Background of Australian Human Pituitary Hormone Program

Two thousand one hundred Australians were treated with human pituitary hormones under the Australian Human Pituitary HormoneProgram(AHPHP) which ran in Australia from 1967 until 1985.

In similar programs in overseas countries, the majority of recipients of human pituitary hormones (hPH) were treated with human growth hormones (hGH for short statue, but in Australia the Australian Human Pituitary Hormone Program (AHPHP) treated approximately 1570 woman and about 60 men for infertility with human pituitary gonadotrophin (hPG) and approximately 660 children were treated for short statue with human growth hormone (hGH).

Five Australians may so far have developed and died from health care associated (iatrogenic) Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) as a result of receiving hPH treatment . The program was suspended in 1985 following CJD deaths of recipients of hGH in the United States.

All those treated with hPH are at low risk of developing CJD, as there is no way of knowing if batches received by recipients were contaminated, and to date, there is no test to establish if recipients are incubating CJD.

The AHPHP was run under the auspices of the Commonwealth Department of Health. The hormones were manufactured by the then government owned Commonwealth Serum Laboratory in Melbourne.

The AHPHP was conceived and operated by the Human Pituitary Advisory Committee (HPAC) until its activities ceased in 1985. The committee was disbanded.

Intense media and political pressure followed as the families of the hPH recipients who had died of CJD called for an explanation. The then Minister for Health, Senator Graham Richardson, ordered an Independent Inquiry into the use of human pituitary hormones relating to CJD deaths in Australia.

Professor Margaret Allars conducted the Inquiry for over 12 months, reporting in June 1994.

The Inquiry made a number of recommendations concerning the care of recipients, establishment of support services and the establishment of a ministerial advisory council.

The recipients of hPH, now live with a health status of being at “low risk” of CJD. The current infection control guidelines refer to “low risk” patients. Recipients and their families also live with anxiety contributed to the threat of contracting a disease which can lay dormant for decades and for which there is no test, treatment or cure.