Ben Johnson’s Doctor Tries to Defend Himself

Despite a plea from the commissioner of the Canadian government’s inquiry into drug use by athletes, Dr. Jamie Astaphan refused Monday to name the athlete who allegedly arranged for him to obtain the anabolic steroid that he testified he used in the treatment of Ben Johnson and other athletes.

On his fourth day of testimony, Astaphan said he has received threats because of his revelations about the drug scene in international sports and repeated a conversation he heard thirdhand indicating that the International Olympic Committee was willing to cover up Johnson’s positive test in the 1988 Summer Olympics.

But Astaphan spent most of his five hours on the witness stand Monday defending himself against mounting evidence that he was responsible for Johnson’s disqualification at Seoul.

Astaphan told the commission last week he was introduced at his Toronto office by a Canadian athlete in June or July of 1985 to an East German athlete, who exchanged 48 bottles of Miotolin, which contains the steroid furazabol, for 148 bottles of a vitamin mixture concocted by the doctor.

According to Astaphan’s testimony, furazabol was the only steroid he administered to Johnson between 1986 and the 1988 Summer Olympics. As a result, Astaphan said he could not have contributed to Johnson’s positive drug test for another steroid, stanozolol.

But as Astaphan, 43, has been unable to produce evidence supporting his claim of the meeting at Toronto, the inquiry’s commissioner, Charles L. Dubin, urged him to name the Canadian “if there is such a person, if this happened.” Dubin said that he did not make a similar request regarding the East German because he is outside the commission’s jurisdiction.

When one of Astaphan’s attorneys protested, Dubin said: “This is very essential to Dr. Astaphan’s story. Who did it?”

But Astaphan would not name the athlete, replying, “I think he’s got into enough trouble.”

The commission’s co-counsel, Robert P. Armstrong, has presented considerable evidence suggesting that Astaphan supplied the athletes with stanozolol purchased from a pharmaceutical company in Canada. Twelves bottles of an injectable steroid allegedly given to the athletes in 1986 by Astaphan have been analyzed as containing stanozolol.

But Astaphan said under cross-examination from his attorney, David Sookram, that the bottles submitted into evidence were not the same ones that he gave the athletes. He said the serial numbers were different, although he could not recall the numbers on the bottles he said he received from the East German.

Astaphan also was cross-examined Monday by attorneys for the Sports Medicine Council of Canada and the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons. He has lived on his native Caribbean island of St. Kitts since 1986, but he is fighting to retain his license to practice in Canada against allegations that his steroid treatment for athletes was unethical. He admitted Monday that he supplied athletes with drugs obtained from the black market.

The attorney for the Sports Medicine Council, Tom Barber, challenged Astaphan’s expertise in the administration of steroids. Astaphan named eight drugs Friday that he said would mask the use of steroids. When asked by Barber to name more Monday, Astaphan refused.

“I don’t feel like it,” Astaphan said. “I received numerous phone calls at my unlisted number threatening me, and I’m not going to put my family at jeopardy.”