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Public servants used drug, modafinil, to stay awake to complete the Australian Federal Budget on time

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Public servants used drug, modafinil, to stay awake to complete the Australian Federal Budget on time

Postby admin_pornrev » Sun Apr 26, 2015 12:03 pm

Public servants used drug, modafinil, to stay awake to complete the Federal Budget on time

FROM: http://www.news.com.au/national/public- ... 6932640759

What is Modafinil and what are the risks.png
What is Modafinil and what are the risks.png (166.79 KiB) Viewed 5287 times


See the video. What is Modafinil and what are the risks? 1:25 => http://www.news.com.au/video/id-RhNDYyb ... -the-risks?


News Corp's Moira Geddes explains what Modafinil is and why doctors are telling people to proceed with caution.


SENIOR public servants relied on drugs to keep them awake during 20-hour shifts in the race to put together Budget papers.

The drug, modafinil (branded Modavigil in Australia and Provigil in the US), keeps you awake far beyond normal limits. It was taken by helicopter pilots to stay alert as they carried US special forces to and from the raid which killed terrorist chief Osama bin Laden in May 2011.

And its consumption by a growing minority of federal bureaucrats highlights the extraordinary pressures on them to work around the clock to make sure Budget figures and analysis are delivered on time.
News.com.au has been told by a user that modafinil was needed to endure a string of long shifts broken by as little as a four- or five-hour break.

“You work to 1am or 2am and you have to be back at 7am or 8am. I know people who have done 20-hour shifts,” the source, who did not want to be named, said.

“There are lots of jokes about driving home while exhausted.”

There were many last-minute alterations to the May 13 Federal Budget. AAP Image/Alan Porritt Source: AAP

For years, federal and state budgets and other economic statements have required public servants in Finance and Treasury to dump their already extended working hours and stay at their desks longer. Late budget changes added to the urgency, as they did this year.

In the week before the May 13 Federal Budget there were alterations to the size of the Medicare co-payment; to the qualifying age of children under the Family Tax Benefit reforms; and to the timing of the introduction of the retirement age of 70, which originally was to have come in a lot earlier than 2035.

These changes required recalculations of Budget figures and, therefore, more sleep deprivation for staff from the Finance Department.

‘You work to 1am or 2am and you have to be back at 7am or 8am.’ AAP Image/Lukas Coch Source: AAP

Modafinil — a prescription drug for treating narcolepsy, chronic sleepiness, by stimulating the brain — is considered safer than caffeine and its users say it is not addictive. But it does have its dangers and should only be used as prescribed.

Doctors condemn its non-medical — or off-label — use.

“The danger is: ‘One is good, four must be better’,” psychologist Dr Jason Mazanov of the University of NSW Canberra Business School said.

“And that’s where you start having a problem. We know for example from the way people use performance enhancing drugs in unregulated sports ... say body building, there is very sophisticated use of anabolic steroids within that community by people who do know how to use it.

“That knowledge has been won through experience. But that experience has come at the cost of other people’s health.”

Dr Mazanov said there could be side effects to the use of modafinil that people might not be aware of as there were different reactions to medications.

“This is why we have to have medical supervision. If you have a reaction you need it reviewed and the medication changed,” he said.

Provigil, a brand name for the drug modafinil, used to treat sleep disorders. Photographer: JB Reed/Bloomberg via Getty Images Source: Getty Images

The demands on public servants to complete reports and economic statements to meet political deadlines are not new, although there is no suggestion that anyone was encouraged to take drugs.

Former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who operated on just three or four hours of sleep a night unmedicated, was well known for expecting greater out put from his staff.

“I’ve got news for the public service — there’ll be more. The work ethic of this Government will not decrease, it will increase,” Mr Rudd said in 2008 after complaints of overwork.

The inquiry into his government’s home insulation scheme recently heard of what have been called unprecedented time pressures to deliver the program in just five months.

Story by

MALCOLM FARR, National Political Editornews.com.au
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