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Former Olympic Doctor Claims Cover-Up of Doping Records

George Spellwin

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Former Olympic Doctor Claims Cover-Up of Doping Records
Monday, December 4, 2000

Wade Exum
BY CHRISTOPHER SMITH
(c) 2000, THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE

LOS ANGELES -- When a top athlete gets caught stepping out of bounds or committing a foul, it's no secret. The referee blows a whistle, hollers or broadcasts the infraction along with the player's name or number, and a penalty is assessed against the rule breaker in front of spectators.
Should it be the same for an athlete caught breaking the rules by using drugs?
The U.S. Olympic Committee wants a federal judge to block public disclosure of what appear to be hundreds of positive tests for performance-enhancing drugs of American and foreign athletes dating back to the 1984 Los Angeles Games. The secret test results are a potential powder keg that could explode the hero image of prominent Olympians into a rubble pile of suspected cheaters and frauds.
And sitting atop the powder keg is the USOC's former top physician and highest-level African-American employee, Wade Exum. He contends in a federal discrimination law- suit that he was forced to resign in June after his USOC superiors repeatedly sabotaged his attempts to catch and stop cheaters.
He wants to use 11,000 pages of USOC records he accumulated during his nine-year tenure as evidence. But those documents, according to the USOC, include extensive details on positive drug tests of athletes, many of which were never upheld as valid by their respective sport bodies. Releasing test results that could have been false positives would lead to "annoyance and embarrassment" of athletes and their sports, the USOC says.
"Through these documents, it is possible to trace an individual athlete's drug-testing experience from 1984 or later, from the initial Athlete Signature Form, through a positive or negative test on an 'A' specimen, through a positive or negative test on a 'B' specimen, through any appeals of any sanctions, to a specific result -- regardless of whether the athlete is 'innocent' or 'guilty' of a violation of [national and international sporting body] regulations," William Wright, an attorney for the USOC and the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, wrote in a motion to keep the records secret.
The U.S. Olympic movement's policy of not disclosing an athlete failed a drug test until the case has been "adjudicated" -- a process of appeals, hearings and arbitration that can drag on interminably -- has put it at odds with the International Olympic Committee. The IOC, stung by U.S. criticism it coddles dopers, pilloried the United States during the Sydney Games after the disclosure that champion shot-putter C.J. Hunter had been named to the U.S. Olympic team despite failing drug tests for the steroid nandrolone.
But many athletes maintain that confidentiality is critical to protect those who are falsely accused of doping, as Hunter has contended he was.
"An IOC laboratory report indicating that a urine or blood sample contains evidence of a banned drug is not proof beyond a reasonable doubt -- the applicable standard of the governing organizations of international sport -- that the athlete has used a banned drug," track star Mary Decker Slaney and her attorney Doriane Lambelet Coleman wrote in a New York Times op-ed piece in October. "To the contrary, it merely begins the hearing process, which has as its express purpose separating innocent and guilty athletes."
Under the IOC's anti-doping standard of "strict liability," any athlete caught using a drug on the list of banned substances is disqualified, regardless of intent. Although the USOC has adopted the same anti-doping code as the IOC, Exum said, the American body has added exceptions.
"The USOC protocol was deliberately written to allow for sabotaging of drug control," Exum told members of the Los Angeles Academy of Medicine in a speech last week. "They make back-room deals where athletes are exonerated from drug test results, they plant their own secret agents in the drug control programs to disrupt the oper- ations, and they appoint people with doping backgrounds to oversee the drug control functions."
The USOC has consistently denied Exum's "publicity-grabbing allegations," saying any shortcomings in the anti-doping effort are Exum's fault as director of USOC drug control.
Exum said he has documentation showing a 50 percent failure rate of drug tests administered to U.S. Olympic team hopefuls who were never sanctioned, including several athletes who went on to win medals.
On the issue of shattering athletes' reputations, Exum said: "Tell it to fourth place, the athlete who didn't get the medal but should have. If you break a rule, you should pay a penalty."
Attorneys for several major newspapers, broadcast networks and news services have asked to intervene in the fight over whether the drug test results should be made public. They argue the USOC's proposed order to make secret anything it deems "confidential" is overly broad and violates the public's right to know whether U.S. athletes used prohibited drugs to win medals for America.
In a "friend of the court" brief to be filed today in the case, attorneys for The Salt Lake Tribune argue that athletes have no expectation of privacy when submitting to Olympic drug tests. Tribune attorneys point to the disclaimer on the USOC's own forms signed by athletes, which warn them that any information provided is not pursuant to a doctor/patient relationship and " is not to be considered a confidential medical record."
"These athletes voluntarily inject themselves into the process in hopes of personal and national Olympic glory," wrote Tribune attorney Michael O'Brien. "Whether or not they play by the rules, including the drug rules, when representing the American public is something the American public has a right to know about."
Exum sees USOC hypocrisy in trying to keep secret drug test records in a lawsuit in which it is being accused of covering up widespread doping. But the USOC argues Exum signed a confidentiality agreement that reads, in part: "USOC employees are at times exposed to matters of a highly sensitive, confidential or privileged nature that the organization does not wish to become common knowledge, either internally or externally. Any intentional or negligent disclosure of confidential privileged or sensitive information to unauthorized persons will not be tolerated."
At the same time, the USOC submitted materials from a training session Exum attended on ethical compliance in the workplace. The purpose of the training was to create an "organizational climate that encourages asking questions, raising issues and reporting perceived ethics violations."
Exum contends that when his questions and complaints were met with threats and discrimination, he was forced to resign and file his lawsuit.
"The doping of young people benefits these folks monetarily," he said. "As a physician, I felt it was my responsibility to challenge this web that has created a major public health menace."


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Yours in sport,

George

George Spellwin
Research Director

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