Australia has the third highest rate of anti-depressant use in the western world. My question on the rate of anti-depressant use was clearly not one the Minister or the Department were expecting. To our health authorities, a positive outcome is getting a pharmaceutical product into someone’s body and calling the job done. Yet non-medical interventions for depression are available—exercise, social interactions and human touch (social dancing being a well-recognised therapy). These therapies are being ignored and high drug use celebrated. I believe this shows a pharmaceutical bias in the Health Department’s approach to depression. It feels like the Department of Health has become the Department of Pharmaceuticals.

Cannabis is used to treat depression overseas, yet this is not available in Australia in a practical way because no pharmaceutical company will sponsor a natural cannabis product. Why? Because the absence of a patent means they can’t get their money back on the cost of the application.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: Let’s move to antidepressants. Australia has an antidepressant use of 89 persons per 1,000. That’s the third-highest in the world, not far behind the highest, which is America at 110. The UK has less than we do: 71. Korea is the best at only 13. In other words, we have one of the highest rates of antidepressant use in the world. Isn’t this a failure of public health policy? We’re not treating these issues with a ‘Life. Be in it.’ campaign, knowing that exercise, dancing and group socialising all help with depression. We just write a script and call it done. Minister, what happened to preventive medicine—or is it now just about money for pharmaceutical companies?

Senator McCarthy: Again, your question is loaded with all sorts of accusations which I reject outright. We do our best to inform Australians of all things. In particular throughout COVID, we worked considerably hard to engage with communities remote and regional as well as across cities, so I reject the premise of your question.

Senator ROBERTS: This is not about COVID; this is about our remarkably high antidepressant use—close to the highest in the world.

Mr Comley: Professor Singer, would you like to make any comment on that as the Chief Medical Officer?

Prof. Singer: Clearly, there are different strategies used by different practitioners in relation to depression. A lot of the access to drugs depends on the access this is available as well as cultural factors. For example, you’ve commented that South Korea has a relatively low rate. I would expect that some of that would, in fact, relate to their cultural attitudes to the use of medication to treat depression as well as to attitudes around depression itself. I think one of the things that the use in Australia probably does indicate that people are prepared to be much more open about having depression and needing help. Clearly, prescriptions in some ways do reflect that issue.

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you.