Retired Australian Commonwealth Games defends safe steroid use by athletes.

A former Australian Commonwealth Games team doctor has called for sporting authorities to give up on their war against drugs, claiming steroids don't cause harm if they are administered properly. The Lance Armstrong doping scandal has put the issue of drugs in sport back into the spotlight, with most commentators calling for more stringent testing of athletes. However, Dr Tony Millar, the founder of Australia's first sports medicine clinic and St George's doctor for eight of their 11 straight rugby league premierships in the 1950s and '60s, believes athletes should be allowed to take performance-enhancing substances if they are administered by a health professional. ''It doesn't hurt them if they do it properly,'' Millar said. ''The thing they have told me was that they were unfair. Well, they were given to everybody - and that's more than you can say about the world's best coaches and best equipment. They say that people won't watch things but we all know that drugs are used in sports and they're building bigger and bigger stadiums.'' Advertisement Millar was the team doctor for three Commonwealth Games campaigns and was about to stand down from the 1986 campaign, his fourth, for health issues. However, he was sacked before he had the chance after a controversial article he wrote on steroid management was picked up by a medical journal. The 87-year-old, who practised medicine for 67 years before his retirement last year, claims to have administered steroids to as many as 5000 clients as part of a ''harm reduction program''. He denies ever providing steroids to the great Dragons teams he oversaw or to any Commonwealth Games athletes, saying that ''very few'' of his clients were professional athletes. ''I would prescribe these anabolic steroids, monitor you and bring you back when you finished to follow you up to see what happened," said the inaugural City2Surf doctor. ''I didn't have any deaths, no heart problems and I did this for some 20 years. It all depends on what you do with whatever it is. Guns are very dangerous - if you put them up to your head and pull the trigger. But they're not dangerous if you put them in a drawer. ''There are more steroids taken now than there were 30 years ago and there's no evidence of an increased death rate from them.'' The seven Tour de France titles which Armstrong won have been erased from the record books and the cyclist ordered to repay the prizemoney he has won. But as International Cycling Union officials attempt to restore the public's confidence, Millar said testing athletes was a worthless exercise. ''I think it's a waste of time and money when you think how many billions a year it costs,'' he said. ''And we're to give more money to ASADA from the government to test these things. They say they are unfair but you can get them and I could get them. I can't see what's unfair about that. With all that money spent on drug tests, think of what we could have done for the poor. It's become pretty plain to me that [drugs] were being used on the advice of uneducated people. We should be able to do a hell of a lot better with an educated person [administering them].''