen’s vision of an Asian family has become reality.
Dr Yen was a kind and generous man, but one whose relentless devotion to the anti-tobacco movement won him the title of "Lin Zhe Xu of the modern world" after the Qing dynasty official whose ban on the import of opium led to the Opium War in the 19th century.
Without exception, tobacco control advocates around Asia revere Dr Yen for his pioneering work.
He received many honours and awards, including the World Health Organization Commemorative Medal, a prestigious royal award from the King of Thailand, and a Buddhist Compassion Award. Learning that he had also received “The Man With Good Heart Award” made me smile and remember him fondly.
So, what would Dr Yen have wished for today?
He would have wished us to continue with the APACT family, to give birth to new generations of advocates; and to learn from, and support, each other.
He would have wished for a better future for the youth of Asia, free from the addiction of all forms of tobacco.
Which brings me to today’s speaker for this Memorial Lecture.
Simon Chapman is Emeritus Professor in Public Health at the University of Sydney, Australia.
In 1997 he won the World Health Organisation's World No Tobacco Day Medal and in 2003 he was awarded the American Cancer Society’s Luther Terry Award for outstanding individual leadership in tobacco control.
In 2008 he won the NSW Premier’s Cancer Researcher of the Year medal.
He was foundation deputy editor then editor of the BMJ’s, Tobacco Control across 17 years.
In 2013 he was made an Officer in the Order of Australia for his contributions to public health. This is the second highest civic honour bestowed on Australian citizens by the Governor General.
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