Summary Three (3) of the Professor Arne Ljungqvist Anti-Doping Foundation Symposium in Stockholm

Session 5: The threat from underground activities and actions being taken against them

Criminal doctors, scientists and politicians: The two German doping systems.
Werner Franke, who was one those who revealed the East-Germany doping disaster (a disaster for sports and for individuals) from German Cancer Research Center (Heidelberg) spoke on “Criminal doctors, scientists, and politicians: the two German doping systems.”

There are today compelling evidence for the efficacy of anabolic steroids, from the files of DDR, which included almost all German athletes and all of the top elite. In East-Germany it was never called doping substances or anabolic steroids, but Unterstützende Mittle, i.e. “supportive means” – which later on was found to be the semantic for anabolic steroid preparations.

The female athletes treated were sometimes not older than 14 years old. As a reason for the treatment the athletes were informed that Western athletes work in the same way and that the East-Germans would have a handicap if they did not use the same means. All athletes selected for international events were obliged to silence regarding the “supportive means” by their coaches in written form. Many of the coaches and presidents were later brought to court in Berlin and were sentenced to 7-22 months in jail “for accessory to bodily harm.”

Werner Franke pointed out that doping and criminal acts have – unfortunately – not been limited to East-Germany. Companies and doctors like Conte, Valente, and Balco have specified in circumventing the doping regulations also in modern times.

Doping substances in nutritional supplements and nutrition.
Hans Geyer from the German Doping Control Laboratory (Colonge) gave information on “Doping substances in nutritional supplements and nutrition.” The prevalence of doping substances in nutritional supplements, traditional Asian medicine, and meat products has been documented. Slimming products – declared to containt only a mixture of herbs – have also been found to contain doping substances.

Traditional Asian medicine is also a possible source of doping substances. In the world chamionship in football 2011 in Germany five North Korean players were positive with endogenous anabolic steroids. It was found that they had taken musk pods (preputial gland) from the musk dear which is said to have strong ergogenic action in traditional Korean medicine. It was found that they contained 16 anabolic steroids, of which 9 were already prohibited.

In conclusion, Geyer pointed out that faked nutritional supplements and contaminated meat are common because of easy availability of doping substances and illegal trafficking of doping substances.

INTERPOL involvement against the trafficking of doping substances.
Mathieu Holz, criminal intelligence officer at INTERPOL (Lyon) discussed “INTERPOL involvement against the trafficking of doping substances.” He started by describing the INTERPOL – the largest international police organization gathering 190 members countries. Interpol have four (4) strategic priorities:

-       Secure global police communication network
-       Assisting in the Identification of Crimes and Criminals
-       24/7 Operational Support to Policing and Law Enforcement
-       Capacity Building