Source: The West Australian
Contact: FAX: +61 8 94823830
Pubdate: Wednesday, August 26, 1998
Author: Francesca Hodge

FUNDS ROW THREATENS DRUG TRIAL

Hospital ethics committee reviews naltrexone support.

STATE Government support for an experimental heroin addiction treatment
program is under threat with the imminent release of a report into a
Perth-based trial.

The Government allocated $180,000 to naltrexone trials, $60,000 of which
went to Subiaco doctor George O'Neil's program and $20,000 to the
University of WA's Department of Psychiatry.

Naltrexone stops addicts feeling high when they use heroin.

But the St John of God ethics committee, which originally approved the
trial design, said yesterday its support was under review. Committee
chairman Keith Wilson would not say why.

Earlier this month, a Commonwealth-appointed panel of experts headed by
former Fraser government minister Peter Baume investigated the program. Its
report, commissioned by the Therapeutic Goods Administration, is expected
next month.

WA Health Department mental health division head George Lipton said that
despite government funding, the department's commitment to Dr O'Neil's
naltrexone program extended only to data gathering and analysis. He said
concerns centred on whether it fitted the classification of a research
program.

But Dr O'Neil accused Professor Lipton and the Alcohol and Drug Authority,
of trying to discredit the program. He is expected to meet Health Minister
John Day tomorrow to ask why $100,000 of the $180,000 promised by the State
Government has not been released.

He said the ADA had been assigned a monitoring role when the trial was
first approved but it had refused to participate.

"It seems unreasonable to hold on to the other $100,000," be said. "We
believe public servants are ignoring the promises made by the Government."

"They are condemning us at a time when they haven't sent a single person
out to interview a single family. Without monitoring, I don't have a proper
trial and they've exposed the largest trial in the country to being
undermined ... by saying it's not proper."

But Dr O'Neil said the heroin problem was so severe, he believed doctors
would offer their services free if funding dried up.

Professor Lipton dismissed Dr O'Neil's claims as scurrilous.

He said while there had been a number of deaths associated with the
program, heroin addicts were a difficult population to treat.

"Our concern is to work out how safe it is," he said.

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Checked-by: Pat Dolan