Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

On 21 March 2013 I sat down next to one of the victims of the forced adoption policies in the Great Hall of this parliament. We had a while to wait for the commencement of the ceremony and so we talked about his life, the sad life that he has had. He has had even more tragedies visited upon him since the initial trauma of his removal from his mother as a newborn. It seems that this incredibly courageous and stoical man, now in his fifties, was one of the many who, perhaps because of diminished responsibility or care, became one of the great many who were subject to medical experimentation, and so he now has serious ongoing health problems.

Michael explained that a series of invasive procedures and the administration of dangerous and, as it turned out, sometimes contaminated drugs left him sterile, stunted and with prostate disease. This he developed when he was still a teenager. He has also had cancer since he was 25. He has suffered, and continues to suffer, a great deal. This very special man, who has given me permission to use his name and pass on his story, has been advocating for proper compensation for himself and his fellow sufferers who were also used as medical guinea pigs in the 1960s and 1970s. More than 200 boys were subject to these treatments, usually prompted by them being short. It was then referred to as 'a failure to thrive'.

Michael O'Meara was born to his then unwed mother in 1961 at the Royal Women's Hospital in Melbourne. His mother wed a few months later. Michael did find and meet his mother in 1989, but tragically she died of cancer shortly after. When his mother was in labour delivering Michael, she was administered LSD as a sedative. This further complicated the birth and affected the baby's kidneys. Michael was recruited into the growth hormone clinic at Prince Henry's Hospital in 1972 when he was just 10 years old. He was subjected to deep sleep therapy in April 1972. At this time he was administered the human growth hormone using products from cadavers. It has since been found that some of this material was contaminated, with a number of young recipients subsequently contracting and dying of the deadly Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, or CJD.

On Monday, 16 June 2008 the Hon. Fran Bailey MP put a private member's motion into the House calling on the government to recognise the 'unapproved' recipients of hormone treatments, including the young men and boys like Michael, who received the human growth hormone treatments between the 1960s and the mid 1980s. The motion acknowledged that the report commissioned in 1993, known as the Allars inquiry, found that approved female patients receiving the same treatment, but for infertility, suffered similar negative effects and as a result of that report received compensation from the Commonwealth. Finally, Ms Bailey's motion called for the compensation of the male victims, both 'approved' and 'unofficial', who received the same hormone treatment but usually for growth stimulation purposes.

During the decades of this extraordinary period of medical experimentation on vulnerable young people, some were officially recognised and therefore were designated as 'approved' recipients of the drugs and procedures. Others, however, and that would seem hundreds, were not officially approved victims who received, however, the same treatment by medical practitioners. These unapproved recipients now have great difficulty obtaining their medical records or proper regard for their plight and their need for compensation. The disease CJD, one of the deadly consequences of experimentation with the human growth hormones, has a long incubation period which may extend for years. When it manifests itself, the dementia progresses rapidly until the patient dies a terrible death. It is one of the most terrible of human diseases. There is no easy test other than a brain biopsy that can confirm CJD.

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 17:30 to 17:57

) ( ): There is no easy test other than a brain biopsy that can confirm CJD, so these young boys—now men in their 40s and 50s—live with a time bomb, suffering this uncertainty at the same time that they suffer from the other health impacts of the treatments they received years before. In Michael's case he must spend many dollars each month buying medication that treats his conditions. Surely it is time that these injustices are recognised.

The 800-page report of the Allars inquiry made a very clear case for compensation for victims. I refer to the remarks of Dr Mal Washer MP, who participated in the 2008 debate on the Fran Bailey private member's motion. He highlighted how the Allars inquiry had identified

… failures in the production of product, including the collection of pituitary glands; failures in supervision of the product and programs by government agencies, including the health department, the National Biological Standards Laboratory and the Human Pituitary Advisory Committee, or HPAC; and failures of appropriate action undertaken by the department following suspension of the program in 1985. There were inadequacies in tracing the recipients, the information provided, the epidemiological studies, and blood and organ donation.

Successive governments have failed to take up the cause, although Fran Bailey's motion received bipartisan support at the time.

It is Michael's view that his status as an adopted child born of an unwed mother made him more vulnerable to this careless use of his young body.

As well as being treated with human growth hormone, an unknown number of pre-pubertal and adolescent boys who were short were treated with synthetic androgens or steroids to accelerate their growth after being primed with human growth hormones. This causes prostate disease for some and sterilised an unknown number of these boys. Many of these boys fell into the 'unapproved' category of patients, given that they were treated by medical practitioners who did not officially record all the details of the children they treated.

I was deeply moved by the story told to me by Michael O'Meara in the Great Hall on the day of the formal apology for survivors of governments' forced adoption policies in our country. I am in awe of Michael's dignity and patience as he strives to bring justice for himself and his fellow victims. No doubt Michael will continue to suffer as no human should because our nation failed in its duty of care in regard to his wellbeing. Sadly for Michael, he did not only suffer the ultimate tragedy of separation at birth from the woman who was his mother and who undoubtedly would have loved him. She was drugged and she could not ever know the struggles of her newborn just to draw his first breath. But her baby went on to suffer as a child and then as a man because governments failed to do the right thing by him. I call on the government to revisit the Allars inquiry and offer the same support and compensation as that which was offered and gratefully accepted by the women who were treated at the same time. Obviously Michael's story is just one of the many human tragedies that make up the thousands of stories that deal with the forced adoptions that took place in Australia over many decades in the 20th century.

I think the official apology we gave was long overdue. It was magnificent in the way that it was addressed, I believe, in the appropriate ceremony and with very carefully chosen words from both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott. I stand by that apology, as I think most Australians would. Let us hope that that episode in our history is never repeated in any form and that we never again treat some children as less valuable or their mothers as having less value simply because of their marital status. I very much commend this motion to the House.

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