WADA targets Bayern

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Chi-ching $$$$$$$$

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Scientist Don Catlin understands NFLPA's hesitation to allow WADA to test players for HGH

By Michael O'keeffe / DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER

Monday, August 29, 2011, 4:00 AM

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Stephen J. Boitano/AP

Don Catlin (r.), founder of the first anti-doping lab in the United States, says the World Anti-Doping Agency refuses to share drug test information with independent scientists.


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Anti-doping pioneer Don Catlin says he understands why NFL Players Association officials continue to have questions about the reliability of human growth hormone tests after last week's meeting with the World Anti-Doping Agency.
Catlin, best known as the scientist who identified the designer steroid THG, says WADA is notoriously reluctant to share its data about blood screening for HGH.
"I'd like to look at the data, but WADA doesn't disclose its information so an independent scientist can review it," said Catlin, the founder of the UCLA Olympic Analytical Laboratory, the first anti-doping lab in the United States.
WADA has not shared information with other anti-doping researchers about the rate of false positives and false negatives since it began testing athletes' blood for HGH, said Catlin, now the chief executive officer of Anti-Doping Research, a Los Angeles nonprofit organization, making it hard to determine how effective the test really is.
"Every test will have false positives," Catlin said. "The question is, what percentage can a sport stand? We understand that people are sometimes put in jail or even put to death because of mistakes. One in 10,000 - is that acceptable? It's not if you are that one person, but it's acceptable to most of us. But if it is one in 10, then you know we are not there yet. When you put the information out there for other people to review, that's when it gets serious."
But a source familiar with the NFLPA's HGH negotiations with the league believes the Players Association's claims that WADA officials weren't transparent during their three-hour meeting in Montreal on Wednesday had more to do with union politics than WADA's presentation.

"DeMaurice Smith (the union's chief executive officer) agreed to HGH testing too early and now he's trying to look tough for his members," the source said. "He's trying to buy time for players who used performance-enhancing drugs during the lockout to clear their systems."
The source said scientists who attended the meeting at the behest of the NFLPA were satisfied with WADA's presentation, but outside counsel Maurice Suh, who represented cyclist Floyd Landis after his 2006 Tour de France title was stripped because of doping, demanded to see documents from every HGH test WADA has ever conducted. "Suh was totally unreasonable," the source said. "The union was playing a game."
Suh and union spokesman George Atallah did not return calls for comment. NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy referred questions to WADA; a WADA spokeswoman said director general David Howman could not be reached for comment.
The NFL and its union agreed in principle to screen players' blood for growth hormone in the collective bargaining agreement both sides signed after the league's five-month lockout ended at the beginning of the month.
The union, however, has expressed concerns about the appeals process for players who test positive, as well as the reliability of screening players' blood for HGH. Critics have questioned the validity of the growth hormone test, in part because drug screeners have only a brief window - anywhere from 12 to 24 hours - to detect HGH after it has been injected into an athlete's body.
"I'd like a test with at least a week of retrospectivity, but that's OK as long as it is not giving a high number of false positives," Catlin said.
The test was first introduced at the 2004 Summer Games in Athens, but the first positive test wasn't announced until last year, when British rugby player Terry Newton was banned from competition for two years. Only a handful of athletes have tested positive for HGH since that time.
If its union signs on, the NFL will become the first American pro league to test its players for HGH. In the spring of 2010, Major League Baseball began screening samples of minor leaguers' blood for human growth hormone, which is banned by the NCAA, the International Olympic Committee and pro sports leagues. Former Met Mike Jacobs of the Colorado Rockies' Triple-A team became the first professional baseball player to test positive for the drug earlier this month.
Baseball cannot test major leaguers without the approval of the Players Association, which has historically been deeply opposed to blood screening. MLB negotiators, who have been quietly meeting with union officials to hammer out a new contract to replace the CBA that expires later this year, are pushing for HGH testing.
NFL officials want to use WADA to run its HGH program, but the Players Association has expressed reservations. Union officials, reluctant to turn over drug-test results and other medical data to an organization they have not worked with in the past, requested the meeting with WADA to learn more about its HGH program.
The union's reluctance to sign off on HGH testing could scuttle the NFL's plans to implement screening for the performance-enhancing drug by the time the season kicks off on Sept. 8. If both sides do not agree to the HGH program, the NFL's 2010 drug policy would remain in effect.


Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/fo...#ixzz2kexCaBk0

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NFL faces battle with Wada over transparency of drug-testing

• NFL hopes policy will be more open in future
• Twenty-six players were suspended in 2012

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• The Guardian, Friday 27 September 2013 13.08 EDT

Von Miller, of the Denver Broncos, has been suspended for six games of the NFL season. Photograph: Jack Dempsey/AP

On the eve of the NFL's latest showpiece game at Wembley the World Anti-Doping Agency has warned American football that its drugs policy needs to be more transparent otherwise people will believe the sport has "something to hide".
David Howman, the director-general of Wada, also voiced his frustration that blood-testing for human growth hormone in the NFL had been delayed by the players' union, who had tried "every possible way to avoid testing".
Twenty-six players were suspended in 2012 for violating the NFL's substance abuse policy, a figure some commentators have suggested would be far higher if blood tests for HGH were introduced.
The NFL's collective bargaining agreement with the players' union also means the league is not allowed to declare which substance a banned player has taken. That leads to a knock-on effect, with players increasingly blaming a positive test on Adderall – a minor but banned stimulant used to treat ADHD – even though there is no way of knowing whether they are telling the truth.
"There's a lack of transparency in the process and that is part of what we are trying to persuade them to alter," said Howman. "But this is what comes about through collective bargaining because you get people holding out for something that may not be to the benefit of the greater good. It's a weakness of the process."
Aldopho Birch, the NFL's senior vice-president of law and labour policy, said he hoped the league's policy would be more open in the future. "We have been proposing the ability to disclose the substance and nature of drugs violations," he said. "Not just to inform the public but as an educational deterrent too."
The players' union, however, believes that player welfare must be the priority. George Atallah, assistant executive director of external affairs at the NFLPA, insists the current protocols catch cheats while also supporting its players. "Our role as a players' union is not just to catch athletes that violate our policy but to protect their rights and confidentiality, and to provide them with the best possible treatment."
Sunday's encounter between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Minnesota Vikings is the first of two NFL matches at Wembley this season. The game, which features last season's most valuable player, Minnesota's Adrian Peterson, is an 80,000 sellout and there is growing talk about a London franchise within the next decade.
But there could be implications for the drug-testing of NFL players in Britain. Wada has no jurisdiction over the NFL's drug policies, and, unless the rules changed, the NFL, rather than the UK anti‑doping agency, would be responsible for testing players from a London franchise.
"We haven't looked at the issue yet but I assume it would be the case," Birch said. "We would need to have consistency in the application of our laws. You can't have one team subject to different laws than everyone else."
In a week when it was alleged that one the NFL's star players, the Denver Broncos' linebacker Von Miller, had colluded with a doping official to substitute his urine and avoid a positive test Howman also expressed his frustration that players are banned for four matches for a first performance-enhancing drugs offence and eight games for a second, a punishment far lighter than most sports.
However, the NFL insists the lack of repeat offenders shows that their policy is working. "It's somewhat of a misnomer that a four-game suspension is a light penalty," said Birch. "It is a quarter of the season. We also have a very small number of repeat offenders, which suggests to us that missing four games is a high deterrent. But I do agree with Dr Howman when it comes to repeat offenders. Then inadvertence goes out of the window. At that point we need to be very tough about getting them out of our game."
Howman also pinned the lack of a test for human growth hormone in the NFL firmly on the Players Association, claiming: "When drug hormone testing was initially agreed in 2011, we thought that was the best thing the NFL players could do to show the public they were clean. But the Players Association have used every possible way of avoiding testing. That to me is: these protesters have something to hide. Why would you do that if you thought your players were all good guys and all clean and not taking PEDs?"
Howman said a particular stumbling block had been the NFLPA's request for a research project to see if their human growth hormone test was accurate enough on black players. "It's a bit far-fetched so the scientists and the statisticians say but that's what they are hanging out for," he added. "But all the information we've got, and all the studies we've done, tells us it really doesn't warrant that approach."
Birch, meanwhile, insisted that they had made "numerous concessions to the NFLPA" in an effort to obtain agreement on a programme of HGH testing, "but the union won't take yes for an answer".
The union, however, stands by its concerns over the methodology used by Wada in its tests as the reason for the delay in implementation. Atallah said: "We believe the scientific baseline for their HGH test is not accurate and, as in the case of Andrus Veerpalu at the court of arbitration for sport earlier this year, procedural flaws could lead to false positives. Which is why we want a population study. It would be the most scientifically valid baseline in all sports."
Howman fears that significant beefing up of the NFL's anti-doping programme is still some way off. "We are trying to support a programme that is closer to Wada's, but we keep getting told by the players' association to stay away," he said. "It's very difficult for us to take it further as we have no mandate at all."

[Karl]

Guess this means JADCO will have to incur additional expense

to store blood and urine samples for prolong periods to ensure a re-testing by an independent lab to 'check and verify' WADA's test results.

Wouldn't wish for one of our athletes to be wrongfully charged by WADA's 'mistake or mistakes' would we?