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Banned drug in Essendon revelations has “euphoric” effect: Adelaide researcher

May 09, 2013

The Adelaide researcher who conducted clinical trials of the banned drug reportedly prescribed to Essendon AFL players says it has no proven anti-obesity or muscle repairing effects.

However, the drug was found to have a “euphoric” effect in a majority of people and has been patented as an anti-depressant.

The revelations come as a Melbourne newspaper reports that some Essendon players were recommended weekly injections of the drug – AOD-9604 – under the club’s controversial supplements regime in 2012.

Adelaide University Chair of Medicine Professor Gary Wittert was the chief investigator in a series of clinical trials of AOD-9604 conducted on behalf of the manufacturer Metabolic and which were completed in 2007.

Wittert led a team which conducted three human trials into AOD-9604 including a final three month testing.

“We designed a six month study properly powered to look at the outcome of ‘would it be a drug suitable for weight loss’ and the outcome from that was a definitive no,” he said.

Wittert said after that, he had “assumed the company had stopped developing the drug”.

“Now it’s been in some cream and just about every journalist has called it an anti-obesity drug, which it ain’t – it’s a failed anti-obesity drug at best.”

The drug was based on beliefs that a portion of growth hormone molecules retained the properties of breaking down fat without breaking down muscle.

In a statement to the stock exchange in March, 2012 the company said cartilage and muscle cell-based trials in Canada had revealed the drug “may help to repair damaged cartilage and muscle tissue”. In a later statement on April 26 this year it said work had only been done in pre-clinical studies and that there was no evidence AOD-9604 increased the number of muscle or cartilage cells.

The April statement also stated there was no “clinically meaningful weight loss outcome”, with the obesity trials stopped in 2007.

Metabolic no longer manufactures, distributes or sells AOD-9604 but the company says that Australian registered doctors can legally prescribe the drug.

The April statement also said AOD-9604 had been sold on the black market, which Metabolic says is in contravention to its patent position. It said the market was mostly gymnasiums, weight control centres, clinics and individuals including athletes and the obese.

Wittert said there was no clinical evidence that it helped with tissue repair or had any other benefit in people.

“However, when we gave it intravenously, we noticed that 60 per cent of people felt a euphoric effect, so Chris Belyea [CEO of Metabolic] and I patented it as an anti-depressant.”

During the intravenous trial no person had more than three doses which were given at least a week apart.

Last month AOD-9604 was declared a banned substance by the World Anti Doping Agency under the S0 category for non-approved substances. It has not been approved for therapeutic use in humans by any government in the world.

Wittert said it was unclear why football players would be prescribed an unproven drug.

The Herald Sun this morning reported that Essendon players had been prescribed the drug, but the club said it did not prove any of its players used the banned substance.

“The forms signed by Bombers players and officials reveal key details of the supplements program at Windy Hill in 2012 – they show some players were recommended weekly injections of AOD-9604,” the Herald Sun says.

The forms state that “all components of the intervention are in compliance with current WADA anti-doping policy and guidelines”.

An Essendon spokesman said last night: “It is a matter for ASADA to determine these matters.”

“The club certainly does not accept that the signing of the consent forms means that the supplements were administered, and this kind of speculation is just unnecessarily harmful to the players.”

The signature of controversial sports scientists Stephen Dank reportedly appears on all the documents as well as that of a witness and the player the program was devised for.

The revelation throws a cloud over the club in the lead up to its top of the table clash with Geelong on Friday night.

– With AAP

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