Newcastle doctor Andrew Katelaris has had another stoush
with the Health Care Complaints Commission, after he injected two ovarian
cancer patients with black market cannabis oil.
The patients had consented to the experimental treatment.
 |
| Andrew Katelaris [Image: Getty Images] |
The HCCC have prohibited Dr Katelaris from injecting,
supplying and administering cannabis for medicinal use.
The decision was made after the HCCC found the injections “resulted
in serious adverse reactions and their [the patients] prolonged hospitalisation”.
“[Dr Katelaris] devised a hasty, ill-conceived and unsafe
clinical trial of injected cannabis oil as a treatment for malignant ascites,”
the HCCC said in a statement.
Dr Katelaris has been a long-time advocate for the use of
medicinal cannabis, and was deregistered more than a decade ago for supplying
cannabis to patients.
He was also charged with growing more than 50-thousand
cannabis plants near Dungog.
He said the use of cannabis oil was the best treatment for
the patients.
“They [the two patients] were both suffering severe peritoneal
carcinomatosis, with bowel obstructions – so it can’t really get much worse
than that,” he said.
“It was a desperate situation, which called for desperate
action.”
He also said the treatment was a partial success.
“One of the ladies – the one that we documented – actually had
a 50 percent reduction in her cancer markers,” he said.
“They [the HCCC] … ignored that in their, sort of, rushed
approach to prosecute the nasty, maverick Dr Katelaris, rather than actually
looking at what may have been achieved during these brief trials.”
The Turnbull Government have begun plans to introduce medicinal
cannabis for patients who need it, but Dr Katelaris said it’s all talk.
“There’s been a lot of rhetoric both from Turnbull and
Baird, and others about how much they’re doing to facilitate medical cannabis,”
he said.
“But at this stage, not single child or adult in this state,
or country, has received legal medical cannabis so it’s simply up to the
activists to fill that yawning hole.”
Despite the new restrictions put him, Dr Katelaris is going
to keep promoting medical cannabis’ benefits.
“The HCCC does what the HCCC does, and that’s retard
progress,” he said.
“We see this as another small step in a very, very long
march to have rational health therapy available for the population.
“The move to have medical cannabis widely accepted and
applied across a range of serious and currently intractable diseases is
unstoppable overseas.
“All that the establishment can do in this country is slow
it down.”
