THE NSW Health Care Complaints Commission (HCCC) has issued a formal warning about the activities of the Medical Weightloss Institute which ceased trading a month ago.
The HCCC said it was aware of health practitioners, formerly associated with the organisation, who intended providing the same weight loss protocol which claims to utilise a "landmark discovery" linking hormones and weight gain.
An individualised program involves tailor-made prescription medication regimes based on a patient blood test, which the HCCC warns is "not evidence-based".
"The organisation is considered to have made extravagant claims not borne out by the weight of clinical researchers in this area," with the initial blood test described as "clinically spurious and designed to give an appearance of medical authenticity".
In practice the doctors wrote prescriptions for complementary and prescription medicines without seeing or examining clients in person, and a compounding pharmacy mailed the medication without the required accompanying information.
"A particularly vulnerable cohort of health consumers was convinced to part with large sums of money for pharmaceutical preparations that may have serious contraindications and side effects and for which there is no credible evidence of efficacy for weight loss," the HCCC warned.
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