Essendon doctor Bruce Reid kept in the dark over injections A SERIES of injections given to Essendon players at a private clinic were administered without the knowledge of club's medical staff, dumped high performance manager Dean Robinson appears to have admitted. The injections administered to players between April and August last year at the privately run HyperMED clinic are at the centre of the AFL's case against senior coach James Hird, assistant coach Mark Thompson, football manager Danny Corcoran and long-serving club doctor Bruce Reid, who are all charged with conduct unbecoming or prejudicial to the interests of the AFL. The AFL accuses all four officials of either allowing players to be administered with banned substances or being unable to demonstrate what substances they were given. An email seen by The Australian suggests that Robinson, the club employee who arranged the treatment schedule designed by sports scientist Stephen Dank, knew the injection regime was conducted without the knowledge or approval of Dr Reid - a requirement stipulated by Hird for any injections. In September 2012, the club was alarmed when it received a $61,000 bill from the clinic for hyperbaric and vacuumed treatments and 112 injections of unspecified amino acids. In a September 13 email to the clinic's owner, Malcolm Hooper, Robinson made it clear that Reid had not signed off on the injections. "I will endeavour to get this paid as soon as possible but will require some discussion on the injectables from the club's legal people as directed by the key stakeholders as this was not authorised by any of our medical staff," Robinson tells Hooper. So in short, I will advise you as soon as possible on the payment of vacuumed and hyperbaric and get back to you on the injectables. Robinson did not respond to calls from The Australian yesterday. The AFL's decision to charge 68-year-old Reid, the competition's longest-serving club doctor, has angered football's tight-knit medical community and a generation of Essendon, Victorian and Australian team players who have been treated by the highly regarded medico. It has also infuriated Reid, who believes much of the supplement regime was carried out behind his back by Robinson and Dank. Sources close to the investigation told The Australian the case against Reid hinges on the conflicting testimony of two senior Essendon officials who have since left the club. During his lengthy testimony before the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority, Reid explained that in January last year he called an immediate halt to the supplement program when he discovered Dank had been administering players with the contentious peptide AOD9604 without his knowledge. The discovery prompted Reid to write a letter raising his concerns, which he gave to the then football manager, Paul Hamilton. Hamilton confirmed to ASADA that he read the letter and discussed its contents with then chief executive Ian Robson. Robson in his interview could not recall the conversation with Hamilton. Reid's concerns were never taken to the Essendon board. Hamilton left the club at the end of last season to pursue other opportunities. Robson quit earlier this year after businessman Ziggy Switkowski made public his club-commissioned report that found poor governance and administration allowed a culture of "pharmacological experimentation" to flourish in the football department. Reid in February last year finally approved the use of AOD9604 after Dank provided information about its origins, safety, efficacy and status under WADA. In his testimony to ASADA, Reid admitted he was not personally shown the correspondence from ASADA that Dank relied on to prove AOD9604 did not break anti-doping rules, although other senior figures in the football department were. Dank maintains he gained ASADA approval to use the compound but has declined to make his correspondence available to the AFL, ASADA or Essendon. Dank and Robinson deny any players were given banned drugs. Reid told ASADA he only approved the use of AOD9604 in footballers recovering from bone fractures or at risk of osteoporosis and arthritis - applications for which the compound has shown potential in trials. He told the investigation he did not authorise the widespread use of the drug throughout the playing group and was not invited to a meeting where Dank gained the consent of players to broaden its use beyond fracture patients. AFL general counsel Andrew Dillon confirmed no Essendon player had a doping case to answer but reiterated WADA this year declared AOD9604 a banned drug.