Switch To Detox
Newcastle Herald
Saturday May 15, 1999
CONTROVERSIAL Newcastle GP Dr Philip Furey will prescribe Naltrexone to heroin addicts within the next month, despite being under investigation for illegally prescribing methadone.
Despite a NSW Health Department investigation which could see him deregistered, fined or even jailed, Dr Furey travelled to Perth this week to study its Naltrexone program.
On his return, he plans to prescribe the experimental new drug Naltrexone in tablet form to some of his 30 methadone patients.
`I will definitely be doing oral prescriptions,' Dr Furey said from the Sheraton Hotel in Perth this week.
`It's perfectly legal and ethical. I'm not trying to abuse the rules.'
But Dr Furey won't stop there. He also hopes to eventually conduct his own form of `semi-rapid' detoxification in his rooms and establish a general detox clinic at his Watt St practice.
Naltrexone, an anti-addiction which competes for the same human receptors as opiates to cancel the effects of heroin and alcohol, was fast-tracked for registration by the Australian Drug Evaluation Committee in March.
Approval enables any doctor, including general practitioners, to prescribe it for heroin and alcohol addiction but not for rapid detoxification.
Perth doctor George O'Neil, whose main practice is gynaecology and obstetrics, has become known as an expert in the new field.
While trials have involved patients undergoing a four-hour rapid detox with the drug under general anaesthetic and taking Naltrexone tablets for up to a year, Dr Furey said Dr O'Neil's methods were less formal.
`The public perception with rapid detox is a person in hospital with a bed,' Dr Furey said.
`To do it the way he is doing it, is just like giving a shot of valium in the surgery.
`If there are hurdles and I can't use the rapid detox method so be it.'
Previously desperate heroin addicts have paid up to $30,000 for treatments, but the drug will cost about $180 a month. Furey's rage, Weekend
© 1999 Newcastle Herald