SPORTS DRUG TESTING gets more invasive

THE CASE

The Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA) has been testing the use of Australian Medicare records as part of the new fight against drug cheats called the Pure Performance Program.

ASADA provides various agencies like Australian Customs, Medicare, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) with the details of elite athletes and asks them to share information. In the case of Medicare it seems that they are searching the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) records for matches between the athletes names and the use of anabolic steroids, human growth hormone and other banned drugs.

This is an invasion of privacy, but athletes are used to doing very private things in public like providing a supervised urine sample whilst totally naked. Privacy invasion needs to be seen as part of the deal of being an elite athlete.

They have to be naked while giving the sample to prevent substitution, such as tried by this jockey:

"Warrington had left the track when he was asked by Queensland Racing stewards to come back to provide a urine sample for precautionary drug testing.

Acting chief steward John Hackett became suspicious of Warrington's actions while he attempted to give a urine sample and caught him squeezing urine from a dildo concealed inside his pants." - The Age 02/03/2007

There does not appear to be anything illegal in ASADA's action, as it checks the Privacy Act provisions and the legislation governing each agency with the Australian Government Solicitor before data is extracted.

I have a different concern though.

If athletes obtain drugs legally through their doctor and the PBS, then the identity and quality of the drug is assured, and it is used in a supervised environment, so athletes know exactly what they are using. Illegally obtained drugs are much more problematic, they are often veterinary products such as stanazol, they may be contaminated, and the actual components may differ from the label. Because of the chance of forensic search of their Medicare records, athletes may now resort to the more dangerous and uncertain black market drugs.

On 02/11/2007 I wrote:

"Only yesterday a young (early twenties) man assured me that stanazol was safe to use. Studies in several countries have demonstrated that the majority of anabolic steroids bought in gyms or on the street are fake. They are sometimes veterinary medicines and sometimes not even steroids. There is even a batch going round that is labelled "Steriod" instead of "Steroid"....and people are still willing to inject the contents!"

But as "Dr Ben" writes

"There is just too much money in pro sport and amateur sport (read The Olympics) for the use of roids to go away. The public wants to see people run faster, jump higher, hit harder, grow bigger etc, etc, and this will not happen without the use of roids. The reason? For the last 30-35 years athletes have been using them and despite todays detection methods will continue to use them because they have methods of avoiding detection that will always put them one step ahead of the IOC or whichever hypocritical governing body that tries paradoxically to stamp out the very means by which the Olympics have become such a money spinning phenomenon.

There is no doubt about it, roids, hgh, and igf are all potentially dangerous drugs, as is any drug. I DO NOT support the use of black market roids in an unmonitored fashion. I FULLY SUPPORT the use of legalized roids in a medically monitored manner. There is a ton of evidence in the medical literature which shows the harm minimisation that can be achieved with sterile needle programs, regular blood tests, and physician monitoring of roid users."

MY VERDICT

Athletes with nothing to hide have nothing to fear.

But anybody associated with sport at any level will tell you that it is very easy, too easy, to obtain illegal performance enhancing drugs. Maybe "Dr Ben" is right, that performance enhancing drugs are so entrenched in sport they will never be controlled, so we need to embark on harm minimisation instead. I sincerely hope not.