Doping

[OakLeaf]

That's basically the same thing I said.

Rules are fine. Sport can't function without rules. Bicycles have to be built in a defined configuration, ball fields have to be a defined size, basketball hoops have to be a certain height off the ground. And some drugs and surgeries are permitted and others are prohibited.

Quit pretending it's about anything else, enforce violations as sporting violations, and the endless debate goes away.

[e3rdpower]

I used to think like some of you until I listened to an ethicist, Norman Frost, who was a guest speaker at the hospital I work at. He was had some quite compelling arguments about why doping is should not be considered cheating any more than using the latest technology is. I won't try to go into all of it here, but look him up some time.

He also convinced me that a level playing field is a complete and total myth. There is no such thing.

He also challenged the widely held reason that testosterone should be banned because of risk of cancer.... it has actually been found that there is not a link between testosterone use and cancers. (btw - it is normal for testicular cancer to strike men in their 20's. It's not an old man's disease. 20-39 is the typical age range) To be sure some PED's carry risks, not necessarily of cancer, but real and severe health risks like making your blood too thick to circulate.... but better to have people doing it in the open and under the supervision of a doctor, than hiding it until they die.(

I agree very much with this. It's technological advancement, just with your body, not equipment. I do agree that riders should be monitored (for example, to make sure that hematocrit levels will not make them stroke out). As for the juniors issue, that's certainly a concern, but alcohol and tobacco are legal for adults and not kids...

I've been quite turned off by WADA and USADA's banned substance list, also. It's a little over encompassing, in my opinion. I saw recently that a BMX racer (16 yo female if I remember correctly) was suspended for caffeine levels over the threshold. It doesn't take much at all to exceed the "allowed" for many innocuous substances.

[SheFly]

Interesting article on the subject today here.

I still contest that doping at the local levels is becoming more rampant.

SheFly

[Crankin]

I'm not sure how I feel, except to say the whole doping issue is what caused my former exchange student to quit being a pro. First, financial support was withdrawn and then there was the issue of him feeling like it didn't matter what he did, he couldn't compete with those who were doping. Many months of therapy and going back to school cured that
I wonder if this was going on with some of the juniors when DS was racing. He often felt that some of those kids were just a little too good and somewhat entitled and secretive at the national training camps he went to.

[Eden]

The article is interesting, but IMHO it is completely impossible to compare one race to another because there are sooooooo many factors that contribute and some of them aren't even physical. Sometimes a race doesn't even heat up and get fast because of tactics that are playing out. It's not necessarily that the racers couldn't go faster, but there are reasons that they don't want or don't need to.....

Plus there is wind, heat, cold, rain, injuries, differences in the way the stages are ordered, dominance or non-dominance of a team or rider..... once race to another... always apples to oranges if you ask me.

I don't doubt there's doping on the local level. One of our local masters guys got a 2 year suspension for taking something. I don't remember exactly what. Some sort of steroid I think. He had it prescribed for a time because of a knee injury, but then didn't stop, because it was improving his performance and the temptation overrode his common sense. Even on the silly low down level, I know a lot of people who use inhalers, who probably do not have asthma, exercise induced or otherwise.... and I know people who borrow them, who definitely don't.

[OakLeaf]

But it's "medical necessity" that takes the debate off into the la-la land of ethics and morality. If someone has asthma, then albuterol or whatever enhances their performance. If someone has MDS, then EPO enhances their performance. If someone has no legs, then prostheses enhance their performance.

There's no Platonic form of a human being that the regulators can point to and say, this person can be medicated until their performance reaches this level and no further - and if there were, then obviously they wouldn't be competitive in their sport, medication or no.

Some of those regulations do exist in insurance and Medicare coverage - it impacted my dad when his hematocrit rose too high for Medicare to cover his EPO. But those limits are around the level of bare survival and possibly ability to carry out ADLs. In an ideal world maybe you'd medicate the sick person to a higher level of wellness. But again ... when it stops being about sport, when we pretend the line is not arbitrary, then where is the line?

[ny biker]

Albuterol does not enhance your performance if you have asthma. It keeps you from dying.

[malkin]

Albuterol does not enhance your performance if you have asthma. It keeps you from dying.

Alive is definitely enhanced!

[Wahine]

Don't kid yourselves that doping is only happening at the professional level. As pll said, yesterday the news broke of master's aged racers being caught doping at a Grand Fundo

Masters athletes have been the fastest growing performance enhancing drug user group for about 10 years now.

At sports medicine conferences the discussion isn't about whether doping is right or wrong. It's about what the latest drugs/doping techniques are, all the horrible things it does to your body, how to recognize an athlete that is using and how to manage that athlete medically.

[Wahine]

He also challenged the widely held reason that testosterone should be banned because of risk of cancer.... it has actually been found that there is not a link between testosterone use and cancers. (btw - it is normal for testicular cancer to strike men in their 20's. It's not an old man's disease. 20-39 is the typical age range) To be sure some PED's carry risks, not necessarily of cancer, but real and severe health risks like making your blood too thick to circulate.... but better to have people doing it in the open and under the supervision of a doctor, than hiding it until they die.

This may well be true and I don't know that it's testosterone or who knows what but the incidence to testicular cancer went up dramatically, very quickly in men in their early 20's in the 90's. What's interesting about that is not that it went up, but that the increased incidence was much higher in the competitive athletic population. I think the difference was about 25% more likelihood of a diagnosis in the athletic population.

(disclaimer - I'm joking!) Why not consider having been pregnant a PED it does permanently raise your blood volume.....

I realize you're joking. But sadly, this has actually been done in an organized way by team managers and involving young women in sport. I'm talking teens.

[tulip]

Albuterol does not enhance your performance if you have asthma. It keeps you from dying.

Yes, but I used to take it before bike rides even when I was not having any symptoms and I always rode better. I imagine it is used for that purpose by those who do not have asthma. My asthma has gone away so I can no longer get it (and I'm grateful for the asthma having gone away).

[OakLeaf]

Albuterol does not enhance your performance if you have asthma. It keeps you from dying.

I don't know anyone with asthma, including myself, whose instructions for their rescue inhaler tell them not to use it until they're on the point of death. It's the difference between a peak flow of x and a peak flow of x+100 or whatever. That's a performance enhancement. Now, if you want to talk about my Epi-Pen, which really is only supposed to be used when it's that or die ... extrinsic epinephrine is STILL a performance enhancement. Does the same thing to my sympathetic nervous system whether or not I'm having an anaphylactic reaction. Sorry.

Really, the philosophical issues go way beyond doping in sport, and get into the north/western concept of medicine as disease management. Most other medical systems view themselves as trying to bring a person (not a "patient") to their personal highest level of wellness, which would include athletic performance. But when north/western medicine does that, it's seen as "cheating." Maybe only because the techniques are usually so invasive?

[azfiddle]

FWIW- my husband had testicular cancer and absolutely never took anything. (He wasn't particularly athletic at the time).

[pll]

Most other medical systems view themselves as trying to bring a person (not a "patient") to their personal highest level of wellness, which would include athletic performance. But when north/western medicine does that, it's seen as "cheating." Maybe only because the techniques are usually so invasive?

What system of medicine do you have in mind? How do you define the "highest level of wellness"?

For the most part, as I understand PEDs, we are talking about drugs that either have or may have deleterious effects with prolonged use -- for many, the effects of prolonged use are unknown. Even with an asthma inhaler, there are health costs, but for someone who suffers from asthma, the benefits of being able to breath outweigh the long run considerations, while as for a "recreational" user, there is no justification. Steroids might take you to the "highest level of wellness" in the short run, but kill you in the long run.

[goldfinch]

There's no Platonic form of a human being

Yup. This reminds me of discussing about women athletes and the testing they go through to show that they are "real women." Sorry, there is no bright line and there is no form of a real woman. Or man.