Lovett-Murray claims injections harmed his daughter

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The letter for those who wish to refresh their memory (from the AFL site or google 'doc reid letter' )


Dr Bruce Reid wrote to James Hird and then football manager Paul Hamilton in January 2012 expressing his concern over the supplements program. His communication was revealed as part of the list of charges levelled by the AFL against the Bombers.

Dear James/Paul


I have some fundamental problems being club doctor at present. This particularly applies to the administration of supplements. 
Although we have been giving supplements for approximately three months, despite repeated requests as to exactly what we are giving our players and the literature related to this, have at no time been given that until last Sunday [15 January 2012]. Last week the players were given subcutaneous injections, not by myself, and I had no idea that this was happening and also what drug was involved.

It appears to me that in Sydney with Rugby League the clubs do not answer to the governing body (e.g. A.F.L.). It seems that their whole culture is based on trying to beat the system as are close to the edge as one can. It is my belief in A.F.L. that we should be winning flags by keeping a drug free culture.

It is all very well to say this is not banned and that is not banned but for example, the injection that we have given our players subcutaneously, was a drug called AOD/9604, is an Oligomeric Peptide. This drug is derived from the growth hormone.

This molecule has been constructed so it has removed what we call IGF1, which is part of the growth hormone that causes muscle and organ growth and bone length and photosynthesis.

It is at the moment used for fat metabolism but also bone strength in children and may have some side effects that may be beneficial in bone growth. This to me just seem ludicrous at this stage where the only trials I have got are on how to lost weight and fat around the abdomen.

If we are resorting to deliver this altered growth hormone molecule, I think we are playing at the edge and this will read extremely badly in the press for our club and for the benefits and also for side effects that are not known in the long term, I have trouble with all these drugs.

I am still not sure whether AOD/9604 is approved by the drug authorities in Australia at this stage. Just because it is not classified as illegal, doesn’t mean that it can be used freely in the community, it cannot. The other interesting thing about AOD/9604, is that its market in America is in body builders. This also should raise a red flag if we are worried about perception.

When it comes to Actovegin, this has been used around the world for many years. There is some flimsy evidence that it may help in speeding up the healing of tendons when they are damaged, though after speaking to radiologists, the recent opinion is that platelets and one’s own blood, probably does a better job.

We are claiming that we should use it as a recovery agent. To me it seems ludicrous that a few mls of calf’s blood spun down, is going to give you a concentration of growth factors and other factors that would speed up recovery.

I am very frustrated by this and now feel I am letting the club down by not automatically approving of these things. I need to collect my thoughts as these drugs have been given without my knowledge.

I am sure Steve Danks believes that what we are doing is totally ethical and legal, however, one wonders whether if you take a long stance and look at this from a distance, whether you would want your children being injected with a derivative hormone that is not free to the community and whether calf’s blood, that has been used for many years and is still doubted by most doctors, is worth pursuing.

Kind Regards
Dr. Bruce Reid
M.B.B.S.

Senior Medical Officer
 
The truth about what those injections really were will never come out.

It's been more than five years since the injections began. In those five years, this has been the biggest single story in Australian sport and it's made headlines around the world. The separate cases of Australians who've followed the story, tuned in on the radio, turned on the TV and clicked on news links almost certainly numbers in the hundreds of millions by now. So clearly, it's a big news story with some big money involved. Big money which would have been on offer to anybody with secret information, and big money typically means that secret information doesn't stay secret for very long. Yet after five years, silence.

So to me, the fact that nobody involved in the program has been able to come forward with credible information says to me that the only people who know what really happened are the people who are up to their eyeballs in it. Injecting people with a substance that they did not consent to (ie. any substance not listed on the forms that the players signed) is a jailable offence. Dank knows this. Robinson knows this. I'm sure every other person with knowledge of the true extent of the program at Essendon knows this and that's why nobody is talking. Anybody who divulges anything to anyone is going to end up in prison.

It's a horrible situation for the players involved. There will never be answers until one of them is on their deathbed.
 

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Here we go here we go here we go, here we go here we go here we go, here we go here we go here we go.
 
Snake_Baker said:
He has been isolated from the issue.

I expect if he had ended up in a witness box then things wouldn't have gone too well for a few at Windy Hill.

The mysterious disappearing letter is one of the more farcical events in this whole sordid saga.
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What was more farcical? The disappearing letter? Or that Doc Reid never followed up on it?
 
O'Rourke Awakens!! said:
And I have addressed this point before too. How is leaving consistent with caring for the players' welfare exactly? Its a statement? Sure - but what about sticking around to look after the players' welfare? Anyway.

Its not at all impossible more info will come out damning the guy but I think some of the arguments about Reid are a bit naff and vitriolic for the sake of it.
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He walks away from this unscathed. IMO, he failed in his duty of care. He wrote a letter. Never followed up on it, and apparently not once asked players whether the injections had stopped.
 
jenny61_99 said:
What was more farcical? The disappearing letter? Or that Doc Reid never followed up on it?
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A letter can disappear, but I fail to see how people working together on a consistent basis could fail to discuss such a letter whether it arrived or not.

It's another piece of the cover up. No sane rational person could believe otherwise.
 
Snake_Baker said:
A letter can disappear, but I fail to see how people working together on a consistent basis could fail to discuss such a letter whether it arrived or not.

It's another piece of the cover up. No sane rational person could believe otherwise.
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Failed to discuss such an important issue... that's the bottom line.
 
Snake_Baker said:
A letter can disappear, but I fail to see how people working together on a consistent basis could fail to discuss such a letter whether it arrived or not.

It's another piece of the cover up. No sane rational person could believe otherwise.
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Maybe the discussion was before the letter and they agreed that writing it would be enough to insulate the doctor from the actions of those he couldn't control.
 
jenny61_99 said:
He walks away from this unscathed. IMO, he failed in his duty of care. He wrote a letter. Never followed up on it, and apparently not once asked players whether the injections had stopped.
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This is a great example of the posts I was taking about. Meaningless. Nothing about how he should have followed it up and mention of the ultimate "unquestioned mega argument" - he had a duty of care. He was their Dr so yeah he had a duty of care. That's only one part of the analysis.

How did he fail in his duty or care? What is unquestionably part of his duty of care that he he failed to do?

This is the part where posters say he

(a) should have reported it and/or
(b) should have stopped working there

Neither of the above can be seen as clear acts of putting the hypocritical oath into effect ...

His job is to advise adults of risk and recommend a course of action to patients. How do we know he did not do this?
 
Tayl0r said:
Maybe the discussion was before the letter and they agreed that writing it would be enough to insulate the doctor from the actions of those he couldn't control.
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If that is the case then they continued with the doping regime despite strong recommendations from their senior medical adviser.

This could only take place if they were all in on it, so isolating Dank as the scapegoat becomes risky.
 

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O'Rourke Awakens!! said:
This is a great example of the posts I was taking about. Meaningless. Nothing about how he should have followed it up and mention of the ultimate "unquestioned mega argument" - he had a duty of care. He was their Dr so yeah he had a duty of care. That's only one part of the analysis.

How did he fail in his duty or care? What is unquestionably part of his duty of care that he he failed to do?

This is the part where posters say he

(a) should have reported it and/or
(b) should have stopped working there

Neither of the above can be seen as clear acts of putting the hypocritical oath into effect ...

His job is to advise adults of risk and recommend a course of action to patients. How do we know he did not do this?
Click to expand...


How has Reid shown "reasonable care" by effectively reporting, then removing himself from the picture, thereby delegating future medical duty of care, regarding this issue, to the football department that was overseeing this doping regime? Where are the records to support his ongoing oversight of a matter that he deemed to be serious? How is he not negligent?
 
O'Rourke Awakens!! said:
His job is to advise adults of risk and recommend a course of action to patients. How do we know he did not do this?
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What advice can he give after he writes the letter? He has effectively washed his hands of the matter
 
Snake_Baker said:
How has Reid shown "reasonable care" by effectively reporting, then removing himself from the picture, thereby delegating future medical duty of care, regarding this issue, to the football department that was overseeing this doping regime? Where are the records to support his ongoing oversight of a matter that he deemed to be serious? How is he not negligent?
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Oh goodness - "how is he not negligent" is verging on defamation. Be careful - seriously

Like I keep saying - if we assume the Dr/Patient relationship we don't then assume that the patients are infantilised buffoons. They're adults with adult decision making abilities. He reported bad workplace practices to his management and they continued to hide the extent of the injections from him. What made matters worse was that the players continued to hide them from him too.

If someone who is not a Dr is running after you with a syringe Benny Hill style and telling you not to tell the Dr don't you reckon you're kind of playing with Fire?
 
O'Rourke Awakens!! said:
Oh goodness - "how is he not negligent" is verging on defamation. Be careful - seriously

Like I keep saying - if we assume the Dr/Patient relationship we don't then assume that the patients are infantilised buffoons. They're adults with adult decision making abilities. He reported bad workplace practices to his management and they continued to hide the extent of the injections from him. What made matters worse was that the players continued to hide them from him too.

If someone who is not a Dr is running after you with a syringe Benny Hill style and telling you not to tell the Dr don't you reckon you're kind of playing with Fire?
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Yet this is exactly the agenda retired footy media heads , especially here in Adelaide, pushed . ' Oh mate you trust your doctor don't you, you go see the doc he gives you this you don't question it' .

I am on your side. The players should accept responsibility for what they are taking. But when the number 1 person for medical advice isolates himself and wants nothing more to do with it , where do they go?

Lets set up a possible scenario ( wouldn't want to get sued over a definite)

' Doc Reid , ya got a minute'
' Sure Nathan'
' These injections they are giving me, I have concerns about them'
' So do I'
' So I shouldn't take them?'
' That's not for me to say anymore, its out of my hands'
' But I need advice'
' My advice is to be concerned'
' Doc I need your help'
' I love my job Nathan, next'
 
O'Rourke Awakens!! said:
This is conflating the mass of players and/or his general advisory role at the club with his separate individual medical relationship with each player. They are actually different roles. That's kind of what I'm trying to get across ...
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No its not, see above
 
O'Rourke Awakens!! said:
Oh goodness - "how is he not negligent" is verging on defamation. Be careful - seriously
Click to expand...

My question is hypothetical in relation to a very well publicised event. It was also a question and not a claim of fact.

I fail to see how the question cannot be raised if, as you intimate in your postings, the issue has been medically abandoned by the doctor responsible AFTER a serious allegation has been made.

O'Rourke Awakens!! said:
Like I keep saying - if we assume the Dr/Patient relationship we don't then assume that the patients are infantilised buffoons. They're adults with adult decision making abilities. He reported bad workplace practices to his management and they continued to hide the extent of the injections from him. What made matters worse was that the players continued to hide them from him too.

If someone who is not a Dr is running after you with a syringe Benny Hill style and telling you not to tell the Dr don't you reckon you're kind of playing with Fire?
Click to expand...

Do you expect people to believe that the content of the letter was disclosed to players in regards to an exotic regime, and despite this, all the players in question decided to band together and freeze out the doctor? This requires a serious stretch of the imagination.

Do you have any relationship, personal, professional or otherwise, with the doctor in question?
 
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/vi...r/news-story/c279e8b4a94f3d1e270e68f044ad6e2a
Transcripts of an exchange between an ASADA investigator and Lovett-Murray in 2013 reveal that Dr Reid was present when he was injected with a legal muscle relaxant on a Gold Coast trip.

“The second time (sports scientist Stephen) Dank was there and also Dr Reid,” Lovett-Murray said.

ASADA: “How many needles did you get the second time?”

LOVETT-MURRAY: “Oh, same — yeah, about 10.”

ASADA: “And the fact that Dr Reid came with you on that second occasion, did that give you a bit more confidence about the process?”
LOVETT-MURRAY: “Oh, he was only coming to have a look at it, but then sort of afterwards he said it was a load of bulls---.”
 
O'Rourke Awakens!! said:
This is a great example of the posts I was taking about. Meaningless. Nothing about how he should have followed it up and mention of the ultimate "unquestioned mega argument" - he had a duty of care. He was their Dr so yeah he had a duty of care. That's only one part of the analysis.

How did he fail in his duty or care? What is unquestionably part of his duty of care that he he failed to do?

This is the part where posters say he

(a) should have reported it and/or
(b) should have stopped working there

Neither of the above can be seen as clear acts of putting the hypocritical oath into effect ...

His job is to advise adults of risk and recommend a course of action to patients. How do we know he did not do this?
Click to expand...
How did he fail in his duty of care? HE FAILED TO FOLLOW UP on his concerns. He carried on as if nothing ever happened. He never once told the players that they should not get injections from Dank. He never once told the players that he had concerns with some of the drugs Dank was listing on his program. If the players knew AOD was an experimental drug, for example, or that the Doc was concerned and why, would they have still accepted injections? Instead he hand writes a letter that nobody actually sees and never follows up on it.
 
GreyCrow said:
Yet this is exactly the agenda retired footy media heads , especially here in Adelaide, pushed . ' Oh mate you trust your doctor don't you, you go see the doc he gives you this you don't question it' .

I am on your side. The players should accept responsibility for what they are taking. But when the number 1 person for medical advice isolates himself and wants nothing more to do with it , where do they go?

Lets set up a possible scenario ( wouldn't want to get sued over a definite)

' Doc Reid , ya got a minute'
' Sure Nathan'
' These injections they are giving me, I have concerns about them'
' So do I'
' So I shouldn't take them?'
' That's not for me to say anymore, its out of my hands'
' But I need advice'
' My advice is to be concerned'
' Doc I need your help'
' I love my job Nathan, next'
Click to expand...
I'm not agreeing that he did isolate himself. My view is that he was isolated - and this was also the view of the Swiss Court but I could defer to your view instead...
 
jenny61_99 said:
How did he fail in his duty of care? HE FAILED TO FOLLOW UP on his concerns. He carried on as if nothing ever happened. He never once told the players that they should not get injections from Dank. He never once told the players that he had concerns with some of the drugs Dank was listing on his program. If the players knew AOD was an experimental drug, for example, or that the Doc was concerned and why, would they have still accepted injections? Instead he hand writes a letter that nobody actually sees and never follows up on it.
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How in god's name do you know what he said to the players?
 
Satan said:
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/vi...r/news-story/c279e8b4a94f3d1e270e68f044ad6e2a
Transcripts of an exchange between an ASADA investigator and Lovett-Murray in 2013 reveal that Dr Reid was present when he was injected with a legal muscle relaxant on a Gold Coast trip.

“The second time (sports scientist Stephen) Dank was there and also Dr Reid,” Lovett-Murray said.

ASADA: “How many needles did you get the second time?”

LOVETT-MURRAY: “Oh, same — yeah, about 10.”

ASADA: “And the fact that Dr Reid came with you on that second occasion, did that give you a bit more confidence about the process?”
LOVETT-MURRAY: “Oh, he was only coming to have a look at it, but then sort of afterwards he said it was a load of bulls---.”
Click to expand...
You see - this is interesting and I keep forgetting this bit. To me this is actually fascinating but not in anyway conclusive evidence of Doc Reid failing in his duty of care - particularly the last couple of words. Hey Jenny - "a load of bullshit" - is this equivalent to him saying it was okay to keep taking the injections from Dank? Ay ay?
 
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