East German Says He Gave Out Steroids -- July 18, 1998

BERLIN, GERMANY - A former East German sports doctor admitted that he dispensed steroids, the first confession in a trial in Berlin of officials charged with damaging swimmers with performance-enhancing drugs. Dieter Binus insisted that the doses were too small to cause physical harm and that none of his athletes showed ill side effects.

Binus, another doctor and four East German coaches are charged with causing bodily harm to 19 swimmers -teen-agers at the time - by giving them anabolic steroids without informing them or their parents.

Prosecutors say they have evidence that the coaches and doctors knew the health risks but administered the steroids under a communist state-sponsored push to create world champions. The other defendants are coaches Rolf Glaeser, 58; Volker Frischke, 53; Dieter Lindemann, 46; and Dieter Krause, 50.