This doesn't mean Tiger did or took anything illegal but he did fly this doctor down to his home for some kind of tx:
December 17, 2009
Doctor Under Investigation for Doping Is Charged
By IAN AUSTEN and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT
OTTAWA — The Royal Canadian Mounted Police brought four drug-related charges Wednesday against Anthony Galea, the Canadian physician who has treated many prominent professional athletes.
The charges all relate to Actovegin, a controversial drug made from calves’ blood that is not approved for sale in Canada or the United states, and include criminal conspiracy to import the drug to both countries, conspiracy to export it to the United States, smuggling and selling an unapproved drug.
“The R.C.M.P. is alleging that it was Galea’s intent to treat some of his patients outside Canada with Actovegin,” according to a police statement.
A raid of Dr. Galea’s sports medicine clinic in Toronto on Oct. 15 “resulted in the R.C.M.P. seizing unapproved drugs, believed to be Actovegin, from the doctor’s office.”
In an interview with The New York Times before being charged, Dr. Galea said that he has treated some patients with Actovegin, but he was adamant that he had not violated any laws. The medical licensing body for the province of Ontario allows physicians to use unapproved drugs provided that patients are informed and give consent. But Health Canada, a federal agency which is also involved in the investigation, does not allow the sale or advertising of unapproved drugs in Canada.
Exactly what Actovegin does for patients is unclear. The only clinical trial under way has not published its results. Some members of the anti-doping community believe that it may boost red blood cell counts, although the World Anti-Doping Agency has found no such evidence. The drug is not on WADA’s banned substance list. Some physicians believe that Actovegin, which is legally available in parts of Europe, may provide little more than a placebo effect for its users.
The R.C.M.P. confirmed that its investigation was launched after United States border officials stopped a car driven by Dr. Galea’s assistant in September. Dr. Galea is also under criminal investigation by the F.B.I. and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency in the United States.
A United States federal criminal complaint, dated Sept. 16, identifies the assistant as Mary Anne Catalano. Border officers searched the Nissan Rogue she was driving at the Peace Bridge border crossing in Buffalo as she tried to enter the United States.
Inside the car, the officers found 20 vials and 76 ampoules of drugs that included human growth hormone and foreign labeled homeopathic drugs, according to the criminal complaint. The officers also found 111 syringes, an ultrasound computer, several documents, a Macintosh computer and a global positioning system.
At that point, agents from the Food and Drug Administration were alerted and a smuggling investigation into Catalano began.
The document says that Catalano was advised of her right to remain silent but waived it and agreed to speak with authorities. She told agents that she knew she was bringing illegal substances into the United States and was doing so on behalf of her employer.
Catalano told agents that her employer, who is not identified in the federal document, had had problems trying to import these substances into the United States at border crossings, according to the complaint. Her employer, she said, had asked her to bring the substances over the border and that they were to “meet up” later. She said that she knew her employer did not have a medical license in the United States and that it would be illegal for him to administer these substances.
The employer told her that if she was stopped she was supposed to say that she was coming into the United States for a medical conference and that the medicine in the car was not for treating patients.
Dr. Galea’s first court hearing will be held in Toronto on Friday morning. He is not expected to appear, his lawyer, Brian H. Greenspan, said.
The details of the complaint were first reported by ESPN.com on Wednesday morning.