When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, so did the secrecy around a pervasive, state-sponsored system of doping in communist East Germany known by the Orwellian euphemism of “Supporting Means.”

More than two decades later, a newly published study has revealed that West Germany also began engaging in a government-financed plan in the 1970s to boost athletic achievement through the use of banned performance-enhancing drugs.

Although the West German government did not run its program top-down as in East Germany, the study indicated the West Germans engaged in systematic doping. It described experimentation with steroids on boys as young as 11, along with such odd and dubious methods as trying to enhance buoyancy in swimmers by injecting air into their colons.

The German revelations were the latest in a cascading series of international doping scandals, which have included the repudiation of Lance Armstrong, the suspension of 14 Major League Baseball players, the positive tests of sprinters from the United States and Jamaica, the supplying of drugs by crime gangs in Australia, and the barring of 31 track and field athletes in Turkey and 52 in India.