Germany may tighten its laws on sports medicine after doping incidents

British Medical Journal (BMJ). 2007 Jun 9;334(7605):1184-5.
Tuffs A.
PubMed ID & Record: 17556450

Leading Text: Doctors and politicians in Germany are demanding stricter laws for sports medicine after three doctors were discovered to have given performance enhancing drugs to professional cyclists. Two of the three doctors, from Freiburg University Hospital, were suspended last week by the university when they admitted doping professional cyclists. In separate statements, Lothar Heinrich and Andreas Schmid said that they gave the blood cell stimulating hormone erythropoietin to the cycling team of the German telephone company Deutsche Telekom, now T-Mobile. The confessions were made after several cyclists had recently publicly admitted to taking drugs for performance and accused the doctors of involvement. "I admit that I supported doping individual cycling professionals from the mid-1990s," Dr Schmid said in a statement released by his attorney. Previously, he and his colleague had denied any wrongdoing. Freiburg prosecutors are investigating and the university has also promised a full independent investigation into the past 20...