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ASADA omitted James Hird's drug testimony from report
JAMES Hird has rarely slept well since he collided with Mark McVeigh and suffered one of the most horrific facial injuries AFL football has seen.
He is reminded of the metal plates he still has embedded in his cheekbone whenever he puts his head on the pillow. It is this permanent injury, rather than the memory of his collision with teammate McVeigh, which keeps him awake at night.
Not long into Essendon's pre-season campaign for the 2012 season, Hird spoke to his newly appointed high-performance director Dean Robinson about the problem. Hird explained he regularly took sleeping pills. Robinson suggested he try Melatonin, a readily available hormone used to treat sleeping disorders and migraines.
One day when Hird had run out of sleeping pills and club doctor Bruce Reid was not around, Robinson showed Hird how to self-inject the drug. Hird would later tell Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority investigators he slept the next six nights as well as he ever has. The problem was his skin turned an unnatural colour and became acutely sun-sensitive. Hird threw the rest of the bottle away.
ASADA listened to Hird's evidence about this but didn't accept his explanation. They insisted he set out to take another drug. ASADA preferred the story told by Robinson.
According to Robinson, Hird deliberately administered himself with Melanotan II, a substance with a similar sounding name but very different use. Melanotan II is a drug used for erectile dysfunction and as a tanning agent. Robinson told ASADA both he and Hird took Melanotan II for vanity reasons, as Melbourne was heading into its summer months.
Given Robinson's testimony, Hird cannot say with certainty what he did take. He says that at the time, he believed he was taking Melatonin.
Neither Melatonin nor Melanotan II are substances banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency. Normally, neither would be of any interest to investigators looking for evidence of doping.
Yet the fact that Robinson's testimony about Hird's drug-taking features prominently in the AFL's 34 pages of allegations against Essendon and its officials and ASADA's 400-page summary - and Hird's version of events not at all - provides an insight into why Essendon and Hird are so livid at ASADA and the AFL.
Hird's self-administering of Melanotan II is covered in some depth by the AFL's statement-of-grounds document released this week. The document criticises Hird for failing to make inquiries about the substance he was about to inject, for failing to ask whether Robinson was qualified to show him how to inject it, for failing to ask whether it was a banned substance. It notes that Hird suffered side-effects from the drug, but redacts what these side effects are.
The AFL's decision to redact the side-effects, ostensibly to protect Hird's privacy, has had the effect of publicly humiliating Hird. A Fairfax gossip columnist used Google to fill in the blanks and discovered one side-effect of Melanotan II is a painful, prolonged erection. No penis pun was spared. Twitter did the rest.
The AFL accuses Essendon of administering its players with a pharmacological rollcall of substances, some banned, some contentious and some developed for use in horses and dogs. Essendon's position is that of the 13 substances listed by the AFL, the WADA-banned Thymosin Beta 4 and Actovegin, an extract from calf's blood, were certainly not used. The club believes Lube All Plus, a dietary supplement used to treat joint problems in horses and dogs, was provided to the club by sports scientist Stephen Dank but not administered to any players.
The issue of whether Hird took Melatonin or Melatonan II is a sideshow to a very serious issue. As the aggrieved Essendon mother who called the Triple M radio station yesterday pointed out, the Essendon supplement scandal isn't about Hird or Paul Little, the club president who is now taking on the full might of the AFL.
"Let's not forget the harm was done to the players, not to James Hird. Let's not forget that my health repercussions, the players will have to deal with, not James Hird, not Mr Little."
Yet now that ASADA has completed its interviews at Essendon and the AFL has laid charges against the club, Hird, Danny Corcoran, Mark Thompson and Reid, ASADA and the AFL's treatment of the evidence has become a fundamental issue.
The allegations against Essendon and Hird are damning. But if ASADA omitted Hird's testimony about Melatonin from its interim report, what else has been left out of the case against Essendon? This is a question Essendon and Hird's lawyers are only now starting to answer, as they comb through the tens of thousands of transcripts of interviews and other documents the AFL has chosen not to release.
http://t.co/vW2Ev9FxkT
JAMES Hird has rarely slept well since he collided with Mark McVeigh and suffered one of the most horrific facial injuries AFL football has seen.
He is reminded of the metal plates he still has embedded in his cheekbone whenever he puts his head on the pillow. It is this permanent injury, rather than the memory of his collision with teammate McVeigh, which keeps him awake at night.
Not long into Essendon's pre-season campaign for the 2012 season, Hird spoke to his newly appointed high-performance director Dean Robinson about the problem. Hird explained he regularly took sleeping pills. Robinson suggested he try Melatonin, a readily available hormone used to treat sleeping disorders and migraines.
One day when Hird had run out of sleeping pills and club doctor Bruce Reid was not around, Robinson showed Hird how to self-inject the drug. Hird would later tell Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority investigators he slept the next six nights as well as he ever has. The problem was his skin turned an unnatural colour and became acutely sun-sensitive. Hird threw the rest of the bottle away.
ASADA listened to Hird's evidence about this but didn't accept his explanation. They insisted he set out to take another drug. ASADA preferred the story told by Robinson.
According to Robinson, Hird deliberately administered himself with Melanotan II, a substance with a similar sounding name but very different use. Melanotan II is a drug used for erectile dysfunction and as a tanning agent. Robinson told ASADA both he and Hird took Melanotan II for vanity reasons, as Melbourne was heading into its summer months.
Given Robinson's testimony, Hird cannot say with certainty what he did take. He says that at the time, he believed he was taking Melatonin.
Neither Melatonin nor Melanotan II are substances banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency. Normally, neither would be of any interest to investigators looking for evidence of doping.
Yet the fact that Robinson's testimony about Hird's drug-taking features prominently in the AFL's 34 pages of allegations against Essendon and its officials and ASADA's 400-page summary - and Hird's version of events not at all - provides an insight into why Essendon and Hird are so livid at ASADA and the AFL.
Hird's self-administering of Melanotan II is covered in some depth by the AFL's statement-of-grounds document released this week. The document criticises Hird for failing to make inquiries about the substance he was about to inject, for failing to ask whether Robinson was qualified to show him how to inject it, for failing to ask whether it was a banned substance. It notes that Hird suffered side-effects from the drug, but redacts what these side effects are.
The AFL's decision to redact the side-effects, ostensibly to protect Hird's privacy, has had the effect of publicly humiliating Hird. A Fairfax gossip columnist used Google to fill in the blanks and discovered one side-effect of Melanotan II is a painful, prolonged erection. No penis pun was spared. Twitter did the rest.
The AFL accuses Essendon of administering its players with a pharmacological rollcall of substances, some banned, some contentious and some developed for use in horses and dogs. Essendon's position is that of the 13 substances listed by the AFL, the WADA-banned Thymosin Beta 4 and Actovegin, an extract from calf's blood, were certainly not used. The club believes Lube All Plus, a dietary supplement used to treat joint problems in horses and dogs, was provided to the club by sports scientist Stephen Dank but not administered to any players.
The issue of whether Hird took Melatonin or Melatonan II is a sideshow to a very serious issue. As the aggrieved Essendon mother who called the Triple M radio station yesterday pointed out, the Essendon supplement scandal isn't about Hird or Paul Little, the club president who is now taking on the full might of the AFL.
"Let's not forget the harm was done to the players, not to James Hird. Let's not forget that my health repercussions, the players will have to deal with, not James Hird, not Mr Little."
Yet now that ASADA has completed its interviews at Essendon and the AFL has laid charges against the club, Hird, Danny Corcoran, Mark Thompson and Reid, ASADA and the AFL's treatment of the evidence has become a fundamental issue.
The allegations against Essendon and Hird are damning. But if ASADA omitted Hird's testimony about Melatonin from its interim report, what else has been left out of the case against Essendon? This is a question Essendon and Hird's lawyers are only now starting to answer, as they comb through the tens of thousands of transcripts of interviews and other documents the AFL has chosen not to release.
http://t.co/vW2Ev9FxkT

