Examination of Witness (Questions 20-39)
30 MARCH 2004
MS MICHELE
VERROKEN
Q20 Derek Wyatt: £70,000 a week?
Ms Verroken: But he is not available
to actually progress the business.
Q21 Michael Fabricant: My knowledge of
sport is not deep at all; in fact most of it is influenced by
watching avidly Footballer's Wives; so I have listened with great
interest to what you have had to say about the team-talk, or not,
as the case may be. I have two marginally technical questions
to ask you to bring me, and maybe some others, up to speed. First
of all, can you tell me—I do not know your background at
all—have you a medical background?
Ms Verroken: No, not a medical
background. I trained as a physical education teacher. I spent
10 years teaching and lecturing in physical education and sports
science. I also obtained a higher standard in coaching and umpiring,
I am an international netball umpire, and really I joined the
then GB Sports Council as a Development Officer covering a wide
portfolio: sports medicine, sports science, coaching, anti-doping,
and was Development Officer for a number of sports, at one time
all winter Olympic sports. Really my sports science pseudo-medical
background comes from the fact that the second part of my degree
is in human biology.
Q22 Michael Fabricant: That is great.
The first thing I wanted to know is, we hear from time to time
when someone has been found positive that they argue, "It
was normal medication I was taking", or may be not even a
modern medication, "It is a combination of food or drink
which I was taking which produced this result." I remember
years ago people used to claim when they were over the limit drinking
and driving that it was a strange combination of Day Nurse and
something else. Does that have any validity, that sort of argument,
or is that complete tosh?
Ms Verroken: I think the argument
has probably moved on slightly. The sort of substances that might
have been easily obtainable over the counter, or certainly within
normal classes of social life—caffeine, the mild stimulants
in cold cures—now do not appear on the prohibited list of
substances, but I think there is a distinction between those athletes
who deliberately take substances and those who might inadvertently
consume a substance in a product that they had not perhaps realised
would contain a prohibited substance. I am referring there to
supplements. There are a number of sports supplements that athletes
are encouraged to take, partly because there may be a sponsorship
contract with the company concerned or because the medical adviser
believes that these are the answer to the club's prayers, as it
were, misfortunes or whatever, and certainly the whole issue of
the science of diet has become far more important to athletes.
It is a well-known fact that our England rugby team toured Australia
with its own nutritionists.
Q23 Michael Fabricant: With what?
Ms Verroken: With its own nutritionists
to help balance the nutrition for the players.
Q24 Michael Fabricant: Is there a programme
then to educate athletes, sporting people, as well as their trainers,
as to what things are likely to come up as a positive result if
that athlete or sportsman were to be tested?
Ms Verroken: We certainly have
tried to promote the education programmes and resources support
services for athletes. Looking back, as I have had the chance
to do now, I think that the problem was the chequered history
of education, and, being someone who came from teaching and fundamentally
believing that education is so important, there is no doubt that
I was frustrated by the lack of investment in education and at
one point in time the view that we did not need to have anybody
responsible to lead the education programme, this was the responsibility
of the governing bodies of sport. They have such a wide number
of responsibilities that this sometimes does need a kick-start.
I think one of the most important achievements of my time as the
Director of UK Sport was the Drug Information Database and the
information that we did manage to make available to athletes,
and it started back in 1987 with a small credit card sized piece
of information for the athletes simply listing what they should
stay away from and, on the other side, what they could take for
common illness or injuries.
Q25 Michael Fabricant: Would it be true
to say then that there really is no excuse if you are found positive?
Ms Verroken: There should not
be. It is very difficult, because that is a very general statement.
Anti-doping operates on a strict liability basis; the presence
of the substance is the offence. If it is there, that constitutes
the offence, but the World Doping Code that we have got, the whole
national policy that we established in the year 2000, was really
about trying to understand how it got there. So we could not take
away the offence, but what we could do is understand how it got
there. Was it given to the individual without their knowledge?
Was it something they took deliberately? I think where sport perhaps
has not been very vigilant is actually trying to find out how
the athletes obtain the products. Even in the situation that the
Chairman referred to with Greg Rusedski, there is no cast-iron
evidence that Greg took that supplement or that that supplement
contained nandrolone, so we are no further forward—
Q26 Michael Fabricant: Is there a grey
area at all in the world over what constitutes a prohibited drug
and what does not? Is it possible that in some parts of the world
someone could take a particular thing which is banned in another
part of the world quite legitimately?
Ms Verroken: I think that is probably
exemplified by the situation of Alain Baxter, the skier, who took—purchased
a Vicks inhaler that looked identical to the Vicks inhaler you
could obtain here, but the formulation was entirely different.
Yes, it is possible, but—
Michael Fabricant: I did not quite mean
that. What I really meant was, all right, nandrolone is illegal
so far as sport is concerned anywhere in the world, I imagine—correct
me if I am wrong—but are there some drugs which are so on
the margins that they are not actually considered wrong by some
sporting bodies in some parts of the world where they might be
considered wrong in the UK or some other parts of the world?
Q27 Chairman: Could I just add something
to that which may be relevant? When I was in hospital a little
time ago with a back problem, my doctor, my GP, prescribed for
me some pain-killing drugs. When I went to the hospital and the
nurse looked at them, she took them away from me, because she
said they were a controlled drug and I was not allowed to have
a controlled drug. When my doctor came to visit me and I told
him about this, he demanded that they be restored to me. So there
are areas of doubt, are there not?
Ms Verroken: There are areas of
doubt. Doctors do prescribe controlled narcotics and a number
of those will actually be prohibited in sport. It is a situation
where if an athlete is prescribed a substance, they have a responsibility
to check. That does not mean to say they cannot take that substance.
We have moved forward an awful lot from the situation where certainly
we know of asthmatics who are concerned to actually be given oral
corticosteroids because they were concerned they would fail a
drug test, but we now are supporting a programme of therapeutic
use exemption where you can declare a medication and obtain therapeutic
use approval. So it is possible, of course, it is what you would
expect to see an athlete consuming. An anabolic steroid should
not feature in their prescribed medication where there is no alternative
that would be acceptable, that would be permitted, can be accepted;
and we have examples that would be worthwhile mentioning. Steve
Redgrave, who, as a diabetic and a known diabetic, has to take
insulin. That has been permitted. So we should expect to see a
level that is within the therapeutic range.
Q28 Michael Fabricant: Is there a world
standard on this? Just because you might permit something—not
you personally but your organisation—could that person then
be found positive, if you like, or guilty, whatever expression
you want to use, in another part of the world, or is there a world
understanding in athletics as to what is possible and what is
not possible?
Ms Verroken: Through the World
Anti-Doping Code there is a world standard; and all sports in
all countries of the world should be adopting that standard. It
would be worthwhile mentioning that there are some concerns that
France has adopted more stringent legislation. Unfortunately one
or two of our athletes in a variety of sports do tend to fall
foul of the French legislation that, perhaps, is more stringent
on some areas than others. So we have had athletes fail drug-tests
in France, and the French then apply their own ban but the athletes
are free to play in all other parts of the world.
Q29 Michael Fabricant: Can I ask one
more question. Is there a sort of race going on at the moment,
if you like, between people who want to provide drugs for athletes
or sportsmen and those who have tried to detect those drugs, or,
in fact, is that not case? Do you understand what I am asking?
Ms Verroken: Yes. It is difficult
to describe it as a race, because you get the impression that
people are literally lining up against each other, and I do feel
that there are scientists out there who are keen to look at what
opportunities there are to assist performance, because it is good
business to be able to promote products that will assist performance;
and in many respects, even in the UK, the whole story of the Nandrolone
positives that we saw appearing around 1999 were all about looking
at the existing legislation (the Medicines Act) and looking for
precursors of prohibited substances that the supplement companies
felt they could add to their products, and it was—they were
not contravening any law.
Q30 Alan Keen: We are so grateful to
you for coming. Other nations have got separate bodies, have they
not, across the board?
Ms Verroken: Yes.
Q31 Alan Keen: Can you give us some of
the examples to help illustrate what you would like to see?
Ms Verroken: I think probably
the very best example, because it is the most recent agency to
be established, would be the United States Anti-doping Agency.
Although the United States has been very much criticised in the
past for the way that sports themselves have controlled the programmes
of drug testing, the United States Anti-doping Agency receives
funding from Central Government and from the Olympic Association
but has a free reign to be able to test the athletes that are
considered to be in the elite pool. It has a very good and positive
relationship with those athletes, knowing where they are at any
time by operating a programme of updating the athletes' whereabouts,
addresses, providing them with information and really a continuous
education programme going on. It does mean at the moment that
in the United States whenever an athlete does test positive the
athlete has the option of volunteering to be suspended. I know
that sounds like a somewhat crazy idea, but it is a strict liability
offence and the athlete does realise that they ultimately would
be responsible for what is in their body and they may volunteer
to be suspended, or there is a very timely hearing in front of
trained arbitrators so that the athlete has the opportunity to
have the initial evidence, the prima facie evidence if
you like, of "Is this my sample; is this substance actually
prohibited", confirmed so that at this point in time the
suspension itself may be confirmed. The athlete has the opportunity
to accept the sanction without a hearing, and some of them do,
or to go forward in front of a single or a panel of arbitrators,
depending on whether they want the evidence tried or they want
to defend the evidence.
Q32 Alan Keen: What are the sports in
the US that the new agency is designed to embrace, or are you
talking only about athletics?
Ms Verroken: The US Anti-Doping
Agency (USADA) covers all the Olympic sports and Paralympic sports
in the United States, but they have been working with professional
football, and obviously baseball when it comes to the Olympic
Games, basketball, when it comes to the Olympic Games. So they
have been making inroads into the professional sports.
Q33 Alan Keen: Have any other nations
got an over-arching responsibility right across all sport? Australia?
Ms Verroken: Australia has established
their agency through legislation and the requirement for athletes
who are on their territory to be drug-tested, and that will include
non-Australian athletes as well.
Q34 Alan Keen: Anyone who comes into
Australia?
Ms Verroken: Exactly. Similar
legislation exists in France, but I believe not in Italy, and
certainly the Greeks are a fair way towards their own legislation
as well, but otherwise it is done by an agreement between the
sport bodies. That would be the way that the Scandinavian countries
have dealt with it.
Q35 Alan Keen: Do any of those nations
have a body which covers all sport, that they can go—
Ms Verroken: Yes.
Q36 Alan Keen: —right across the
board?
Ms Verroken: Yes. All the Scandinavian
countries cover all sports.
Q37 Derek Wyatt: France? The Tour de
France—I am sorry to interrupt—it covers that as well?
Ms Verroken: It does now. I think
the situation has developed where the international federation
are very keen to maintain their own testing programmes and control
of their own testing programme which led, of course, to the revelations
in 1997 to 1999 where the investigations, by using other legislative
means within France, showed that the cyclist entourage were actually
carrying a number of prohibited substances with them on the Tour
to be able to provide to the cyclists during the Tour itself.
Q38 Alan Keen: What steps would you like
to see if you were the complete, if you were the one decision-maker
in the UK? What steps would you like to see? Could you bring us
up-to-date on where the different sports are? I understand tennis
is outside. The FA, I understand, are going to come into it, or
are they not? Is that just newspaper talk?
Ms Verroken: I always thought
the UK had achieved an awful lot, and when the United States were
looking at setting up their agency they did look to the UK for
the way that we had developed a close relationship with the professional
sports, and we received a visit from General Barry McCaffrey,
who was then the drugs Tsar, to look specifically at the way that
football testing or soccer (as they called it) testing was being
undertaken this country. It really is a situation where, if I
had carte blanche, I would say, if you look at some of kind of
regulatory body for the whole of sport, not just for drugs but
for the issues of child protection, for the issues of equity,
then you could almost develop that kind of regulatory body that
still obviously is able to provide, if you like, consumer support
as well. By "consumer" I also mean those who invest
in the sports, the businesses that invest in the sports, because
they have a main concern about their investments.
Q39 Alan Keen: I was thinking that sport
should have a really proactive and constructive look at drugs.
We tend to focus on how we stop elite athletes and top professionals
from benefiting by taking drugs, but is there a case for having
an overall drug organisation which uses sport to help inspire
youngsters in school not to take drugs for recreational purposes,
because it will stop them benefiting from the sport. Could that
be your model: having an overall organisation legislated for by
government?
Ms Verroken: Yes. There are obvious
partnerships, and it is very much like the issue of drugs across
Whitehall, that you have a department for education, health, certainly
there is an issue of industry and by comparison the number of
employee screening programmes that exist across a wide variety
of businesses could in some respects copy the same model. There
ought to be a standard. There is no one standard in employee screening,
and so that in itself gives rise to the same situation we did
have in sport before the world anti-doping code emerged; but now
we have the code, now we have one set of standards, one process,
and the process does have checks and balances in it, to me, it
seems the logical move is to make sure that you invest in the
expertise there rather than dissipate it across sports.
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