Dr Peter Eng: Simon Crean defends GP suspended for ‘unapproved’ amygdalin doses in VCAT

Melbourne royalty, including a former federal Labor leader and former Supreme Court Justice, came out swinging for an embattled GP.

Melbourne royalty — including a former leader of the federal Labor Party — have made a passionate defence of a controversial GP, despite the Medical Board of Australia insisting the doctor remains a risk to the public.

Dr Peter Eng, 84, injected a terminally-ill cancer patient with amygdalin — a highly toxic substance whose use is heavily governed in Australia — in November 2020 without knowing where the drug came from and without knowing it was banned, VCAT heard on Tuesday.

But Dr Eng’s lawyer insisted that his client, who received a glowing reference from former federal Labor leader Simon Crean, was the victim of an impenetrable legislative framework and that the Board’s actions were a “very serious interference in patient autonomy”.

VCAT, to whom Dr Eng successfully appealed for a stay on his suspension, heard that the former Middle Park practitioner injected a woman with stage four cancer in breast, liver and bones with amygdalin – but that the patient remains alive and is eager for Dr Eng’s return.

As of late last night, Dr Eng will be allowed to resume the practice of medicine.

The use of amygdalin is prohibited by the Therapeutic Goods Administration, except for strict exemptions, due to its highly poisonous nature.

The TGA classify it as of “such danger to human health as to warrant prohibition”.

In his oral evidence Mr Crean, who served as a Minister in the Hawke, Keating, Rudd and Gillard governments, said Dr Eng had been the trusted doctor of his wife, daughters and parents.

Since their meeting in 1970, Mr Crean said Dr Eng had been caring and reliable, and of unimpeachable trustworthiness.

Stephen Moloney, for Dr Eng, described the laws governing amygdalin as “labrynthine” and insisted the only error his client made was to inform the federal authorities too late.

Mr Moloney described Dr Eng as a “practitioner of significant experience, significant standing, and significant reputation,” and told VCAT that his ongoing suspension was depriving terminally ill patients of their preferred care.

Referring to the patient who received the amygdalin from Dr Eng, he said “she is alive and she should be able to access Dr Eng to get her through these final days”.

Mr Maloney said that Dr Eng went to the relevant authorities to seek approval for the drug, but has received a “disproportionate” punishment for failing to fill out a requisite form.

He said that a transcript of a phone conversation between Dr Eng’s secretary and federal authorities in 2020 essentially gave him the green light to administer the drug, due to the ‘Category A’ nature of the patient.

Former Justice of the Victorian Supreme Court Tony Pagone, who used Dr Eng as his GP, said “his credit is beyond reproach”.

In a stern rebuke Duncan Chisholm, for the Board, said that the malpractice of using a substance given to him by a patient and without knowledge of its concentrations, combined with his ignorance over the drug‘s poison listing, raised concerns over Dr Eng’s clinical judgment and practice.

“It‘s authenticity, it’s concentration, et cetera were, in many respects, a mystery,” Mr Chisholm said.

“It could have been any substance in theory – that is of concern,” he said.

He said that the fact Dr Eng was provided with a consent form, but had failed to check if amygdalin was a scheduled drug, raised serious questions over whether the patient received informed consent.

Mr Chisholm said that taken together, the objective circumstances “give the flavour of a practitioner who poses a risk to patients”.