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new performance enhancing drugs and genetic doping by Olympic athletes
can athletes evade drug testing Can doping athletes be stopped? Scientists are increasingly concerned that
sophisticated techniques for evading drug tests will make it difficult for
testers to catch athletes using steroids and other drugs, especially at
future athletic competitions when genetic-based enhancements are expected to
be prevalent.
In the August/September issue of Update, the magazine of
the New York Academy of Sciences, writer Diane Kightlinger documents how
advances in drug production and genetic engineering are benefiting athletes
interested in evading tests – and the ways in which scientists are figuring
out ways to create ever-better detection techniques. Today, the pharmacopoeia of substances banned at the
Olympic Games includes not only stimulants, but narcotics, anabolic
steroids, beta-2 agonists, and peptide hormones such as EPO (erythropoietin)
and hGH (human growth hormone). Last year, the drug company Balco was
charged with distributing designer drugs such as the steroid THG (tetrahydrogestrinone).
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Putting Drugs to the Test In recent years, researchers focused on catching dopers have won important battles by developing tests for THG and EPO and using them to catch abusers. In addition, the creation of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) in November 1999 may soon result in near-universal standards for doping control across sports federations and countries. However, current methods of Olympic testing still cannot catch athletes who use steroids to bulk up during training but stop months before the Games, or those who use EPO more than a few days before competition. To combat these tricks to avoid detection, new techniques are being developed to identify illegal substances and methods. WADA has also implemented "year-round, no-notice testing," says Casey Wade, WADA education director. "Give athletes more than 24-hour notice and they can provide a sample, but it's going to be free from detection." |
The International Olympic Committee requires most Olympic athletes to make themselves available for doping tests anytime and anywhere for one year prior to the opening of the Games. This year, WADA plans some 2,400 tests, a process of selection that takes into account the substances that an athlete might use and the time it would take a body to clear the drug from an athlete's system before the Athens games start.
Lab testing faces many challenges. The U.S. Olympic testing lab facility at the University of California at Los Angeles employs an array of mass spectrometry techniques designed to analyze testing samples. The technique identifies steroids by breaking up molecules and sorting the resulting fragments by mass. However, it may miss drugs like THG because THG may have been modified in such a way as to make detecting those characteristic fragments difficult to spot on conventional tests.
Many physicians feel that some dietary supplements' should be considered drugs' because they contain known active ingredients, whereas dietary supplements' have little or no physiologic effects.
An athletic boost in the short term may mean health problems in the long term for teens who use performance-enhancing drugs, warns a youth sports medicine specialist from the University of Michigan Health System
Scientists are increasingly concerned that sophisticated techniques for evading drug tests will make it difficult for testers to catch athletes using steroids and other drugs, especially at future athletic competitions when genetic-based enhancements are expected to be prevalent.
The toxicology report on Baltimore Orioles pitching prospect Steve Bechler released today implicates the use of the herbal supplement ephedra in his death, and underscores once more the dangers of ephedra use, particularly when combined with other risk factors.
Proposed a warning label for all ephedra-containing dietary supplements. The proposed label warns about the risks of serious adverse events, including seizure, heart attack, stroke, and even death.
Wadler, who is attending the ACSM Annual Meeting in St. Louis this week, said that the subject of steroid use in baseball peaked in 1998, when Mark McGwire admitted to the use of the testosterone precursor, androstenedione.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has made an announcement that a series of actions aimed at protecting US citizens from the potential grave risks associated with dietary supplements that contain ephedra.
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