Pharmacist Michael Serafin with Universal Medicine links struck off

A North Coast pharmacist who had for years been subject to restrictions on his registration has been banned from working in the profession for at least 18 months. Here’s why.

Ballina compounding pharmacist Dr Michael Serafin has been banned from practising for 18 months.

A Ballina pharmacist has had his registration cancelled for at least 18 months after a misconduct finding.

Dr Michael Serafin, who has owned and operated Complementary Compounding Services in Ballina since 2001, had been under a restricted registration for years.

But after a 60 day period, he will be entirely prevented from working as a pharmacist.

It comes after The Health Care Complaints Commission referred a complaint about Dr Serafin to the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal in October 2019.

That complaint has this month culminated in a decision that stripped him of his ability to work in the profession.

A panel of four tribunal members ruled Dr Serafin had engaged in unsatisfactory professional conduct and – more gravely – professional misconduct in the behaviours set out by the commission.

The complaint came after a patient was admitted to St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney in February 2016.

The patient had attended the iv.me Hydration Clinic where she received a “Myer’s Cocktail” vitamin infusion and glutathione injection.

While there was no suggestion Dr Serafin caused the condition that led to hospitalisation, it led the Pharmaceutical Regulatory Unit to investigate the hydration clinic and several NSW compounding pharmacies, including the Ballina pharmacy.

The Pharmacy Council of NSW imposed conditions on Dr Serafin’s registration in April 2016.

Those restrictions prohibited him from allowing products containing glutathione and/or Myer’s Cocktail mixtures to be compounded for parenteral use – that is administration other than oral use – at any pharmacy in which he has a pecuniary interest.

His registration was further restricted in March 2017, when he was banned from dispensing, supplying or compounding any products containing ketamine or otherwise allowing its supply in his pharmacy.

According to the tribunal judgment, Dr Serafin had voluntarily ceased dispensing ketamine in 2015.

During the recent proceedings, the tribunal further restricted him from supplying peptides and human growth hormone.

Dr Serafin told the tribunal he practised “integrative medicine”, which he said was “somewhere between a pharmaceutical model and naturopathic model”.

“We try to use evidence-based treatments to more holistically heal the body on a biochemical level,” he told the tribunal in 2020.

“It’s certainly evidence-based.”

The complaints related to the “inappropriate” compounding and dispensing of Myer’s Cocktail and glutathione at two “wellness clinics”, the dispensing of human growth hormone and ketamine.

Dr Serafin had argued to the tribunal the conduct alleged by the commission was “not of a sufficiently serious nature to justify the suspension or cancellation of his registration”.

While he argued there was no “deliberate departure from” or “indifference to accepted standards”, the commission disagreed.

Dr Michael Serafin, a compounding pharmacist who works out of Complementary Compounding Services on Tamar Street in Ballina, has had his registration struck off for at least 18 months. Picture: Liana Boss

Dr Serafin has previously been mentioned in an unrelated Professional Standards Committee Inquiry which led to the reprimand of, and conditions placed upon general practitioner Dr Samuel Tae-Kyu Kim.

Dr Kim was found to have inappropriately referred a patient to esoteric practitioners connected with the Universal Medicine group, which a jury in a defamation case later found to be a “socially harmful cult”.

The Professional Standards Board found Dr Kim, a member of Universal Medicine, “inappropriately” referred his patient to Dr Serafin for hormone replacement therapy in 2012 and she found his treatment was “not helpful”.

Dr Serafin appears on the UM-associated Unimed Living website in a video where he discusses the “guitar addiction” he experienced as a teen.

His social media includes posts that criticise mainstream medical views on Covid-19 and at least one relating to chemtrail conspiracy theories.

Tribunal orders cancelling his registration come into effect 60 days after February 1.

He cannot apply for a review of the decision for 18 months.

Complementary Compounding Services was approached for comment but staff explained Dr Serafin was unlikely to comment.

Other efforts to reach him have been unsuccessful.