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Anti-Aging Clinic Scandal Grows

ESPN.com

Biogenesis, an "anti-aging" clinic in Coral Gables that injected performance-enhancing drugs into professional athletes, had well over 100 of them as clients going back to 2009 and at least a dozen who are still playing professional ball, the whistleblower in the case told ESPN.com

Porter Fischer, who blew the case wide open when he leaked documents to Miami New Times, says customers  included players from pro basketball, soccer, boxing and tennis. Fischer said they also included players from college sports teams.

To Floridians, two other notes about Biogenesis may be of concern:

  • At least a dozen high-school baseball players from the Miami area were receiving performance-enhancing injections from the clinic, Fischer said. He named four high schools: St. Brendans, Gulliver, Columbus and South Miami, the Miami Herald reported (Editor's note: This article is behind a paywall.)
  • Fischner reported what was going on earlier this year to the Department of Health, and an investigator confirmed what was going on at the clinic through interviews with other clinic employees, yet there was minimal reaction.

DOH merely fined Tony Bosch $5,000 for practicing  medicine without a license, which Fischer said was a drop in the bucket for a clinic owner who had made millions. No criminal charges have been filed, and the state attorney's office says no law enforcement agency has been in contact about it.
Fischer, who has made no names public, says the clinic's customers included local police officers, lawyers and at least one judge.

Carol Gentry, founder and special correspondent of Health News Florida, has four decades of experience covering health finance and policy, with an emphasis on consumer education and protection.After serving two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Colombia, Gentry worked for a number of newspapers including The Wall Street Journal, St. Petersburg Times (now Tampa Bay Times), the Tampa Tribune and Orlando Sentinel. She was a Kaiser Foundation Media Fellow in 1994-95 and earned an Master's in Public Administration at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government in 1996. She directed a journalism fellowship program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for four years.Gentry created Health News Florida, an independent non-profit health journalism publication, in 2006, and served as editor until September, 2014, when she became a special correspondent. She and Health News Florida joined WUSF in 2012.
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