For those interested in the history of drugs in sports, I've attached a couple of good articles as PDF files.
(1) History of
Dianabol in U.S.
(2) Systematic doping in East Germany
Drug claim could be a bitter pill
Former East German athletes are demanding compensation from the firm that made their steroids http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFr...4-9084,00.html
By Craig Lord
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VICTIMS of East Germany’s state-run doping programme are fighting for €3.2 million (about £2.2 million) in compensation from the drugs company whose steroids fuelled the former communist state’s Olympic medals factory until the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
Lawyers representing the doping victims’ help group argue that Jenapharm created anabolic substances, such as Oral-Turinabol, with the specific intention of enhancing sporting performance to present the German Democratic Republic in a better light. Some of the drugs, they claim, were never approved, nor were they tested on animals before being administered to athletes.
Dr Michael Lehner, one of the two lawyers who will meet Jenapharm representatives at the Board of Arbitration in Hamburg over the next two months in an attempt to settle out of court on behalf of 160 clients, said: “This company was part of the GDR system. They not only produced the pills but they developed substances for the specific purpose of doping athletes. Their representatives were at the meetings when the whole thing was planned.”
In a statement, Jenapharm acknowledged that the company was obliged to “collaborate in the GDR ‘Staatsplan 14.25’, but that it was not a driving force behind the national GDR doping programme”. The blame rested with politicians, sports doctors and coaches. The athletes’ claims were unfounded, the company said.
Among those whose expertise supports the athletes’ case are Dr Werner Franke, the Heidelberg biologist who first brought to public attention the Stasi (secret police) files recording the doping regime, and Dr Rainer Hartwich, director of clinical research at VEB Jenapharm in communist times but no longer with the company.
In an interview with a local radio station in Germany, Hartwich said: “The plan at Jenapharm was not to develop the drug (Oral-Turinabol) into a medication for normal use. The interest in it would have been much bigger and we would have had to have published the data and clinical research for the central advisory board of the GDR . . . that was not desired, in our aim to keep it a secret.”
The Stasi listed the doping programme under the codename “Komplex 08”. The files show that Hartwich tested and oversaw the development of the anabolic steroids OralTurinabol and “STS 646” in a clinic at Erfurt. He is quoted in Stasi files as saying that “the new drugs will be of immense value to our sport”. However, Hartwich warned the Stasi in 1988 that “illegal” use of steroids had reached alarming levels. He now says that “Jenapharm has a moral duty to support the doping victims”.
Among the 160 victims are a number of former Olympic and world champions from various sports, including Petra Schneider, the swimmer who defeated Sharron Davies, of Great Britain, in the 400 metres medley at the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow, Karin Koenig, a member of the world record-holding freestyle relay in 1984, and Jürgen Grundler, the world junior biathlon champion in 1976. Many have suffered health problems — some life-threatening — since being among the estimated 10,000 athletes, some as young as 11, who were given anabolic substances to enhance their sporting performance in the late 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.
Jenapharm — now owned by Schering, one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical firms — is based in the town of Jena, near Weimar, from which its name is derived. Its plant lies some 60 miles west of Kreischa, the Saxon laboratory that was at the time approved by the International Olympic Committee and responsible for ensuring that athletes never tested positive when they left the country for competition. No East German athlete ever failed an official drugs
test, though Stasi files show that many did, indeed, produce positive tests at Kreischa.
If Jenapharm does not agree to settle out of court, Lehner and Dr Jen Steinigen, a former winter Olympic biathlon champion for East Germany and a fellow lawyer, are likely to take the cases of “three or four athletes” before a judge in Jena this year. Victory would force Jenapharm to compensate all 160 victims, with average compensation estimated at about £14,000 per person.
Stasi files held by Franke demonstrate, according to the athletes’ lawyers, that certain Jenapharm substances were not only illegal in international sports law but also in state law. “On the one hand they were working for the state to produce Oral-Turinabol, on the other they were creating and distributing drugs such as ‘substance 12’ and ‘STS 646’ that were never approved by the state and never tested on animals, ” Franke said.
Lehner and Steinigen will also rely on the testimony of Dr Manfred Höppner, head of a committee euphemistically named the Working Group on Supporting Means and one of the masterminds of the doping regime. Höppner, who received a one-year suspended sentence and fine at his trial in 1998, stated that during meetings between the Ministry for Research and Technology and other state officials of the German Democratic Republic, Jenapharm representatives were present when decisions on doping were made.
Jenapharm may attempt to raise the statute of limitations as a reason why the case should never reach court in Germany: a moratorium on the hearing of all doping cases was declared in October 2000. The athletes argue that their new case deals with evidence brought to light since that deadline.
Franke said he hoped for an out-of-court settlement, but added: “Jenapharm is not being very co-operative. The problem is one of German law. If you cheat on your taxes you go to jail for 3½ years and pay a very big financial penalty, but if someone rips your eye out in the street, you’ll be lucky to get €10,000. The integrity of the body is not something of high value in law here.”
One ray of hope for the group rests, ironically, with a ruling given in the case of the late Manfred Ewald, head of East German sport and prime architect of the doping regime. Though he received what many saw as a lenient two-year suspended sentence and fine at his trial in 1998, Ewald’s testimony prompted judges to rule that administering androgenic hormones to those who did not need them for medical reasons constituted “elevated criminality”.
That and the fact that some of the victims live outside Germany and could choose to take their action to courts in countries such as the United States, where bodily harm can carry much more serious penalties. “Hell will be unleashed if one of the victims living abroad takes action through a foreign court in a place where the claim would be much higher than in Germany,” Franke said.
Isabel Rothe, the chief executive of Jenapharm since March last year, said: “What is most important is to discover those who were really responsible for the national GDR doping programme.” She pointed the finger at the East German Government, who “wanted to demonstrate the abilities of the GDR” through sport, and the “sports physicians and trainers who used the doping substances on their athletes”. However, there was no mention of the man she replaced at the helm of Jenapharm last year: Dr Dieter Taubert, who headed the company throughout East German times and is now chief executive of Schering Deutschland GmbH. Rothe noted that Oral- Turinabol was a legally approved drug. Jenapharm’s lawyers were in the process of reviewing Franke’s “extensive” statement before the hearings begin in Hamburg.
A BILLION-EURO DRUG INDUSTRY Schering, one of the world’s largest drugs companies, bought almost 75 per cent of Jenapharm in 1996. Since 2001, Jenapharm, based 50 miles southwest of Leipzig, has been wholly owned by Schering.
Jenapharm, which had a turnover of €1.35 billion (£930 million) in 2004, is Germany’s biggest producer of the Pill, which led to the pharmaceutical industry awarding the company the “Golden Pill” award.
Jenapharm developed Oral-Turinabol, the anabolic steroid that fuelled much of East Germany’s sporting success and later became known as “the little blue pill”. Isabel Rothe became chief executive officer of Jenapharm in 2004.
In communist times the company was headed by Dr Dieter Taubert. Taubert is now the chief executive officer of Schering Deutschland GmbH and commands a six-figure wage. In Stasi files, Taubert goes by the undercover name of “Alexander”.
The Stasi listed GDR doping experiments under the code name “Komplex 08”.
Jenapharm’s website — www.jenapharm.de — includes a history section that simply states “site under construction”.