Four years after a huge doping scam burst into the open in Paris, Dr. Brian Halevie-Goldman, a San Francisco psychiatrist has been suspended for three months by the Californian state authorities.
Dr.Goldman was then the medical director of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative that allegedly provided steroids to top athletes.Halevie-Goldman was also placed on five years' probation and ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation for allegedly providing the drug modafinil to an athlete at the request of BALCO founder Victor Conte. Conte has already served four months in federal prison for dealing steroids.
After being sentenced to four months' jail and four months' home confinement in October 2005, Comte, a bass guitarist turned self-taught nutritionist, had said, 'It is said that I have become the poster child for the wrongdoing in Olympic as well as professional sports. Ironically, I find myself as someone qualified to help solve this problem plaguing sports, precisely because I've been a major contributor to the controversy.'
Conte admitted one count of conspiracy to distribute steroids and a money-laundering count in his plea deal.
In his testimony before the California medical board, Dr. Goldman claimed that it was Conte who misled him with false information about a woman athlete's medical condition in order to obtain drugs for her.
The medical board's accusation said the athlete, identified only as K.W., tested positive for modafinil at an international track meet in August 2003 and accepted a two-year suspension for admitting to its use in 2004.
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When White tested positive for the stimulant at a track meet, Halevie-Goldman concocted a medical history and diagnosis in an effort to excuse the doping offense, the medical board charged.
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It was she who had provided information to the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency on her former coach Remi Korchemny and Conte.
In the mid 1990s, Victor Conte developed a legal dietary supplement that purported to build muscle and speed recovery, much like an anabolic steroid.
Conte called the product ZMA, and to promote it he recruited a stable of world-class athletes who attested to the supplement's powers to 'make you 21/2 times the man you are!' Among the stars he attracted were Tim Montgomery, the world's fastest human, members of the Oakland Raiders and San Francisco Giants superstar Barry Bonds, who took three ZMA capsules before bedtime as part of an extensive nutrition program designed by Conte.
Conte, an amateur scientist who never finished college, made millions as he transformed his tiny company, the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (BALCO), into a significant player in the $19 billion nutritional supplement industry. But everything came crashing with the Paris scam.
Also to be disgraced as the scandal assumed ever new dimensions was Montgomery, a 2000 Olympic gold medalist and a former 100-meter world record holder. He retired in 2005 after he was banned from track and field for two years by the Court of Arbitration for Sport for doping linked to the investigation of BALCO.
Considered the fastest man on Earth until his world record was erased in the wake of the steroid scandal, Montgomery was indicted in April 2006 and arrested on fraud charges for his alleged involvement in a money laundering scheme. He is accused of depositing three bogus checks totaling 775,000 dollars.
Montgomery pleaded guilty to the charges on April 9, 2007. He is due to be sentenced in November, and is expected to serve up to 46 months in prison.
Source-Medindia
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