Four of the eight NFL football players whose names were “leaked” as having violated the league’s policy on anabolic steroids and related substances were caught using the diuretic Bumex (bumetanide). New Orleans Saints running back Deuce McAllister and defensive ends Will Smith and Charles Grant tested positive for bumetanide as did Houston Texans deep snapper Bryan Pittman.
Reports of a “rash of positive steroid tests” in the NFL by news websites here and here and here and here are highly misleading and false since none of the players are alleged to have tested positive for steroids by the NFL. Nonetheless, MSNBC stated that one player tested positive for anabolic steroids with the headline ”Report: Saints’ McAllister positive for steroids“, but deep in the article reported the truth that it was bumetanide. There are even plausible indications these may have involved inadvertent doping from weight loss supplements tainted with bumetanide.
First, the prominent anti-doping drug tester Don Catlin recognizes bumetanide as a masking agent but is surprised because it hasn’t been used in over twenty years.
“It can be seen as a masking agent because it produces so much water that it dilutes drugs in the system,” Catlin said Friday in a telephone interview. “But we haven’t seen it used by athletes to mask drugs in over 20 years.”
He added: “It is also banned because some athletes need to make weight and it helps flush water out of an athlete’s body. In general, though, it is used by physicians to control blood pressure and reduce the amount of excess water in the body.”
Secondly, some dietary supplements marketed for weight loss have been empirically shown to be contaminated with bumetanide. StarCaps by Balanced Health Products has been found to contain near therapeutic levels of bumetanide by a 2007 article in The Journal of Analytical Toxicology in spite of claims by the manufacturer that the product contained only natural ingredients.
Third, it appears that the NFL players who tested positive for bumetanide are not only denying the use of bumetanide to mask other performance enhancing drugs, but appear ready to appeal the findings.
Bryan Pittman is appealing.
Atlanta attorney David Cornwell, who has been hired to represent Pittman at his appeal on Nov. 3, issued a statement on Friday that said: “Bryan did everything humanly possible to comply with the NFL steroid policy, including obtaining doctors’ written authorization to take weight-loss medication. He did not use steroids.
Deuce McAllister is appealing.
“I’ve hired an attorney, and I’m going to let him do his job,” he said. “I will be playing this Sunday against the Chargers.”
Fourth, the source who leaked the story seems convinced that bumetanide was not used for masking steroids or amphetamines but solely as a weight loss supplement.
“I don’t think many of them are attempting to cheat, or even know it is on the list. We are talking big guys who have likely never seen a steroid in their life. My understanding of the steroid policy is that it was intended to catch cheaters or people using performance enhancing substances to gain a competitive edge. These guys don’t fall into that category,” said the source.
The only conclusive evidence to support inadvertent doping would be the existence of sealed dietary supplements that can be proven to be tainted through testing. Otherwise, suspicions of doping with other substances will persist.
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