The Health Department had stopped a hormone treatment program, and encouraged all patients who had received treatment to be contacted urgently after reports of four deaths overseas.

A spokesman for the Health Department said the Australian Growth Hormone Program had been stopped purely as a precautionary measure. The program was to promote growth in stunted children with the hormone hGH, and also treated some types of infertility in women with the hormone hPG.

In the US, the US National Hormone and Pituitary Program, had been suspended along with the United Kingdom Growth Hormone Program. The moves were prompted by the recent deaths of patients who had received the hormone in recent years in the US and in Britain.

All doctors in Australia had been told to immediately stop the use of hGH and hPG to treat patients. Instructions that only the growth hormones available to children suffering from low blood sugar should remain, because the condition was uncontrolled by any other therapy.

The program was set to be re-assessed the following month, after a meeting of hormone specialists in Baltimore, US.

All patients treated with hGH and hPG were being urged to contact Mr Sam Wong, secretary of the departments Pituitary Advisory Committee.

See: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/page/13756564