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Drug watchdog chief raises steroid concerns
Kathimerini
31/3/2005
The head of Greece’s drug watchdog told a parliamentary committee yesterday that he had recently been
the subject of numerous death threats and that a factory in Greece is making 1.4 million boxes of anabolic
steroids each year.
Dimitris Vagionas, the president of the National Pharmaceutical Organization (EOF), claimed that gangs
which were distributing steroids in Greece had recently been threatening his life. Vagionas said that 22
bomb threats had been phoned in to his office in the past few months.
Although the production of steroids is not illegal, their use by athletes is. Vagionas, however, raised doubts
about the legality of a factory in Greece which was making 1.4 million boxes of steroids each year for the
export market.
Vagionas said that EOF was too short-staffed to conduct thorough checks, particularly in the food supplement market,
which he said is worth 6 billion euros a year.
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Steroid production rampant in Greece, claims official
Friday, April 01, 2005
Daily Times
www.dailytimes.com.pk
ATHENS: The head of Greece’s state pharmaceuticals organisation
(EOF) has told parliament that a Greek firm has been producing 1.4
million boxes of anabolic steroids for export a year, press reports
said on Wednesday.
Speaking before a special parliament committee on sports
transparency Tuesday, EOF chairman Dimitris Vagionis reportedly
presented evidence showing that the lab is based in the northern
Peloponnese city of Corinth. Vagionis also said that his
organisation, which is responsible for licensing drugs, health
supplements and cosmetics in Greece, has received 22 bomb threats
from illegal drugs traffickers since the Athens 2004 Games.
According to the press reports, Vagionis said the threats
intensified after EOF raided a warehouse belonging to Christos
Tzekos, the former coach of Greek star sprinters Kostas Kenteris and
Ekaterina Thanou.
EOF fined Tzekos in September over substances
found in the warehouse, but the controversial coach has still not
paid the money, Vagionis was quoted as saying by the semi-state
Athens News Agency (ANA) Earlier this month, the Greek athletics
federation (Segas) handed Tzekos a four-year stadium ban for failing
to inform Kenteris and Thanou that they were sought by Olympic drugs
testers on the eve of the Athens Games.
Vagionis also told parliament that EOF lacks qualified staff to
monitor a six-million euro market in nutrition supplement products,
some of whom have found to contain pharmaceutical substances, the
ANA reported. Segas chairman Vassilis Sevastis told MPs in March
that Greece had become a “warehouse” of illegal substances prior to
the Olympics, and claimed that many Greek sports federations still
do not conduct doping tests in their championships.
[Link]
Selling medicines with no authenticity tape
Heavy Fine for Pharmacist
By Annita Paschalinou
The Hellenic Radio (ERA)
02 Mar 2005
In a check on a pharmacy in Halandri, employees of the Ministry of Employment were confronted with a large-scale
scam against patients and insurance funds. The pharmacist sold packages with no authenticity tape, while in
collaboration with doctors from large private hospitals, she used forged prescriptions. The Hellenic Pharmaceutical
Organisation (HPO) imposed a heavy fine of 2,156,425 euros on the pharmacist and ordered a three-month closure of
the pharmacy.
The Public Prosecutor also intervened in the case.
The HPO received a tip about the pharmacist in questions, and suspicions were confirmed after the check made by
the Ministry of Employment.
According to the Chairman of the HPO Dimitris Vagionas, other allegations of similar illegal activities by pharmacists
all over Greece are under investigation.
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[Definitie:] "An ergogenic aid is any substance or phenomenon that enhances performance."
(Wilmore and Costill) 
