Libido-suppressing drug Zoladex ...

By Louise Milligan
7 News
April 8, 2014

http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/22475759/libido-suppressing-drug-zoladex-should-be-on-pbs-to-treat-sex-offenders-psychiatrist-danny-sullivan-says/

Zoladex currently costs $1,500 per injection.

One of Australia's leading forensic psychiatrists is pushing for a libido-suppressing drug to be listed on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) to treat serial sex offenders.

Dr Danny Sullivan of Forensicare has worked with some of the most notorious rapists, paedophiles and killers in the Victorian criminal justice system.

Dr Sullivan says the drug, clinically known as an LHRH agonist and marketed as Zoladex, has been successful in reducing recidivism rates of sex offenders overseas, particularly in the US state of Oregon.

"In Oregon, the Government passed legislation in the early 1990s that all sexual offenders leaving prison would be assessed for medication to reduce their sexual drive," Dr Sullivan has told the ABC's 7.30 program.

"And the published studies very clearly have shown that of those assessed as needing it [and] who took it, reoffending rates were extraordinarily low," he said.

"Those who were assessed as needing it who refused to take it, around a third reoffended."

Zoladex is given by quarterly injection and without PBS subsidy it costs $1,500 per jab.

While Dr Sullivan says the drug is not a panacea for all sex offenders, he says it and another drug currently available in Australia, known as Cyproterone, are far cheaper than the cost of keeping offenders in prison indefinitely.

"The current evidence suggests that a month's supply of Cyproterone or four days of the LHRH agonists probably equates to about a day in prison," Dr Sullivan said.

LHRH agonists, which are prescribed to thousands of Australian men for the treatment of prostate cancer, have far fewer side-effects than Cyproterone, which can cause liver failure, cancer and the development of breasts in men.

This has caused controversy in Western Australia, where GPs have refused to prescribe Cyproterone to sex offenders mandated by court to take the drug because the doctors are worried about their patients' health.

LHRH agonists, on the other hand, can cause problems with bone density and tiredness, but Dr Sullivan says they are generally better-tolerated than Cyproterone.

Former NSW shadow attorney-general Andrew Tink, who is on the LHRH agonist Zoladex for his prostate cancer, says the side-effects are entirely manageable and should be weighed against the benefit to society of putting sex offenders on the treatment.

"What it means [is] that the switch in my brain which provides my sex drive is turned off. It's as good as castration," Mr Tink said.

"It just strikes me that the drug I'm on presents a way of dealing with people who remain a menace once they're released from whatever jail term a court's imposed on them."

Mr Tink chose to speak to 7.30 about the intensely personal subject because he believes it is for the greater good.

He has made a submission to a NSW parliamentary inquiry looking into sentencing regimes for sex offenders.

Mr Tink says he manages the side effects of the drug with daily exercise and a good diet.

"Whatever the inconvenience is for a sex offender on the drug I'm on, it's just diddly squat compared to the incredible trauma that sexual assault victims suffer," he said.

It is a view shared by childhood sexual assault victim Richard Jabara, who as a 13-year-old was raped by Catholic priest and serial child abuser Terence Pidoto.

"If there's a drug or there's some kind of treatment that can reduce or try to eliminate a paedophile from attacking another young boy, or girl, then I say all the better," Mr Jabara said.