Drugs in sport: Doctors' ethics attacked

THE HEAD of the International Olympic Committee's medical commission, Prince Alexandre de Merode, has attacked a lack of ethics in the medical profession after the IOC president, Juan Antonio Samaranch, controversially called to reduce the list of banned substances.

De Merode said he was "appaled" after Samaranch said he saw no harm in athletes taking certain drugs as long they were not a threat to health.

"I don't understand," De Merode said. "People who want to reduce the list of banned drugs are those who want doping to continue. President Samaranch has always been against doping and he has always supported the action taken by the medical commission. I know where these ideas come from - doctors who have forgotten their professional ethics."

Samaranch also wants the list of banned substances in sport to be clearly defined and reduced in number. Samaranch has said. "An exact definition will help us decide what is banned and what is not as far as certain medicines already on the list are concerned," he said.