Jackson sorry doctor left FA, but says she had to speak out
THE athlete at the centre of a drug controversy involving former England doctor Rob Chakraverty has expressed regret that he left his job at the Football Association last week, but says she needed to speak out.
Emma Jackson, a GB international over 800m from 2010 to 2012, was prescribed high levels of thyroxine by Chakraverty while he was a doctor with UK Athletics. He later became FA team doctor for the England football team.
Jackson revealed to the Mail on Sunday earlier this month that she believed her career was ended by the high levels of thyroxine prescribed by Chakraverty. On Friday, Chakraverty said he was stepping down from his FA post to ‘seek new challenges’ and was thanked by the FA for his part in the team’s progress.
Jackson said: ‘I didn’t speak out to put anyone under extra pressure. Whatever his reasons for stepping down, that wasn’t my aim. But it was important to tell my story. Sports doctors dealing with thyroxine need to be aware of the potential pitfalls. And if UK athletes are still taking it, they need to know about that as well.’ Chakraverty had already come under increased pressure after BBC’s Panorama last month revealed emails which suggested that he had doubts about giving quadruple Olympic champion Mo Farah an L-Carnitine infusion shortly before the 2015 London Marathon when urged to do so by Alberto Salazar. Chakraverty went ahead with the infusion but failed to record the levels.
Salazar, Farah’s former coach, is now banned from the sport for doping offences, one of which was infusing L-Carnitine at illegal levels above the 50ml permitted over six hours by the World Anti-Doping Agency. Salazar is appealing against his ban.
Chakraverty has said that his ‘usual standard of record keeping slipped due to heavy work commitments’ but that the ‘volume … was well below the 50ml permitted’. Chakraverty had met Jackson, UKA officials and an endocrinologist in 2015 to discuss her treatment, which took place between 2011 and 2014. Contemporaneous notes taken at the meeting, seen by the Mail on Sunday, record that he said he should have handled the case differently and apologised to Jackson.
Thyroid is a controversial drug as it was also part of Salazar’s armoury of marginal gains among distance runners and was often prescribed to runners who did not appear to need it for medical reasons. However, Jackson has a thyroid deficiency and so needed thyroxine, and there is no suggestion Chakraverty gave her the drug without good reason. The questions are over the levels at which he told Jackson to take thyroxine over a sustained period.
Despite his experiences with Jackson, Chakraverty continued to suggest screening elite athletes for thyroid issues. Sportsmail has documented how he raised the issue with Premier League doctors, discussing if it would be possible to screen England players, though they never did so due to the negative response he received.