Concerns about stimulant use in sports were published in the New York Times as early as in 1895, but it was not until the Sydney Games of 2000 that the athletes’ oath included a pledge against the use of doping. The clean sport ideal has been slow to mature!
Since doping was only gradually deemed to be unacceptable, it took many years before significant measures were taken. The intuitively appealing approach was to look for scientific evidence by testing body fluids such as urine and blood. Testing duly started out in equestrian sport in 1910, and was immediately challenged in court. Among human sports, the focus of this article, testing was first introduced for cycling in the 1960s.
Current anti-doping regulation formally defines the analytical method to be reliable; it can not be challenged in court. In absence of procedural errors that might invalidate the test results, alleged offenders face pre-determined standard sanctions, typically a one-to-two-year ban from all sports for a first offence, and a lifetime ban for a second; prizes, titles and records stained by doping are usually returned.
Given these harsh consequences, the analytical scientist must deliver proof in rigorous compliance with international standards. The actual role is a purely technical one.
Here we ask whether the role of the analytical scientist should be strictly confined to technicalities, that is, to formally assure that false-positives rarely occur. We think not. Instead, we propose an expanded role for the analytical scientist that includes views on: (i) the reasons for carrying out the analysis and (ii) the objectives of the process. The analytical scientist should engage in discussion with the client, in this case an anti-doping organization or a sports union.
We identify three aspects of the current anti-doping system where analytical scientists could play a more active role.
It’s hardly a secret that doping tests invite evasion by meticulously organized counter-measures. As an illustration, recall that Lance Armstrong was recently stripped of his seven Tour de France victories, but mainly as a result of admissions of guilt by others: Armstrong was tested hundreds of times and, in the words of the International Cycling Union (UCI), he “was able to beat the system.”
It’s telling that the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has created a working group to examine ‘The ineffectiveness of the fight against doping in sport’. The analytical scientist has the ethical task of providing the client with realistic information about the inherent limitations of testing.
Many substances that meet the criteria of doping are nevertheless allowed by WADA. One example is pain medication.
During major soccer and handball tournaments, up to 50 percent of players use pain medication.
Hans Geyer, deputy director of the Cologne laboratory, noted in a recent interview: “It’s well known that Andreas Erm who won a bronze medal in the 50km walk in the 2003 world athletic championship in Paris received pain killers several times during the walk – can you tell me this is not performance enhancing?”
Such legal doping makes clean sport an unattainable ideal: by allowing pain medication, WADA unintentionally nurtures a culture of pills. We encourage analytical scientists to follow the example of Hans Geyer and voice concerns about the banned list.
"The analytical scientist has the ethical task of providing the client with realistic information about the inherent limitations of testing.”
In some countries, recreational drugs such as cannabis are responsible for half of the doping convictions. Unlike steroids or EPO, for example, the use of these substances is expressly allowed outside competition, though not during competition, owing to their short-lived effect. However, one could be positive days or even weeks after allowed use, producing an unavoidable minute trace during competition. Bizarrely, this counts as doping. Specifying suitable thresholds on the banned list, as is done for alcohol, could markedly reduce the number of questionable convictions and allow a focus on ‘real’ doping. Introducing these thresholds is not far-fetched; they are common-place in assessment of traffic violations. We encourage analytical scientists to place thresholds for recreational drugs and the like on their client’s agenda. Analytical scientists could play a more active role in improving the fight against doping. We conjecture that it would make their work more gratifying as well as more effective.
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