RICHARD BAKER’S SHARING RELATIONSHIP WITH ASADA
One of the most extraordinary documents uncovered was an email sent by the Age’s Richard Baker to ASADA senior investigator John Nolan at 11:08:56 + 1000 on Tuesday 9 July 2013. Extraordinary, because it appears to confirm the information sharing relationship between the Age and ASADA. Extraordinary, because it appears to prove that Baker revealed sacred off-the-record, potential job-losing, information.
Inter alia, the email included:
BAKER: “Hi John, this transcript was emailed on April 9. It consists of interviews between Fairfax and Dank in the period shortly before April 9. It was all on the record.”
My Comment: That was Baker’s first lie. The following content was not all on the record. The interviewer Nick McKenzie assured Dank that the frequency of injections protocol was off-the-record.
BAKER: “Here goes with the relevant bits.”
“Thymosin Beta-4 is what was used at Essendon.”
My Comment:
i. There was no evidence that Thymosin Beta-4 was ever delivered to Dank. Very comprehensive Alavi records – invoices, stock records, dispatch records, delivery records – prove neither Dank nor Essendon ever took possession of Thymosin in calendar 2011 and 2012.
ii. Judge James Spigelman made a catastrophic mistake which enabled the panel to find the players guilty. Spigelman was either incompetent, biased or arguably corrupt. The players should be exonerated on this huge blunder.
iii. In their first article on 11 April 2013, Baker & McKenzie stated that Dank acknowledged on two occasions that he used the term ‘Thymosin’ not ‘Thymosin Beta-4.’
iv. In an undated statement to ASADA, McKenzie changed his tune and said Dank acknowledged he used Thymosin Beta-4, but then retracted it and said it was Thymosin not Thymosin Beta-4. It seems a little unfair that McKenzie and Baker retracted the use of the term ‘Thymosin’ from their 11 April 2013 article and replaced it with ‘Thymosin Beta-4’ in their 5 July 2013 article but Dank was not allowed to retract his comment!
v. Baker added to the confusion and doubt by also stating that Dank used the permitted Thymomodulin
BAKER: “Thymosin Beta-4 has just been banned.”
My Comment:
Baker’s claim that “Thymosin Beta-4 has just been banned” is a massive own goal and proves that he and McKenzie were either unbelievably stupid or underhanded. His note to ASADA was made in July 2013. The players were alleged to have been administered Thymosin Beta-4 in 2012, when Baker has implied it wasn’t banned.
It was a disgrace that Baker omitted mentioning that Thymosin Beta-4 appeared on the ASADA banned lists for the first time between 10:34:17am and 12.59:17pm on 4 February 2013, the day the media reported possible doping at Essendon. [NB ASADA CAN’T BAN A SUBSTANCE. ONLY WADA CAN AFTER A FOUR-STAGE PROCESS. THAT PROCESS TOOK PLACE IN 2017].
Page 67 of the audit logs of the ‘Check your substances’ website that ASADA maintains demonstrates that prior to 4 February 2013, athletes searching for ‘Thymosin Beta-4 were not provided with a ‘Banned in Sport’. This was confirmed internally by ASADA at 10:34:17am on 4 February 2013. Following the timeline of the log, it would seem that someone at ASADA illegally then updated the database and added a ‘Banned in Sport’ status to Thymosin Beta-4. This can be seen by the 12:59:17pm entry on the same date. It was not found on the WADA ‘Banned List’ until January 2018. Given it wasn’t banned in 2012 when WADA alleged the players were administered Thymosin Beta-4, they were clearly the victims of criminal behaviour that was responsible for a great injustice.
BAKER: Thymosin Beta-4 has just been banned. This is not an anabolic agent or secretagogue. It helps the immune system. There is some data that may indicate that it promotes other benefits, but very weak. Says ASADA has no scientific evidence to ban it.
My Comment:
It appears that Baker and ASADA have gone from sharing an information relationship to Baker helping ASADA to run its case in his capacity as an expert witness.
BAKER: “Everyone had a stock standard protocol. The bigger bodies would have had a bit more because they are a bit older… Blokes who had colds or flu had a bit more during the work.”
My Comment:
i. Baker appears to be lying. He has used direct quotation marks for this entire segment. The words: “Everyone had a stock standard protocol. The bigger bodies would have had a bit more because they are a bit older” did not appear in the transcript of the interview given by McKenzie to ASADA. Normally, direct quotes are not used in a novel.
ii. This was an own goal by Baker. It appears that he was trying to help ASADA prove that the players were administered Thymosin Beta-4. In his haste to ingratiate himself with ASADA, he made a Freudian slip. Thymomodulin / Thymosin Alpha-1, not Thymosin Beta-4, boosts the immune system and were used to fight colds and flu.
BAKER: “Everything was spaced.” And it was different for year one, 2,3.
My Comment:
Although Baker used direct quotation marks around “Everything was spaced”, those words did not appear in the transcript of the McKenzie – Dank interview, which means they weren’t said or it means Baker was quoting from off-the-record comments.
BAKER: “Thymosin Beta-4 was once a week on a five or six week rotation. It stimulates the immune system. Injection. But if someone had a cold or flu you gave them a daily shot.”
My Comment:
Shame on Baker. Dank specifically stated, and McKenzie acknowledged, that these frequency protocols were off-the-record. Yet, here, Baker has breached a journalist’s most sacred obligation.