How many people are unknowingly using PEDs?

This month, I suffered a number of setbacks. From a freakish running injury to a serious bout with pneumonia, it has not been a productive month for fall marathon training. As a result of these issues, the fall marathon is in serious jeopardy. Having a time goal for the race and missing weeks of training is leaning towards choosing a race later in the year.

The freakish injury is possibly for a later time. At first, I thought I was suffering a severe cold with major congestion in the lungs. Sleep it out over the weekend and I should be good to go. Like the ad says, not exactly.

Still experiencing problems breathing, racing heartbeat going to bed, wheezing cough I went to the doctor. I told him I thought I had pneumonia. Ran through my symptoms, he ran a few simple tests and said my diagnosis was spot on.

He prescribed amoxicillin and gave me an inhaler. Before telling me what it was, he showed me how to use it and excitedly encouraged me to take a pull. I did as I was told and after looking at the box I recognized the drug. I’m neither a pharmacist nor a doctor, but Symbicort is banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency. This drug falls under WADA’s Beta - 2 Agonists.
Was the doctor obligated to advise me of this beforehand? What if I requested an alternative that is not banned by WADA, could he have obliged or is their a relationship between the manufacturer of Symbicort and this doctor? Several doctors I visit seem to have only one drug sample or prescribe only one drug – why is that?

Athletes are famous for going to the “I never knowingly used PEDs” card. My experience lends some credence to that excuse, but with one major exception: elite athletes need to question everything given to them – period. Dara Torres uses Symbicort to treat her asthma.

If my doctor freely gave me a banned substance by WADA, how many other people are using banned substances unknowingly? It’s scary to speculate. ADD, Viagra and other asthma medications just to name a few, but unlike elite athletes, these average joes and janes are using those meds to treat their illness or enhance their life, not get an unfair edge against the competition.

Cyclist Retires After Another Positive Test

Tyler Hamilton, a 2004 Olympic gold medalist and once one of Lance Armstrong’s top lieutenants on the US Postal Service team, announced his retirement from cycling after testing positive for a banned substance. Hamilton served a two year ban after testing positive for blood doping in 2004 at the Vuelta a Espana. A second positive test at the minimum is an 8 year ban and can lead to a lifetime ban from the sport. Hamilton said his retirement had nothing to do with his failed test.

Hamilton tested positive on February 9th for the substance DHEA, an over the counter dietary supplement that is on WADA’s banned list. He took the substance before the Tour of California to fight symptoms of depression. Per The New York Times, “DHEA, or dehydroepiandrosterone, converts to a steroid in the bloodstream and its benefits, including as a muscle-builder and antidepressant, are widely debated.”

Hamilton said, “Was it stupid? Absolutely yes. Was I wrong? Absolutely yes. But the people who suffer from depression know that sometimes you make drastic decisions to make yourself feel better. Yes, I took a substance that was on the banned list for my mental health. Did I take it for performance enhancement? Absolutely not.”

Some background regarding Hamilton’s first positive in 2004. Hamilton claimed innocence and denied that he transferred blood from another person, boosting his red blood cells and his endurance. Hamilton’s appeal to the highest court of international athletics, the Court of Arbitration for Sport, was unsuccessful and when he returned to the sport in 2007 his name was linked to a big blood-doping ring in Spain. The investigation into that ring is ongoing.

Hamilton has said winning the gold medal at the ’04 Olympics was one of the greatest achievements of his career. A month after his gold medal victory, he was accused of doping. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) deemed Hamilton’s initial blood sample from the Games positive for blood doping. However, the IOC could not strip him of his gold medal because Hamilton’s backup blood sample had been frozen leaving too few red blood cells to analyze.

Cycling has some drama, what else is new. Suffering from clinical depression or not, there is a banned list for a reason. All competitors in the sport know the consequences if they are caught using a banned substance. I applaud Hamilton seeking treatment for his illness, but if he wanted to compete into his 40’s, he should have done the right thing and met with a coach or doctor and pursued treatment that would have allowed him to continue to compete professionally. Hamilton had too many shady dealings in the past to know this was going to blow up in his face. I take him at his word: this last positive test had absolutely nothing to do with his retirement.

Armstrong Evasive During Test

When a French tester requested a sample from Lance Armstrong March 17th, Armstrong hit the showers…literally before providing blood, urine and hair samples.

Armstrong’s assistants reviewed the tester’s credentials while Armstrong took a 20 minute shower. The samples that were eventually provided were found to be drug free. This behavior is in stark contrast from when Armstrong announced his return to competitive cycling when he stated that he would embark on “the most advanced anti doping program in the world.” As we all came to learn, that ambitious testing program he announced in conjunction with his comeback resulted in zero tests.

Armstrong said, "I had no idea who this guy was or whether he was telling the truth. We asked the tester for evidence of his authority. We looked at his papers but they were far from clear or impressive and we still had significant questions about who he was or for whom he worked."

Once the identity was confirmed, the samples were provided. France’s anti-doping authority was not pleased with Armstrong’s act. They sent a report outlining Armstrong's behavior during the test to cycling's governing body and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Armstrong has said he has been tested 24 times without incident prior to this episode.

Everyone wants to believe Lance Armstrong. The man has raised awareness and countless funds for cancer research like no one before him. Being discovered as a cheat would cripple his image and those efforts; no one wants to see that. At the same time, people want to know the truth. For someone who makes a big splashy announcement coming back to racing and appears to do the right thing by embarking on an aggressive testing program only to never be tested once, raises flags. The zero tests under his new plan combined with suspicious behavior, leaving a tester for twenty minutes, and then providing samples is odd. I understand the need to validate the testers, but when will this end?

If you want to be on the forefront of transparency in testing, you don’t go off for 20 minutes and then provide samples. Lance Armstrong knows that; if he didn't, he does now.

Caffeine...A Legal PED

According to The New York Times, "caffeine, it turns out, actually works. And it is legal, one of the few performance enhancers that is not banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA)."

According to the article, the benefits of caffeine are relevant to all athletes whether you are an endurance athlete or one involved in anaerobic activity. Previously, researchers thought the benefits of caffeine only entailed helping muscles use fat as a fuel, sparing the glycogen stored in muscles and increasing endurance.

Turns out, that caffeine increases the power output of muscles by releasing calcium that is stored in muscle. This effect can enable athletes to keep going longer or faster in the same length of time. Caffeine also plays tricks on the mind's sense of exhaustion, that feeling that it’s time to quit, and you can’t go on. The improvement in performance using caffeine may average about 5 percent, still significant if you goal is to obtain a personal record (PR).

A former sculler who competed nationally and internationally, Mike Perry, only knew one athlete who used caffeine. He said, “People would have psychological issues with using it (caffeine). They would see it as against the spirit of the law, even though it’s not against the law.”

Well said, against the spirit of law even though not against the law. At marathons across the country, there are several people crushing coffees before the start. I doubt any of these weekend warriors have any qualms with the spirit of law even though caffeine is not against the law. The problem with caffeine is that it is so prevalent in our culture. To expect a competitive athlete to give up coffee seems incredulous. If one's motives are looking for every shortcut to optimal performance and is popping Mountain Dew's before a 7am race, then one would have to question that individuals decisions.

But the question remains the same: Is doing something legal wrong in the pursuit of greatness? Mike Perry and his teammates seemed to think so.

Current HGH Test Has Caught No One

For the past eight years, the current blood test for HGH has caught a whopping zero people using the banned substance...that's correct, zero positives. Either no one is using the product or the test is ineffective in it's current state. I'll go with the latter.

In an article in the NYT, over 8,500 athletes have been tested for HGH since 2000 yet not one has tested positive. Osquel Barroso, the senior manager of science for the World Anti-Doping Agency, believed that out of competition testing would lead to positives. The current test will only come up positive if the user has used HGH about 30 hours after it is taken, a serious limitation on the effectiveness of the current test. "Barroso also said that another reason more athletes had not tested positive was that the threshold for a positive test was fairly high. When drug tests are first implemented, the level of detection is often high to avoid false positives, then lowered after thousands of tests have been conducted." The anti doping experts have said that athletes receive the most benefit from HGH when they use it several times a week while training.

Per the course, the MLB baseball union is feigning ignorance. Gene Orza, the general counsel for the players union said, “We are not going to jump to that conclusion that there is a test today. At best, the science is murky today and there are people invested in the test’s development.” Not jumping to the conclusion that there is a test today...a test that is administered at the Olympics?I've heard that rational thinking from the MLBPA before...we do not have a drug problem, etc. It's time to stop the "deny, deny, deny" game and be proactive. You might actually turn some fans back on to the sport.

Dara Torres is on PED's...Legally

NBC is pinning its ratings hopes for the Beijing Games on the momentum surrounding the unbelievable story of 41-year old swimmer Dara Torres. After her World Record performance at the Olympic Trials, it is now speculated that she will be the flag bearer at the Opening Ceremonies on 08.08.08.

Skeptics have questioned how it is possible that she swam faster this year than 20 years ago. Other recent athletes whose performance improved in their 40's were aided by PED's, most notably Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds.

This performance is made possible by the financial resources available to an ex-model and the daughter of the one-time owner of the Aladdin casino (along with Wayne Newton) combined with her Type A personality devotion to training, according to a piece in the New York Times. She reportedly spends over $100,000 a year on a bevy of coaches (head, sprint and strength) and receives additional support from two stretchers, two masseuses, a chiropractor and a nanny.

It turns out, this performance is possible in part (and what NBC and the rest of mainstream media fails to inform the public) by performance enhancing drugs. Torres' has a therapeutic use exemption (TUE) for Symbicort (active ingredient formoterol) and Proventil (active ingredient albuterol) to treat asthma which is on the World Anti-Doping Agency's 2008 Prohibited List under Beta - 2 Agonists. Unusual in Torres' case, her asthmatic condition was diagnosed only 18 months ago.

Amy Van Dyken, a former gold medalist swimmer, suffers from asthma. In a 1999 CNN online chat, Van Dyken admitted to using a "Ventilin (active ingredient albuterol) inhaler every day as needed. I'm on a Flovent (active ingredient fluticasone) inhaler twice a day; I'm on Serevent (active ingredient salmeterol) inhaler twice a day and a bunch of other stuff." She went on to win two Gold Medals in the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Two of the medications mentioned are beta 2 agonists, but these drugs were not banned until September 2001. Van Dyken was also forced to testify to the BALCO grand jury in 2003. Gary Hall Jr., a former teammate of Van Dyken, recently questioned the validity of her accomplishments by comparing her to Marion Jones. Hall also doubts that the sport is clean. He is aware that the dopers will always be in front of the testers. Hall said, "This sport has become entertainment and it has taken on the morals of the entertainment industry where you can cut corners - and cheaters do prosper." Van Dyken has never tested positive for any PED.

Asthma and sports is a topic that no one wants to address. Why do more Olympic athletes suffer from asthma than the general population? Among athletes surveyed in the 2000 Sydney Olympics, 10% took asthma medications yet only 1% of the general population suffers from asthma. The number of Australian Olympians calling themselves asthmatic jumped from 10% to 21% in 12 years. In the Winter Olympics the number of people using asthmatic drugs is much greater. According to the late International Olympic Committee (IOC) medical chief Alexander de Merode, 70 to 80 percent of the athletes are using asthmatic drugs. The question is why this abnormality when it comes to Olympic athletes and the logical answer is that the substances used to treat asthma improves performance.

Changes to the asthma assessment regarding the use of beta - 2 agonists were made in 2001 by the IOC after some disturbing trends were discovered at the 2000 Sydney Games. There was a large increase in the number of athletes notifying the panel of the need to inhale a beta-2-agonist at the 2000 Sydney Games and ironically enough the notifications were predominantly requested in endurance sports. It was at this time that TUE's would be granted for beta - 2 agonists.

Per the World Anti-Doping Authority (WADA) website, the criteria for granting a TUE include an athlete experiencing significant health problems without taking the prohibited substance and the use of the substance would not produce significant enhancement of performance. In Torres case, was she really experiencing "significant health problems without taking the prohibited substance" 18 months ago? What about two, five, ten and twenty years ago? Given her unlimited financial resources, one would think that a proper diagnosis of asthma would have been detected years ago. It would appear that the use of the substance did factor into her Olympic Trials performance. Now it is up to WADA to determine if the substance was a "significant enhancement of performance."

I raised both these issues with an official at WADA, but never received a response. In addition, I inquired whether WADA periodically reviews TUE's and has the ability to revoke a TUE during the year.

Everyone wants to believe in the unbelievable - that's entertainment. However, we are discussing international athletic competition, not entertainment. The public is under the impression that what it witnesses is pure and genuine. Lately, the public's trust in the pure and genuine of sport has crumbled with the fall from grace of Marion Jones, Barry Bonds and Floyd Landis. Before we get sucked into NBC and mainstream media's hype machine, let's analyze the facts: Torres admits to using banned substances, but has in essence a "doctor's note" by having a TUE saying that she needs the medication. In order to qualify for a TUE, one needs to demonstrate that significant health problems would occur without it and that her use of it is not performance enhancing. This condition developed 18 months ago despite having the financial resources to see the best doctors and receive the best treatment throughout her life.

If that's all she's using then legally she's clean, but morally is another story.