As seen in this FOI request to NDIA CEO Martian Hoffman the NDIA has admitted to using the 2002 Australian guidelines as well as the 2007 NICE guidelines from the UK (whilst the Australian guidelines are still under review with the NMHRC).
How old does medical literature need to be before it is out of date and viewed as an unreliable source?
In general, medical literature should be no more than 5 years old due to how quick science can progress, and automatically expire at 10 years old especially if there is nothing to replace it.
This means the Australian treatment guidelines are almost 20 years old and missing crucial science progresses such as:
- Griffith University’s (NCNED) breakthrough on cellular dysfunction
- Cochrance’s formal discrediting of CBT as an evidence based treatment for ME due to lack of evidence
- The workwell foundation’s evidence of PEM with 2 day CPET testing
- NICE's literature review stating that CBT and GET are "low and very low quality"
- Stanford University’s identification of a biomarker via their nanoneedle technology and much more important peer reviewed literature that has not been mentioned.
The concerning thing is the NDIA has been using these guidelines to guide their ability to accept or reject applications of plans, supports and services such as Assistive technology, SIL and SDA.
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So what will the changes to NICE treatment guidelines mean for Australia?
The release of the NICE UK treatment guidelines means that the Australian government are using two treatment guidelines are in direct conflict with each other.
In the meantime we will now work to re-establish which treatment guidelines the NDIA will follow moving forward, and recommend that as best practice the dangerous expired 2002 Australian guidelines are not to be used.
Also if the agency are still referring to the UK’s NICE guidelines while they await the NMHRC release their version (Currently the NMHRC have not released an expected publication timeline) then they should use the now updated NICE guidelines to be released later this year.
Another question for the disability royal commission is what is the legal recourse for patients that have been advised dangerous medical/allied health treatments that were currently expired or under review?