Fed: Hotels group challenges AMA on pokies health

AAP General News (Australia)
12-11-2001
Fed: Hotels group challenges AMA on pokies health

CANBERRA, Dec 11 AAP - A hotel industry group today challenged the Australian Medical
Association (AMA) to produce evidence of the physical health risks it alleges hit compulsive
poker machine gamblers.

The "put up or shut up" call follows a warning from the AMA last month that addicted
players risked suffering migraines, nausea, anxiety and depression.

Doctors and psychiatrists believed the stress and frustration caused by excessive gambling
could also trigger a painful and debilitating condition known as irritable bowel syndrome,
the AMA said.

But the Australian Hotels Association (AHA) said that after three weeks of requests,
the AMA had failed to produce a single paper backing up its public comments.

"The medical profession has a trusted place in Australian society and it's an absolute
abuse of that trust for them to scare people by linking popular leisure activities with
health problems while being unable to produce a skerrick of evidence," AHA executive director
Richard Mulcahy said in a statement.

"The AMA either needs to put up or shut up on this one.

"At this stage it seems they've been guilty of chasing a cheap headline at the expense
of their place as the responsible representatives of the medical profession."

Mr Mulcahy called on the AMA to join the hotel and gaming industries in constructive
dialogue and research aimed at directly assisting problem gamblers rather than engaging
in sniping and criticism from the sidelines.

AAP dep/daw/las/de

KEYWORD: POKIES

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