Back to the "it was only vitamins" excuse
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Stephen Dank: Former Bomber Hal Hunter has nothing to fearJon Pierik
The Age
March 22, 2016Stephen Dank, the man at the centre of the Essendon drugs saga, says former Bomber Hal Hunter should not be in fear of his health.
And Dank insists he never arranged for biochemist Shane Charter, a convicted drug importer, to go to China to source peptides for his program.
Hunter has revealed his diagnosis of anxiety and depression stems from what he was administered during the Bombers' 2012 supplements program.
Hunter says he was among the group of players injected at the Hypermed clinic when an unknown substance, believed to have been sourced from Mexico, was administered.
Dank said on Monday that the substance was a preparation of 21 amino acids and vitamins which can be bought over the counter at a chemist in Australia.
"Every player was told exactly what the mix was. Everyone was told," he said.
"It was a complete mix of amino acids, both essential and non-essential, plus vitamin C and the complete B group. When has WADA banned amino acids and vitamins?"
Dank also insists the drug was from New Mexico.
Hunter, who has also been interviewed by the ABC's Four Corners program, said he regretted not asking more questions about the injection program. Dank maintains the players had ample opportunity to question him and former high-performance boss, Dean Robinson.
"For the first six weeks before any player was injected or given anything, Dean Robinson would often sit in the room with me," he said.
"If any player couldn't answer what the substance was, what they were given or injected, if they couldn't answer what it was or what its biological effect is, we made him sit down and go through it all again."
Dank, the self-styled sports scientist, would not comment when asked specifically what other drugs Hunter may have been given. Dank maintains the players were not given the banned drug thymosin beta-4, of which 34 past and present players, excluding Hunter, are now serving a year-long ban for being administered. Dank insists he only gave players the legal drug, thymomodulin.
"What has he (Hunter) got to worry about - if it was thymomodulin or thymosin-beta 4? Guess what? Those are registered therapeutic products. Where is the issue?" he said.
Dank gave sworn evidence to the Australian Crime Commission that he administered thymomodulin, an immunity booster safely given to infants, and not thymosin beta-4.
It is not listed by name, but thymosin beta-4 is a peptide that falls under WADA's S2 category for performance-enhancing drugs.
Hunter said he had considered contacting Dank since the scandal erupted in February 2013 but doubted whether he would be given any substantial information.
"Do you really think I would say, 'hop up on the table, we are going to give you an injection', without explaining it?" Dank said.
One of the major chains of evidence through the saga has been whether Dank, through his role at Essendon or through his private business, had Charter source thymosin beta-4 from China, with this then given to compounding pharmacist, Nima Alavi.
Dank insists the timeline of events endorses his claim that he had nothing to do with Charter on this issue. He claimed Charter spent from November 17-24 in 2011 in China. Dank said at that point, having started at Essendon, he had yet to even link with Alavi.
"There was no way I sent Charter on that trip. Our decision [through his private business] to go with Alavi wasn't until December 11. It was on December 2 that our pharmacist said he was winding down," he said.
"There was no evidence that I sent him. There wasn't even an email to say 'go do it'. Wouldn't I have paid for his airfare, accommodation, expenses, cab? Guess what? Not one single expense I covered. If I sent him to China, wouldn't I be paying him?"
Other reports said Charter had left for China on November 26. Charter originally told authorities he had sourced thymosin beta-4 but later recanted and said he had only taken the legal immunity booster, thymosin alpha.
Charter said he had discussed a range of WADA-approved substances with Dank and former Essendon coach James Hird at a chance encounter by the pool of a Gold Coast hotel in December 2011.
While the AFL anti-doping tribunal found in March 2015 it was not "comfortably satisfied" that the players had been given thymosin beta-4, the tribunal was comfortably satisfied that Charter had bought thymosin beta-4 in his first shipment of peptides from GL Biochem in China and that those peptides were passed on to Alavi. But the tribunal was not sure that Dank had received the drug in his capacity as an Essendon representative.
But the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled that it was comfortably satisfied the players had been given a banned substance.
Dank last week lost a defamation case over a series of articles about his administering banned peptides to Cronulla Sharks' NRL players which may have accelerated Jon Mannah's death from cancer.
http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/stephen-dank-former-bomber-hal-hunter-has-nothing-to-fear-20160321-gnn798.html
