Chapter 80 - Australia

Abstract

During the early part of the 20th century, there was a general acceptance in Australia that therapeutic compounds provided great benefits and their potential risks were not emphasized. Nonetheless, there were some notable local episodes of medicinal toxicities, including the chronic overuse between the 1950s and 1970s of very popular analgesic “APC” powders (a mixture of aspirin, phenacetin, and caffeine) that produced gastric ulcers and an epidemic of chronic renal failure (“analgesic nephropathy”) in Australia. However, it was the thalidomide episode in Australia (marketed between 1957 and 1961), which led to the establishment in 1963 of the Australian Drug Evaluation Committee (ADEC) as an independent committee to advise on drug safety. The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA, Australian equivalent to FDA) and ADEC have since played a pivotal role in the genesis of Australia's drug regulatory system. The recent rapid increase in public use and access to complementary medicines, resulting in both adverse reactions and interactions with pharmaceuticals, has raised concerns throughout Australia about the appropriate regulation of these therapies. This led to the establishment of a specific evaluation committee within the TGA in 1997, and additional government reforms and regulations followed. Intensive agricultural practices during the 200 years of European settlement have seen the extensive use of pesticides and herbicides to control insect pests and introduced noxious weeds. Important examples include: the ongoing legacy of contaminated sites from arsenic trioxide cattle dip baths used between 1895 and 1950 to control cattle tick infestations originating from Java; and more recently, the excessive use of organochlorine insecticides to control the heliothis moth, a devastating and increasingly resistant cotton pest.