A LEGAL stoush is brewing between medical waste company SteriHealth and Deakin University over one brief statement reported in the West Australian press.
Listed SteriHealth says that Deakin professor Trevor Thornton has damaged its reputation by publicly criticising the company through the media, and also has a conflict of interest as he is on the payroll of its major commercial rival, French-owned SITA.
SteriHealth is controlled by sharps king Dan Daniels, and the company has a WA government contract to dispose of medical waste.
Last month it emerged that SteriHealth was transporting used needles and scalpel blades via rail to Victoria, to be decontaminated and treated at its Melbourne facility, rather than pay for it all to be burnt at a WA furnace operated by SITA.
The Sunday Times in Perth reported that the hazardous waste was transported to Victoria in an ''unlabelled, unrefrigerated sea container'', in breach of health and safety regulations. The story quotes Thornton saying ''if these people have breached their obligations, there should be a justification as to why they're not being prosecuted, or having legal action taken against them''.
That comment incensed the management of SteriHealth, which now has Thornton in its firing line.
In a letter to the Sunday Times, the company requested that ''any reference to Trevor Thornton acknowledge that he has recently been a financial beneficiary of SteriHealth's main WA competitor SITA''.
The company has complained to Deakin University about Thornton's comment, but received no response. So, on January 28, SteriHealth executive director Markus Koch lodged a formal complaint with the ombudsman.
That letter claims that there was a ''substantive conflict of interest'' in that Thornton ''did not volunteer to the journalist that he was a financial beneficiary of SITA'' and he ''used Deakin University's name to publicly criticise SteriHealth''.
The complaint from Koch states: ''The simple principle is that if Dr Thornton is taking public positions in the media criticising those companies that don't engage his services, he should be disclosing his financial vested interests.''
Thornton is often billed as ''one of Australia's leading minds in waste management''.
He was open about his financial relationship with SITA when quizzed by Collins & Spencer, and also says he disclosed his dealings to Deakin University.
SITA, and its subsidiaries, provide waste disposal services for several big companies, including Myer, Qantas, Visy, Amcor, McDonald's Australia, Bunnings and Harvey Norman.
In WA, it competes head-to-head with SteriHealth in the clinical waste business.
''I have been paid for a presentation I did to staff at one of SITA's subsidiaries, I have been paid for papers I have been commissioned to write, and I have been paid to be a guest speaker at events they have sponsored,'' Thornton said. ''I have also, over the years, been paid by SteriHealth.''
Indeed, when SteriHealth built a whiz-bang ''electro thermal deactivation processing plant'' in Canberra in 2001, using technology from US giant SteriCycle that failed, it successfully sued the American company.
As part of its case, Thornton was paid to complete an expert report on the facility. ''I would have testified on behalf of SteriHealth too, but the other side accepted what I wrote,'' Thornton said.
''The point for me is, if a hospital came to me tomorrow seeking advice on a product, and the best product for their needs was one of SteriHealth's, then that's what I would recommend.
''I have no bone to pick with SteriHealth, and the quote attributed to me was about a hypothetical situation, not the events the company was involved with in Perth. If someone at SteriHealth had rung me and asked, I would have told them that.''
So why the animosity between Australia's leading mind in waste management and the biggest player in clinical waste? There is history, it seems.
Back in 1998 , a much younger Thornton wrote a paper titled Investigating Management Costs of Disposable Versus Reusable Sharps Containers, published in the journal Australian Infection Control.
The study found that disposable sharps containers had a small ''economic and financial edge'' over reusable ones.
Daniels, at the time, was one of the biggest players in reusable containers, and threatened legal action against Thornton and the publishers of the journal to try to stop the article from being published.
''I've only met Dan once or twice in my life, but I do get the sense, the personal feeling, that he doesn't like me,'' Thornton said. ''Then things like this pop up.''
Source: The Age Business Day | 10:44 p.m. 2nd February 2010
STP Price at posting:
$1.55 Sentiment: LT Buy Disclosure: Held
