An article in The State today by Clif LeBlanc and David Newton reports that DEA agents are investigating allegations that a "West Columbia alternative medicine physician" prescribed steroids and other performance-enhancers to professional athletes including past and present players for the Carolina Panthers.

Some of the NFL players — patients of Dr. James Shortt — were on the Panthers team that competed in Super Bowl XXXVIII in January 2004, sources familiar with the investigation said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The Panthers' GM says he is unaware of any investigation but sources told LeBlanc or Newton that at least nine former or current players for the Panthers are being questioned. Some of the investigation also reportedly involves audiotapes of conversations between Shortt and the players.

The Panthers’ Hurney said he knows a probe is under way involving current and former players and their involvement with Shortt.

“We’re aware there is an investigation of a doctor down there,” Hurney said of the Columbia area. Hurney acknowledged the doctor is Shortt. “We were under the impression (the players) were ... witnesses for a case for this doctor.”

Hurney and a spokesman for Commissioner Paul Tagliabue point to the NFL drug-testing policy and Tagliabue's spokesman "would not confirm or deny a DEA or league investigation. But he said he doubts any NFL player could escape the league’s drug tests."

A Panthers spokesman confirmed a DEA subpoena seeking the names and address of players (current and past) with connections to the doctor was received by the team.

Shortt was previously under investigation for:

• Dispensing intravenous hydrogen peroxide to Katherine Bibeau, a multiple sclerosis patient from Minnesota who died within days

• Telling another patient, Mike Bate of Columbia, how to get the illegal cancer drug laetrile and giving him testosterone, which violated standard medical protocol because Bate was dying of prostate cancer, which is fed by testosterone

The article today provides the backstory on Shortt's alleged past activities:

The investigation of Shortt dates to May 2004 when a Columbia bodybuilder told a DEA agent that Shortt had a reputation for readily prescribing steroids for patients who paid him $1,000, according to a sworn statement by a State Law Enforcement Division agent.

The bodybuilder came forward four months before the September raid of Shortt’s Health Dimensions office and Congaree Pharmacy, which shares a building with him near Columbia Metropolitan Airport.

State and federal agents seized computer data, at least 21 boxes of patient and medical records and 256 audio cassette tapes, search documents obtained by The State newspaper show.

The article also says that the original bodybuilder who talked to the DEA said he was prescribed testosterone and Deca Durabolin by Shortt. The steroid allegations came to light in a federal lawsuit by the family of Katherine Bibeau. Her death was ruled a homicide. Her family's attorney, Richard Gergel, received prescription records, inadvertently according to the Congaree Pharmacy lawyer, for all of Shortt's patients from that pharmacy. The pharmacy's lawyer was arguing to have those records excluded from court.

Gergel's arguments for including the records included:

“His whole operation was ... a racket,” Gergel said in court. “This hydrogen peroxide was just a part of a major racket. Professional football players knew this is where you get your steroids, your needles, your syringes.”

Gergel told the judge Shortt was dispensing “steroids, needles and syringes in huge volumes.”

In an earlier letter to pharmacy lawyers, Gergel wrote that the 13-page prescription report “appears to reveal widespread criminal activity ... with an indication that wrongdoing may have continued after the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division executed its search warrant.”

“I think when the whole story is eventually told,” Gergel told Perry, “this is going to be BALCO east,” a reference to the wide ranging San Francisco investigation.

The article also mentions that Gergel gave the pharmacy records to 60 Minutes. Federal Judge Matthew Perry would not remove reporters in the courtroom at the request of the pharmacy's lawyer but the attorneys on both sides agreed not to give the names of patients in court.

Cross-posted at Backcountry Conservative