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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2010-05-25 Daily Xml
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ADVANCED MEDICAL INSTITUTE

The Hon. S.W. KEY (Ashford) (15:33): I have registered my concerns in this house and with both the federal and state ministers about the operation of Advanced Medical Institute (AMI) and its claims of being able to cure sexual dysfunction and problems for men and, more recently, for women.

I read an excellent article in The Age on 22 February this year. Reporter Mark Hawthorne, on page 2 of an article entitled (unfortunately) 'Sex spray empire facing stiff opposition', outlined action taken by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) against the Advanced Medical Institute. What he reports is that—and this would have been in February:

Fifty officers from the [ACCC] raided the headquarters of AMI Australia Holdings in Sydney last week. The officers entered the AMI office in Darlinghurst at 9am on Wednesday, and carted documents out of the building over the next 11 hours.

He goes on to say that, in fact, this is not the first time that the ACCC has looked into AMI. He states:

Back in 2003, the ACCC prosecuted AMI over a number of misleading claims the company has made in advertising, including the promise to make a full refund if the treatment proved ineffective.

In 2006, AMI was prosecuted by the ACCC again, this time for engaging in 'deceptive and misleading behaviour' after television celebrity Ian Turpie admitted his endorsement of AMI's treatments, and statement it had cured his impotence, was a 'complete fabrication'.

Over the past 14 years I understand that Mr Vaisman, who runs AMI Australia, has built this company into a $50 million empire. As I have already recorded in this place, due to the number of complaints I have received from people (who did not want to be identified) and also discussions I have had with many health professionals (including CEO Kaisu Vartto from the Sexual Health Information Networking and Education SA Inc., fortunately known as SHine), I requested that the issue be examined at a federal level.

Ms Vartto and I met with Steve Georganas, the federal member for Hindmarsh, on this matter, and my reasons for meeting with Mr Georganas were twofold. Amongst the many complaints I had received about AMI, there were a few constituents from Ashford, and also part of Hindmarsh. With the exception of five young women who made complaints to me about AMI (and I have reported about that in the past in this house), most of the complainants were older men, and these men were reluctant to identify themselves publicly and embarrassed to have used AMI products—and, I might say, to no avail. They were also very embarrassed talking to me about this issue, but I am pleased to say that they did so.

Mr Georganas is the presiding member of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Health and Ageing, and he initiated an inquiry into AMI last year through that committee. I understand that the committee found that AMI's treatments were medically unproven and needed to be examined, and this has been passed on to the Therapeutic Goods Administration. The committee also heard of examples where AMI used predatory tactics and unethical medical practices to sell their products.

It is interesting to note when you look at AMI's most recent annual report of 2007-08 that it outlines that the organisation spent $19.87 million on advertising, as opposed to $3.7 million on medical supplies. This does, of course, raise questions about the success of getting rid of AMI when it pumps so much money into advertising; and is it in the media's interests to see AMI disappear?

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