A medical company notorious for its controversial "sex" advertisements has come under fire from sexual health experts.
The Sydney Morning Herald reports that a House of Representatives public hearing last week heard a series of allegations over Advanced Medical Institute's tactics in its erectile dysfunction clinics.
AMI had taken out an injunction order against the newspaper to prevent it from reporting on the hearing but that was modified by the NSW Supreme Court yesterday.
The head of andrology at Concord Hospital's ANZAC Research Institute, Professor David Handelsman, told the hearing the company's advertising was harmful and destructive, and its claims of success with its treatments were a "carefully constructed legal fiction".
AMI has come under fire before for its advertising, with several incarnations of billboard ads being banned by the Advertising Standards Bureau in 2008. (Read more: 'Bonk' billboard follows sex ad ban)
"I've got to say, one of the most scarifying experiences as a medical practitioner I've had [was] seeing just how low quality this sort of medical care can," Professor Handelsman told the hearing.
David Malouf, the vice-president of the Urological Society of Australia and New Zealand, told the hearing he had treated former AMI patients suffering from prolonged erections, including a 17-year-old boy who had been prescribed penile injections.
CEO and founder of AMI, Jack Vaisman, was reportedly silent during the hearing.
Lawyer Richard Doyle, also an AMI shareholder, defended the company.
He said medications used by AMI had been tested overseas in clinical trials, and that more than 75 percent of complaints AMI received from patients were related to contractual issues, not medical issues.
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