The disputed report linking Peyton Manning to HGH has sparked a collateral skirmish that, while technically irrelevant, could be useful when parsing through the broader question of who’s telling the truth, and who isn’t.
The dispute arose on Sunday, when the Guyer Institute in Indianapolis disputed the notion that Charles Sly, the unwitting source of the Manning allegations, worked for the clinic in 2011.
“Both Manning and the operator of the anti-aging clinic maintained today that the informant worked at the clinic only in 2013,” Peter King of TheMMQB.com and NBC’s Football Night in America reported on Sunday night. “I talked to the Al Jazeera reporter late this afternoon who did this story and she told me that they have confirmation from the clinic that the informant’s employment records say that he worked there in 2011.”
King thereafter obtained a response from Dale Guyer of the Guyer Institute: “The information you have been provided is incorrect. Charles Sly was never an employee of The Guyer Institute. At the relevant time, Mr. Sly was a pharmacy student in Nevada who emailed us a request for an internship. Arrangements for his internship, including the specific start and end dates, were made through his school advisor. Mr. Sly began his unpaid student internship with us on February 18th, 2013. He had no patient responsibilities at any time. Further, he had no affiliation with our office prior to February 18th, 2013, and has had none subsequent to the conclusion of his internship in May of 2013. Hope this helps to clarify the dates in question.”
Now, Al Jazeera has released the recording of a phone call in which reporter Deborah Davies confirms that Sly’s internship began not in 2013 but in 2011. The request was made as an employment verification, and the person who answered the phone eventually provided a start date of October 17, 2011 and that he stayed for “like three months.”
It doesn’t mean that the allegations made by Sly when he didn’t know he was being recorded are accurate, but it’s a bright-line contention on which Al Jazeera is clearly right, and Guyer is clearly wrong. And it’s enough to invite curiosity regarding the accuracy of other strongly-worded assertions being made by someone who has plenty to lose if the things Sly said when he didn’t know he was being recorded are accurate.
The real question is whether folks with the authority to investigate or prosecute the possibly illegal dispensation of HGH will become sufficiently curious to start poking around. If that happens, anyone questioned would be wise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.