Johnson’s Doctor Admits Falsity : Omitted Steroids in Signed Statement to IOC, He Testifies

Ben Johnson’s doctor admitted today that he drafted and signed a false statement to the International Olympic Committee after the sprinter failed a drug test that cost him a gold medal at the Seoul Games.

Dr. Jamie Astaphan, in his fifth day on the stand at the Canadian inquiry into drug use in athletics, buckled under a barrage of questions concerning his ethical behavior in administering steroids to Johnson and other athletes.

A lawyer for the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons asked Astaphan whether he lied when he signed a statement intended to be a complete list of medications he had given Johnson since he began treating him in 1983. The list did not include steroids.

‘It’s a False Statement’

“It doesn’t include everything,” replied Astaphan.

“It is clearly a lie?” lawyer Julian Porter asked.

“It’s a false statement,” Astaphan conceded.

“When was the last time you read the Hippocratic oath?” Porter asked.

“Many years ago,” replied the 43-year-old doctor, who got his medical degree at the University of Toronto but sold his Toronto practice in 1986 and returned to his native Caribbean island of St. Kitts.

“Where’s the part in the oath about helping athletes cheat?” Porter asked.

“The line about ‘to the best of my ability and judgment,’ ” Astaphan replied. “According to my ability and judgment it was preventive medicine. . . . I wanted them not to get sick--and they would harm themselves by getting the steroid elsewhere if I didn’t treat them.”

Not a Disciplinary Hearing

The doctor insisted again that he warned his athlete patients of the serious side-effects of long-term steroid use.

At one point, one of Astaphan’s lawyers reminded the commission that this was not a disciplinary hearing.

In later testimony today, Astaphan said he had been warned that his family would be harmed if he identified an East German athlete who he says supplied him with 48 bottles of banned steroids in a drug swap in Toronto in 1985.

He said he remained steadfast in his refusal to protect “the security of my wife and children.”

“It’s a matter of security for yourself and your family--is that what you’re saying?” Justice Charles Dubin asked.

Threat Alleged

“Not myself--for my wife and children who live in Toronto,” Astaphan replied as his estranged wife, Karen, looked on from the audience in the downtown hearing room.

Would they be harmed if he disclosed the name of an East German? Dubin asked.

“I have been so warned,” the doctor said. He did not elaborate on the threat and Dubin let the matter drop.

Astaphan now lives in St. Kitts with his youngest son, Scott, 9. Karen Astaphan lives with their two other children: Jamie, 14, and Kirsten, 12.