Harvey hits back
March 4, 2014
Dr Ken Harvey has returned fire
in the ongoing discussion around La
Trobe University’s $15m deal with
Swisse to form a complementary
health research centre (PD 04 Feb).
In a five page release, Swisse
Wellness ceo Radek Sali said the
top 10 patent protected drugs
prescribed by doctors relied on
efficacy from research that was
industry funded (PD 03 Mar).
Dr Harvey, who resigned as
adjunct associate professor of
public health with La Trobe in
protest at the deal (PD 06 Feb),
said this was not true, and that
most research on efficacy was
undertaken prior to marketing
and used as part of an application
for product registration, where it
was independently assessed by
regulators.
“Swisse products are listed by the
TGA; a process that requires no premarket
evaluation of efficacy.
“However, the sponsors of
listed products are meant to hold
purity, safety and efficacy data
for potential audit, compatible
with the product labelling and
advertising claims.
“So if a company needs to find
this evidence after marketing it
would seem that their listing claim
must be dubious.”
Harvey also said Swisse and
other supplement companies’
products generally contained a
mix of ingredients, and so results
could not be extrapolated to other
products which did not have an
identical formulation.
“Thus other supplement
companies cannot benefit from
such research.”
Sali called Harvey’s resignation a
“publicity stunt”, to which Harvey
said he had received many requests
to “keep on keeping on” following
publicity around the deal.
He said he had accepted an offer
of adjunct associate professor
at another university that had
refused the Swisse offer, and
had accordingly postponed his
retirement.
“Swisse will be pleased to know
that I have more complaints about
the promotion of complementary
medicines (and the ineffectiveness
of the regulators) currently in
train.”
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