17:05
A Victorian coroner has reported what's believed to be the first known death in Australia linked to the use of unapproved peptides. Coroner David Ryan examined the death of Richard Norton, a martial artist who was an actor and stuntman involved in the film and TV industry. For more, his national health equity reporter Rachel Carbonel. Uh Rachel, so what do we know about Richard Norton and how he died? The coroner's findings do make for very sad reading. Uh what we know is that Mr. Norton had injected himself with a dose of two unapproved peptides called CJC1295 and Iper Morelin. Now um the coroner found that he had a cardiac arrest that
taking those peptides was uh what triggered ultimately his death. He collapsed in his home after he'd taken a dose of it became unresponsive. Uh CPR was performed. He was taken to hospital and unfortunately he later died in hospital. So um yeah it was very sad reading. The doctor prescribed the peptides to Richard Norton but these drugs are unapproved. Can you explain how that works? It's it's a really tricky question that question because as you probably know if you've been following the media coverage of peptides a lot these peptides are unapproved and a lot of people are getting them on the internet and that's not legal
because they their safety and their efficacy are not proven and it's not something that the TGA has listed on their therapeutic goods register. However, there are some pathways in which they can be prescribed. So the TGA regulates the medicines but then doctors are regulated by the medical regulator and there are some pathways where you can do it. Now that's intended for um situations where a really important maybe experimental cancer drug might not be available and things like that. So there are pathways where doctors can prescribe those drugs and um and that's what happened in this case.
They were prescribed and then they were compounded by a licensed uh compounding pharmacy. I should note that um the coroner's report went into what the doctor did in this case and he did take a full medical history and discuss all of the risks and the experimental nature of these peptides and um and sort of performed a lot of clinical duties but a medical board of Australia investigation uh into the prescribing of these drugs felt found that his sort of recordkeeping had fallen short and regulatory action wasn't taken against that doctor in the end he received a caution and some conditions imposed and he in the findings expressed um you know his sadness about what had happened and has undertaken to um do some of those things
that were recommended by the medical board. So overall what's the coroner recommending Rachel? Well, because of those two regulators overseeing this issue, it recommended that the Therapeutic Goods Administration, which is the medicine's regulator, should do another review into the safety and risks of peptides such as the two peptides in this case, and should consider tougher restrictions. It's something I speak to the TGA regularly in my job, and I know it's something that they're looking into. So, it'll be interesting to see what they do in response to this coronial recommendation.
