November 24, 2008 at 6:01 am | Steroids and Football, Steroids in Sports
- Posted by Millard Baker |
The Canadian Football League (CFL) is the only professional sporting league in North America that has not yet implemented steroid testing for its football players. Former WADA chief Dick Pound had previously called the CFL a “summer camp” for NFL players suspended for violations of the NFL policy on anabolic steroids and related substances (“WADA chief Pounds on CFL,” October 19, 2006).
“We’ve got the CFL,” Pound said. “It’s like a bad scene from the NHL. They say, ‘We don’t test in the Canadian Football League because we don’t need to test — there’s no drug use.’ Helloooo. We’re like a refuge for all the Americans… a summer camp for NFL players who have been suspended for drug use.”
This weekend, John Fahey, the head of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), publicly urged the CFL to adopt an anti-doping testing program. Fahey was in Montreal for the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Executive Committee and Foundation Board meeting. Fahey made his comments just prior to the 2008 CFL Grey Cup Final between the Calgary Stampeders and the Montreal Alouettes Read the rest of this entry »
September 5, 2008 at 4:37 pm | Steroids in Sports
- Posted by Millard Baker |
August 22, 2008 at 3:59 pm | Steroids in Sports
- Posted by Millard Baker |
Researcher Jason Thomas, a graduate student in the doctoral program for synthetic organic chemistry at City University in New York, takes us inside the mind of a designer steroid chemist in an interview with Culturekiosque. Thomas describes a powerful tool that has the potential to create an infinite number of undetectable, designer anabolic steroids.
Once steroid designers specify the essential features and desired biological activity for steroid drug design, hundreds of novel designer steroids could be synthesized or simulated through Dynamic Combinatorial Chemistry (DCC) ["Designer Steroids: Speeding Evolution (and Filling Stadium Seats)" August 8].Â
Until now, human attempts to change testosterone’s anabolic, androgenic or estrogen-related properties have been relatively slow due to the fact that they have been addressed one at a time. A steroid designer imagines a certain compound, synthesizes it, and then tests it for effectiveness. This can take a matter of weeks or years. However, this process is about to undergo a drastic change. Dynamic Combinatorial Chemistry is a complicated process, so instead of explaining how it works I will simply provide the bottom line. Once steroid chemists have invested the necessary time into the chemical strategy for DCC, hundreds of novel steroid compounds can be synthesized and tested within a matter of minutes. The entire process is orchestrated by computers. The pharmaceutical sector has recently employed this process, and steroid manufactures will soon follow suit, if they haven’t already.
Read the rest of this entry »
August 19, 2008 at 12:14 am | 2008 Beijing Olympics, Steroids and Swimming, Steroids and Track, Steroids in Sports
- Posted by Millard Baker |
The Hellenic Olympic Committee (HOC) president believes organized doping is behind the fifteen Greek athletes who have failed anti-doping tests before and during the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Former 400-meter hurdles champion Fani Halkia, swimmer Ioannis Drymonakos, 400-meter runner Dimitrios Regas, sprinter Tassos Gousis and eleven unidentified Greek weightlifters all tested positive for the same prohibited anabolic steroid – methyltrienolone (“HOC president: Greek sports face organized doping,” August 18).Â
“There are 15 people, all with the same substance. This is the strangest thing, because it leads to the conclusion that there is an organized effort,” Minos Kyriakou told The Associated Press. The athletes — 11 weightlifters, three runners and a swimmer — all tested positive for methyltrienolone, a banned steroid. “There is an organized crime — because that is what this is called,” Kyriakou said. “Because it seems there is a lot of money hidden there, a lot of profit.”
Read the rest of this entry »
August 11, 2008 at 8:06 am | 2008 Beijing Olympics, Steroids in Sports
- Posted by Millard Baker |
The China Anti-Doping Agency (CADA) spent approximately $10 million dollars and six years to create a new state of the art laboratory specifically for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Roughly one quarter of that budget ($2.7 million) was used to purchase 60-80 various laboratory testing instruments. The primary beneficiaries of these purchases were the analytical laboratory equipment manufacturers Thermo Fisher Scientific, Agilent Technologies and Phenomenex (“Drugs at the Starting Line: The Olympics begin with new antidoping lab and measures to keep athletes honest,” August 11).
Stuart P. Cram, strategic marketing vice president at Thermo Fisher, reports that their company has numerous service engineers available 24 hours a day during the Beijing Olympics to maintain uninterrupted and efficient operation of the Thermo Fisher testing equipment. Chinese Anti-Doping Agency purchased several products from their company including:
- (2) Thermo Fisher DFS Sector Field gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) systems;
- (1) Thermo Fisher Delta V isotope ratio mass spectrometer – used to distinguish between “natural and synthetic steroids”;
- (4) Thermo Fisher triple-quadrupole TSQ Quantum Access liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry (LC/MS) systems
Agilent Technologies supplies the China Anti-Doping Agency with the majority of their steroid testing and drug detection equipment. Stephen B. Crisp, international business development manager at Agilent, states that Agilent also has technicians available 24/7 to maintain the operational status of Agilent equipment that includes 18 liquid/mass stations and 19 gas/mass stations.
- Agilent 1200 Series LC/MS units
- Agilent 6400 Series triple-quadrupole LC/MS units
- Agilent 6100 Series single-quadrupole LC/MS units
- Agilent 6300 Series ion trap LC/MS
- Agilent 7890A GC/MS units
- (8) unspecified laboratory instrumentation
Read the rest of this entry »
July 21, 2008 at 5:00 am | Steroids and Bodybuilding, Steroids and Cycling, Steroids in Sports, Tour de France
- Posted by Millard Baker |
Spanish doctor Marcos Maynar Mariño sent an email offering comprehensive urinalysis and steroid profiling at 50 euros per athlete to as many as ten professional cycling teams including Gerolsteiner, Milram, CSC and Columbia . Maynar offered to provide a complete analysis consistent with the same control methods used by the International Cycling Union (UCI). The services would be conducted by the Laboratory of Analytical Chemistry at the Faculty of Sciences at the Universidad de Extremadura in Cáceres, Spain (“Dos médicos españoles, acusados de dopar,” July 20).
According to the German television station ARD, Spanish doctor Marcos Maynar offered these services as for internal testing allowing athletes to monitor their doping to ensure that their use of performance enhancing drugs would not be detected by doping controls at the 2008 Tour de France and other pro cycling events. Maynar responded to the allegations that he aided and abetted doping by suggesting that ARD had ulterior motives stemming from bitterness over disgraced cyclist Jan Ullrich (“Marcos Maynar niega que quiera favorecer el dopaje,” July 21).
“Since Jan Ullrich’s tested positive, the Germans have wanted to shit on the Spaniards.”
Read the rest of this entry »
July 12, 2008 at 11:42 am | Steroids and Track, Steroids in Sports
- Posted by Millard Baker |
Steeplechase Simon Vroemen has tested positive for the banned anabolic steroid Dianabol (metandienone or methandrostenolone) according to Steroid Nation. Vroemen does not know how Dianabol entered his system but suspects it may have been the result of medications he took to treat mononucleosis.
I am always willing to give athletes the benefit of a doubt especially given the lack of fair and reliable doping protocols administered under WADA. But, the statements Vroemen offers in his defense are weak, misleading and wrong.
Simon Vroemen claims that Dianabol would be “counterproductive” for a middle distance runner because it primarily increases muscle mass without a significant increase in strength; furthermore, Vroeman claims Dianabol remains detectable in doping tests for up to nine months after ingested making it unsuitable for any athlete competing in a drug tested competition Read the rest of this entry »
May 13, 2008 at 12:08 pm | Steroid Commentary, Steroids and Baseball, Steroids in Sports
- Posted by Millard Baker |
Mike Markson has an interesting proposal for confronting the problem of anabolic steroids (and performance enhancing drugs) in baseball – “let them cheat.” His steroid comments were included in suggestions to make baseball more exciting.
I started thinking, if I was to come up with a baseball variant to try and take on MLB, what would it look like? Well, it would be baseball, but, I’d market it as a faster, more exciting version. I’d make the following rules changes to try and re-enforce the brand [...]
No steroid testing. Leave that for the cops. This is baseball – let’s the conversation revolve around the action on the field, not off of it.
In a previous post, Markson expands on his feelings about steroids in sports with some insightful comments on the issue. Read the rest of this entry »
May 3, 2008 at 4:22 pm | Steroids in Sports
- Posted by Millard Baker |
The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) identified 22 dietary supplements containing anabolic steroids that are marketed and sold on the Internet in proposed rules published last week in the Federal Register. According to the DEA, the following three steroids meet the criteria for “anabolic steroids” under the Anabolic Steroid Control Act of 2004Â (“Classification of Three Steroids as Schedule III Anabolic Steroids Under the Controlled Substances Act,” April 25).
- Boldione (aka androsta-1,4-diene-3,17-dione)
- Desoxymethyltestosterone (aka DMTÂ and 17a-methyl-5a-androst-2-en-17b-ol)
- 19-nor-4,9(10)-androstadienedione (aka 19-norandrosta-4,9(10)-diene-3,17-dione and esta-4,9(10)-diene-3,17-dione)
Apparently, this is a shocking surprise to supplement industry lobbyist Loren Israelsen. Israelsen recently forwarded the following remarks (written by Rob Eder) to members of the United Natural Products Alliance. Read the rest of this entry »
April 29, 2008 at 8:17 pm | Steroid Law, Steroids and Baseball
- Posted by Millard Baker |
