Doctor accepts steroid claims

Dr Glenn Twentyman, pictured here in 2006, is expected to argue the findings do not amount to professional misconduct. File photo / NZ Herald

Prominent men's health doctor Glenn Twentyman has admitted improperly supplying human growth hormone and anabolic steroids and failing to provide the patients who took the powerful body-altering drugs with adequate care.

Dr Twentyman withdrew an application for continued name suppression at a Professional Conduct Committee hearing in Auckland yesterday. He has accepted 20 particulars associated with a charge laid by the Medical Council of New Zealand, including:

• Prescribing HGH and testosterone without establishing an adequate clinical basis.

• Failing to undertake long-term monitoring, including for serious negative effects such as overgrowth of bones, face and jaw, and extremities.

• Failing to conduct adequate physical examinations.

• Failing to keep adequate notes.

• Prescribing ephedrine to a patient for weight loss despite the patient having hypertension (high blood pressure).

• Prescribing pseudoephedrine in bulk despite submitting to a previous Competence Inquiry that he had stopped doing so.

Dr Twentyman is 30 per cent shareholder in Livingproof and Anti-Ageing New Zealand, a company that trades as High Street Men's Clinic. The central Auckland-based clinic has treated around 9000 patients for conditions such as low libido, erectile dysfunction and premature ejaculation.

The names of the patients involved in the charge against Dr Twentyman have been permanently suppressed.

Dr Twentyman also admits obtaining 19,600 tablets of tamoxifen and improperly dispensing the drug to at least three patients in combination with testosterone.

While Dr Twentyman admits the particulars of the charge against him, he is expected to argue it does not amount to professional misconduct.

The tribunal has the power to suspend Dr Twentyman's registration or cancel it if it finds the charge does amount to professional misconduct.

Twentyman was also a well-known rugby player for Auckland University and Auckland and a flatmate of former All Blacks captain David Kirk.

The hearing is set down for four days.

Dr Twentyman

• High Street Men's Clinic doctor who specialises in treating conditions such as erectile dysfunction, premature ejaculation and low libido.

• Admits 20 particulars of a charge laid by a professional conduct committee relating to the prescription of human growth hormone, anabolic steroids and stimulants.

• Disputes that charge amounts to professional misconduct.

• Faces having registration stripped or suspended.