ASADA moves on records of doctor who prescribed steroids
ASADA moves on records of doctor who prescribed steroids, By: Jacquelin Magnay
August 23, 2006
DE-REGISTERED Glenmore Park doctor Wallis Lam, who prescribed steroids and human growth hormone to a boxer and scores of body builders, has been investigated by officials from the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority.
Lam, 46, was forced to sell his practice in the wake of being found guilty of professional misconduct on July 7, 2006, but his records, particularly in relation to his steroid and hormone patients, have been accessed by ASADA.
ASADA is looking for any link to professional sportspeople to pursue a "non-analytical positive" drugs case, where circumstantial evidence or information provided by government sources, such as customs, police, the courts and tribunals, is used to prosecute a sports drug case, rather than relying on a positive drugs finding from a urine sample.
Evidence was given before the NSW Medical Tribunal that Lam had prescribed a multitude of steroids to 24 patients, claiming to treat erectile dysfunction.
Lam said all of his patients were body builders or engaged in some other form of fitness training, but in some of his clinical notes there was reference to preparation for competition. Most had been prescribed Deca-Durabolin - a common steroid - with the other drugs being testosterone-based. The tribunal heard Lam had prescribed Deca-durabolin and Sustanon in combination at frequent and regular intervals. Dr Solomon Posen, an endocrinologist, told the tribunal that prescribing the two in combination was inappropriate.
But Lam believed the patients were obtaining such steroids and other drugs on the black market, including from veterinarians. He wanted to move them away from these black market drugs and monitor their use with regular blood tests.
He said he prescribed the combinations of drugs in quantities the body builders requested because "they informed that this was common usage". He had allowed them to self-administer the injections. But Lam agreed with tribunal members the drugs might not have been used by the patients and might have been sold.
