Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority must determine exact substances that were used on Bombers players Dr Peter Larkins said it was difficult to predict the direction of the ASADA investigation. Picture: Ben Swinnerton Source: AAP THE investigation into Essendon's sports science practices could be headed towards a legal minefield because of "vague" areas in the World Anti-Doping Authority code. Unless the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority gets the exact substances that were used on Bombers players in the 2012 AFL season, the entire investigation will be forced to focus on testimony and witness statements. Highly respected sports physician Dr John Orchard foreshadowed the Essendon investigation to have wider ramifications for world sport because of vague sections of the WADA code. "The Essendon episode may highlight that WADA code is too vague at the moment," Orchard tweeted. Vagueness of WADA code is partially responsible for so-called 'borderline' practices. Orchard did not want to elaborate when contacted by The Courier-Mail. Reports suggested peptides were the substances used by Essendon. In 2011-2012, ASADA prosecuted six Australian athletes for peptide-related violations. But those athletes were caught in possession or trafficking the substance because it is nearly impossible for athletes to test positive for the hormone stimulant without deliberate and repeated blood tests. "If you actually do blood tests and look for the right compounds (you can get caught) but there is a lot of peptides that are very hard to detect unless you do repeat tests," Sports Medicine Australia spokesman Dr Peter Larkins said. So the difficulty of peptide hormone detection is you have to do expensive drug testing on multiple occasions and they don't show up in the urine tests in the short term for very long. Dr Larkins said it was difficult to predict the direction of the ASADA investigation until it was known what product Essendon used. "If there's an ingested or injected or a product used in some way that affects your natural hormone production that is defined as doping, that is not a grey area: that is black and white," Dr Larkins said. It's very clear in the guidelines that doping isn't just about taking a drug, doping is using a performance-enhancing strategy to improve your performance. Until we know the full Essendon story, the message is: let's determine whether or not there is a sanction there.