DOCTOR IN BID TO OVERTURN BAN

A controversial Brisbane doctor has launched legal action in a bid to
overturn a ban on him inserting naltrexone implants in heroin addicts.

Dr Stuart Reece's appeal to the Health Practitioners Tribunal yesterday
says the Medical Board of Queensland erred in its decision to restrict his
treatment of drug-dependent patients.

A special meeting of the board on May 29 this year decided Dr Reece must
not insert any further implants in any of his patients.

The board said it reasonably believes that he poses an imminent threat to
the well-being of vulnerable persons and that immediate action is necessary
to protect the vulnerable persons.

Dr Reece's appeal claims the Medical Board has deprived heroin addicts from
taking advantage of his skills and has denied him natural justice and the
ability to fully use his skills.

The appeal also claims the Medical Board "had no evidence before it that
the safety and efficacy of naltrexone delivered by means of implantation
was more hazardous than oral naltrexone".

Dr Reece and his clinical practice have been sharply criticised as well as
lauded by medical experts, patients and parents since a Courier-Mail
investigation in May.

Medical authorities fear his aggressive use of oral naltrexone, which
blocks the effects of heroin, has contributed to the death rate among
addicts whose tolerance falls when they relapse.

Dr Reece knows of at least 24 deaths among the 850-odd patients he has
treated for heroin addiction since 1998.

But parents and patients see the Christian fundamentalist as an evangelical
saviour and have been desperately lobbying authorities on his behalf.

The Perth-made implants have helped an unknown number of patients stay off
heroin, but also have been condemned by others who self-mutilate their
abdomens to cut them out or use massive doses of heroin in attempts to
over-ride the naltrexone.

The implants are not approved for human beings in any Australian
jurisdiction, but a handful of doctors has used a special provision in the
Therapeutic Goods Act to justify using them.

The suitability of Dr Reece's patients is one of the issues being examined
by the Medical Board's special investigator, whose inquiry into all aspects
of his clinical practice is ongoing.

The University of Queensland's Professor John Saunders, a naltrexone expert
who supported the Medical Board's action, said the implants must be
subjected to a proper research and development program and controlled trials.

However, Sydney naltrexone specialist Jon Currie said implants were the way
of the future and predicted that in five years Queensland authorities would
be embarrassed by their action.

District Court Judge Kerry O'Brien is to hear Dr Reece's appeal in October.