One of the world’s leading advocates for athletes charged with doping offenses believes the Court of Arbitration for Sport decision against the 34 current and former Australian Football League side Essendon footballers has "reduced the strength of evidence required to secure a guilty finding," according to Chip Le Grand of THE AUSTRALIAN. L.A.-based Howard Jacobs questioned the reasoning used by CAS to find every player had taken the banned peptide Thymosin Beta-4 "as part of Stephen Dank’s 2012 injections regime." Jacobs said that this finding "appeared inconsistent with past decisions." Jacobs said, "One of the more surprising parts of the decision was the conclusion that, well, they all must have used it. These cases are supposed to be harder cases for WADA to win than cases where there is a positive test. It does seem like the standard is relaxed a little bit here." Victorian independent senator John Madigan, who believes the doping allegations should have been determined by the AFL rather than a Swiss-based tribunal, "will introduce a motion this week to establish a Senate inquiry." Jacobs said that although the circumstances of the Essendon case were "unlikely to be repeated elsewhere, it would be a concern if CAS had lowered the evidentiary bar." He was not "surprised that the players, once found to have taken a banned substance, were banned for two years" (THE AUSTRALIAN, 2/22).
