Healthy Skepticism Library item: 16309

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Publication type: news

Burke K
'Predatory' sex clinic under fire
The Sydney Morning Herald 2009 Aug 26
http://www.smh.com.au/national/predatory-sex-clinic-under-fire-20090825-ey3h.html

Full text:

PERNICIOUS, nasty, coercive and deplorable. The company notorious for its relentless ‘‘longer lasting sex’‘ advertisements has faced a barrage of accusations from sexual health experts.

Yesterday an injunction taken out by the Advanced Medical Institute in June was partially varied by the Supreme Court to enable the Herald to report on a House of Representatives public hearing that took place on Friday.

AMI’s chief executive and founder, the Ukrainian-born medical entrepreneur Jack Vaisman, sat in silence during the five-hour hearing as the standing committee on health and ageing heard a litany of allegations over predatory tactics and unethical medical practices in his erectile dysfunction clinics, known widely for their nasal spray treatments.

Longer sex row: Vaisman hits out
Listen as AMI boss Jack Vaisman hits back at critics of his company’s practices.
Chris McMahon, the director of the Australian Centre for Sexual Health, told the hearing that AMI was ‘‘concerned with its balance sheet rather than patient need’‘ and that the practice of prescribing medicines over the telephone was a ‘‘casual, cavalier, careless and expedient’‘ approach that should be deplored.

David Handelsman, the head of andrology at Concord Hospital’s ANZAC Research Institute, said AMI’s advertising was pernicious and destructive, and its claims of efficacy for its erectile dysfunction treatments were a carefully constructed legal fiction.

Professor Handelsman told the hearing he had first come across Mr Vaisman more than a decade ago, when he was sitting on a Health Care Complaints Commission inquiry called by the NSW Government into an earlier Vaisman company, On Clinic.

‘‘I’ve got to say, one of the most scarifying experiences as a medical practitioner I’ve had [was] seeing just how low quality this sort of medical care can be,’‘ he said. ‘‘It really shouldn’t occur in Australia in the 21st century … It goes back to a pre-thalidomide type of regulatory standards.’‘

David Malouf, the vice-president of the Urological Society of Australia and New Zealand, said he believed AMI displayed serious inappropriate clinical practice. Dr Malouf said he had treated former AMI patients who had suffered painful priapisms (prolonged erections), including one 17-year-old who had been prescribed penile injections.

Doug Lording, from Melbourne’s Andrology Centre, described AMI’s practice of locking patients into long-term contracts costing thousands of dollars as pernicious, nasty and unethical.

Almost all of the medical experts expressed concern that AMI did not inform patients of clinically proved alternatives such as Viagra, or warn them about possible side effects.

While Mr Vaisman did not speak during the hearing other than to state his name, his legal representative, who is also an AMI shareholder, Richard Doyle, strongly defended the company and denied the allegations.

He said a survey the company had conducted of 30 non-AMI doctors found most, including Dr McMahon, did not conduct a physical examination, while one-third did not give any advice on side effects for the drugs they were prescribing, nor give advice on alternative treatments.

He said the medications AMI used had been the subject of overseas clinical trials.

‘‘If there were major adverse health outcomes … then there would have been an outcry some time ago.’‘

More than 75 per cent of complaints AMI received from patients related to contractual, not medical, issues and of those, the complaints were largely about minor irritations.

Mr Doyle said the fact that one-third of patients who contacted AMI were refused prescriptions because of underlying medical conditions was proof the company put the welfare of its patients before profits.

But when asked why patients were tied to costly long-term contracts, he said: ‘‘We are a commercial enterprise and we are entitled to do whatever we wish to as long as we comply with the law.’‘

The committee has called for submissions to the inquiry to be filed within two weeks.