“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 (“WADA chief challenges CFL to join fight against drugs,” November 23).

“To be here in Montreal on the weekend of the Grey Cup final and to find there is no doping code is very disappointing,” Fahey told Reuters following a WADA board meeting. “I understand there have been discussions and I hope they eventually lead to fruition.
�
“There has been dialogue between WADA and the CFL over a period of time but that doesn’t suggest that there is anything imminent.
�
“I can only say I think they are draw attention to the game in an adverse way by not having a (doping) code.
�
“I don’t see how any sport cannot have an effective anti-doping program.”

The WADA chief’s criticisms of Canadian Football League’s lack of an effective steroid testing program were undermined by WADA board member and British IOC member Sir Craig Reedie who was also in Montreal for the WADA Foundation board meeting.

Sir Reedie hihglighted the failure to implement an effective anti-doping program at WADA due to the noncompliance of over half of the signatories to the WADA code at the 2008 Beijing Olympics (“Drug Rules ‘Not Enforced’,” November 23).

Rules that bind athletes to give details of their daily movements to drugs testers are not being enforced in “half the countries in the world”, it was claimed on Thursday [...]

Sir Craig Reedie, British IOC member and a board member of the WADA, said “half the world” was not operating the system properly – WADA regulations state that athletes must provide testers with their whereabouts for an hour each day.
�
Reedie said: “The one issue the world of sport will want clearing up is in relation to whereabouts regulations for athletes.
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“What has come out of Beijing is that half the world operates the system properly and half the world does not.
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“This has come out of a survey done of national Olympic committees, and some are struggling with the whereabouts rules.
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“We have to get the system to work properly so that everyone is operating in the same way.”

The major failure to implement the WADA code by the majority of its signatories compounds the major failure of WADA procedures and protocols to effectively catch dopers. WADA has not developed an anti-doping protocol that effectively closes the testosterone loophole, that has ever detected human growth hormone in athletes, or has thwarted the use of numerous banned blood boosting techniques and drugs. The sad truth is that WADA’s steroid testing program, far from Fahey’s “effective anti-doping program,” is only marginally more effective than the CFL’s drug testing program i.e. no testing at all.

A recently published study in the Journal of Occupational Medicine and Toxicology suggests that WADA has opened the door to social analysis and psychological profiling to catch steroids users and users of other banned substances. The WADA-funded researchers hope to establish a reliable indicator of self-reported use of performance-enhancing drugs.

The proposed anti-doping tool would ask the athlete various questions about their own self-reported doping, hypothetical doping scenarios, and the doping behavior of other athletes. If the athlete’s responses to the questionnaire fit the psychological profile of a doper, then this might represent evidence that athlete is doping even if the athlete does not admit to doping! The research is based on the False Consensus Effect from social psychology research.

[The False Consensus Effect is] the considerable overestimation of behaviour in which a person engages, and a slight underestimation of behaviour absent from a person’s repertoire. That is, over-estimating a particular behaviour indicates that the person who makes the estimate (and overestimates the behaviour) is likely to be engage in the same act.

[...]

The ‘False Consensus Effect’ (FCE), by which people perceive their own actions as relatively common behaviour, might be exploited to gauge whether a person engages in controversial behaviour, such as performance enhancing drug (PED) use. Hypothesis: It is assumed that people’s own behaviour, owing to the FCE, affects their estimation of the prevalence of that behaviour. It is further hypothesised that a person’s estimate of PED population use is a reliable indicator of the doping behaviour of that person, in lieu of self-reports.

An athlete that thinks most of his competitors are cheating must be cheating as well. This must be what WADA would call evidence of a non-analytical positive.

The researchers repeatedly emphasize that the measurement tool is not intended to catch dopers.

The measurement tool is to be used as a research tool to gather information on prevalence of PED use but it is not intended to be a diagnostic tool for individual assessment.

[...]

The importance of the method lies in its usefulness in epidemiological studies, not in individual assessments

But elsewhere in the article, researchers state that the measurement tool can explicitly be used to gain information about the individual assessed.

We propose to use estimates to gain information about the individual who makes the estimates and not the population for which the estimates are made.

[...]

The measurement tool is not envisaged to be used to gather data on projected use, but rather, employed as an implicit self-report method. A model will be developed to give an estimation of ‘own’ use based on the projected use.

Will WADA use the “false consensus” research as the “elegant integration of biochemistry, social psychology and statistics” in order to:

(1) Obtain reliable estimates of doping behaviour; or

(2) Obtain corroborating evidence that individual athletes are doping?

Source: Comfort in big numbers: does over-estimation of doping prevalence in others indicate self-involvement? (PDF)

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].

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.

Since the four ring carbon structure was extremely complicated for synthetic chemists to create, they have historically created most steroidal compounds from diosgenin, a steroidal substance occuring naturally in the Mexican wild yam. This has limited the number of undetectable performance enhancing drugs that rogue chemists could synthesize for tested elite athletes. But with combinatorial chemistry, chemists are not limited by the four-ring steroid construction.

Steroid designers have been limited by the structure of the molecule. But that is going to change, because there are now new ways to make the molecule all together. Until now, you started with diosgenin. You go to progesterone, then you make all other anabolic steroids. You can only do but so much because that basic structure is all there. Now, they are putting these things together from different pieces and in the next few years they might find something as anabolic as pure testosterone but with none of the side effects. For the moment, this is not possible as long as they use diosgenin as the initial compound. In my opinion, designer steroids are going to blow up in the next couple of years. Instead of making 50 different molecules they will be able to make 50 million different combinations. It will be like evolution all over again [without the limitations of time]. (emphasis added)

The steroid chemist behind the BALCO steroid scandal, Patrick Arnold of Ergopharm, explains that this is how pharmaceutical companies are creating a new class of drugs known as Selective Androgen Receptor Modulators (SARMs) that are not “steroids” but could potentially have significant performance enhancing effects. SARMs have long promised all the benefits of anabolic steroids with none of the side effects. Furthermore, Patrick Arnold suggests “anabolic” performance enhancing non-steroidal drug that bypass the four-ring steroid structure could be effective at eluding detection by anti-doping agencies.

This is the type of thing they use in the development of SARMS, which are non steroidal androgens/anabolics.

Why confine you to the four ring structure of steroids when that is too easy for the drug testers to figure out (steroid backbones have unique signatures on the mass spec)? And (in the case of legit medicine) too politically incorrrect.

The use of dynamic combinatorial chemistry to create novel (undetectable) designer steroids could prove a more serious challenge to anti-doping agencies than other emerging doping methods such as synthetic blood doping and gene doping.

“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.”

While Kyriakou believed organized doping resulted in the methyltrienolone positives, he was careful to dismiss suggestions of systematic doping.

“It’s not systematic, but definitely there are some guys who know the sources and I think the state needs to take care to discover that,” Kyriakou said Sunday. “At the end, they have to be punished by the state.”

The phrases “organized doping” and “systematic doping” are often used interchangebly. But I’m guessing that Kyriakou apparently made the distinction to deflect suggestion of state-sponsored systematic doping of Greek athletes. WADA, on the other hand, apparently had suspicions of systematic doping and a potential cover-up at the WADA/IOC approved anti-doping lab in Athens when they chose to test samples at a lab in Germany (“Greek media accuse Olympic team of cover up,” April 13).

Another unexplained aspect of the whole case which seems to suggest  WADA had suspected attempts to mount a cover up is the fact that samples taken from the Greek team were tested in Cologne, Germany, rather than Athens which has one of the world’s most advanced anti – doping labs. Don Catlin, a leading expert on doping,in an interview with NEA, expressed surprise that WADA had choosen not to follow the normal procedure and allow the samples to be examined in the country involved.

Kyriakou did not name who he felt was behind the organized doping although many have blamed Greek weightlifting coach Christos Iakovou who claims to have imported contaminated supplements containing methyltrienolone from the Chinese company Auspere Technology.

I spoke with chemist Patrick Arnold of Ergopharm in Dallas last weekend. He has largely put the BALCO scandal behind him and no longer concerns himself with the tactics used by athletes to beat the drug tests. But when he work with IOC/WADA-tested athletes and created undetectable steroids such as THG, Patrick Arnold told me that several athletes used methyltrienolone in the 1990s to successfully pass doping controls. Anti-doping tests were not sensitive enough to detect the small quantities of the steroid required for performance enhancing effects. He was somewhat surprised that methyltrienolone was detected by drug testers in the Greek Weightlifting steroid scandal suggesting anti-doping tests have improved for the substance.

The fact that athletes were being caught using methyltrienolone was apparent to the international athletic community as early as April 2008 when the Greek weightlifters were busted. So, it seems highly unusual and even unlikely that systematic and/or organized doping was involved in the Greek doping scandal. Why would athletes continue to use methyltrienolone when it was obvious that it could be detected and that anti-doping agencies were looking for it specifically in Greek athletes? Would an organized doping effort be so utterly incompetent as to ignore such a threat and continue doping athletes with a detectable steroid?

This would seem to give more credence to claims of widespread supplement contamination and/or sabotage as alternate explanations to HOC president Minos Kyriakou’s claim of organized doping.

Sprinter Dimitris Regas denied the use of anabolic steroids and claimed sabotage.

Regas claimed he was a victim of “some people who want to attack (Greek) athletics,” adding he would lodge an official complaint against the parties in question, without specifying who they might be.

The coach for 400 meter hurdler Fani Halkia and Dimitris Regas, George Panagiotopoulos, has denied the use of steroids and claimed sabotage.

“It would be my pleasure for Greek justice to intervene.  I want them to intervene. My two athletes (Halkia and Regas) did not use methyltrienolone. I believe there has been sabotage or tampering at doping control.  I had never heard of that substance, and only learned about it after the weightlifting scandal.  One thing is certain, that I would never give such substances to my athletes.  How is it possible that one would take prohibited substances only a few days prior to the Olympics, you would have to be insane.”

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

Crisp also reports that different screening methods are used for different sports depending on the performance enhancing drugs most prevalent in that particular sport.

The Beijing lab will use screening methods that vary depending on the drugs athletes tend to favor in a particular competition. “Different compounds are suspected in different sports,” Crisp explains.

Phenomenex is a manufacturer of solid-phase extraction columns used in both GC/MS and LC/MS equipment. The separation columns are used to prepare samples for analysis according to Terrell Matthews, product manager for Phenomenex.

Important to the efficient operation of GC/MS and LC/MS instruments at the Olympics are the solid-phase extraction columns that clean up and concentrate target compounds from urine for analysis, says Terrell Mathews, product manager for Phenomenex, a maker of separation columns. Sample purification steps can take 60% of a lab technician’s time and can be a significant source of lab errors, he says.

The new anti-doping lab in use at the 2008 Beijing Olympics will conduct approximately 4,500 drug tests during the Olympic games and will analyze samples for over 400 different drugs on the WADA list of banned substances in the following nine classes of performance enhancing drugs: anabolic steroids, hormones, beta-2 agonists, hormone antagonists and modulators, diuretics, stimulants, narcotics, cannabinoids, and glucocorticosteroids. Each different piece of testing equipment has a unique function in the drug testing process (“Olympics technology: Keeping ‘em Honest,” August 4).

Regardless of when or where a sample is gathered, its first stop after entering the testing lab is the Agilent 7890A gas chromatograph, which separates and detects the different components in the sample, isolating the banned substances from the normal biological molecules. The sample is vaporized with heat, and the gas enters the 7890A’s separation column. As the gas moves through the column, the different atomic weights of its component compounds cause them to travel at different speeds (the lighter ones exit the column first). By measuring the speed, amount and sequence at which the components exit the column, investigators can readily identify most substances on the banned list.

But some compounds, such as peptide hormones, are destroyed by the vaporization process, requiring use of a liquid chromatograph. Using the same principle as the gas chromatograph to separate molecules by atomic weight, the Agilent 1200 series liquid chromatograph substitutes a liquid solvent that moves through the column. The liquid solvent takes longer to separate the molecules but preserves the molecules that would otherwise be destroyed by the heat of vaporization.

“About three out of four samples are analyzed using gas chromatography, but use of liquid chromatography is increasing because many of the new compounds are destroyed by vaporization,” said Sheehan.

If either the gas- or liquid-chromatograph indicates a questionable substance is present, then the sample is submitted to the mass spectrometer, which can confirm the chemical identity of virtually any compound. The mass spectrometer measures the molecular weight of the questionable substance, producing a unique chemical fingerprint that is compared with the fingerprints of known banned substances, providing unambiguous confirmation of the gas- or liquid-chromatograph results.

The science of anti-doping is a complicated process and big business for laboratory equiipment manufacturers.

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.”

Maynar admits to sending out the email but only to help pro tour teams with their own internal controls; he denies that his services would allow athletes to escape the detection of performance enhancing drugs. Marcos Maynar and his brother Juan Ignacio Maynar are both experts in anabolic steroids and work at the university laboratory. They claim their blood and urine testing services and legally recognized analysis for biological passports were developed to generate a badly need source of revenue for the University. He strongly denies that he supports doping in cycling (“Spanish lab allegations and confessions in Tour doping,” July 20).

But Marcos Maynar Marino from the university, who sent the email, insisted in a statement that the offer was made to assist the teams to find dopers, not to support substance abuse.

‘We are not supporting doping but try to prevent team-members from doing something which could destroy the team,’ Maynar said.

Maynar’s credibility with regard to doping has been hurt by his alleged involvement in other doping scandals.

In June 2004, Maynar was implicated in a nationwide steroid bust called Operación Gamma II that shutdown a network of steroid distributors providing anabolic steroids to bodybuilders and athletes at gyms in various cities in Spain.

In May 2006, Maynar was found to share clients with Eufemiano Fuentes, the mastermind behind the Operación Puerto doping scandal.

In May 2008, Maynar was the team doctor for the Portueguese LA MSS team who authorities found guilty of systematic doping.

Maynar said he was surprised by the raid, insisting that the team always “presented normal levels.”

“My relationship with the team is merely as a collaborator. I only go to races to control the hematocrit levels of the cyclists and look after the nutritional part of the athletes,” Maynar was quoted as saying.

Hat tip to Cycling Fans Anonymous.

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 (“A small trace with large consequences?,” July 11).

The compound, named metandienone, increases muscle weight and volume (not so much strenth) and is therefore popular in the body building scene. As a steeple chase runner, one would probably only be disadvantaged by its consequences. It appears to be traceable up to 9 months in your urine and is hence unlikely to be used consciously by sportsmen as a performance-enhancing substance.

These statements are innacurate. Dianabol can lead to significant increases in strength; anabolic steroids are particularly beneficial for endurance athletes (as seen in the number of positive steroid tests for middle distance runners and cyclists) since heavy endurance training tends to significantly suppress endogenous testosterone production. Anabolic steroids do not automatically transform an athlete’s physique into that of a bodybuilder; body size while on steroids is more heavily dependent on variables such as caloric intake versus expenditure and training specificity.

Vroemen also claims that Dianabol is detectable for up to nine months after ingestion. This is false. The metabolites are practically undetectable after 1-2 weeks.

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. Sports has had to deal with advances in technology in every aspect of the game including performance enhancing drugs. More often than not, sports have embraced advances in technology and incorporated them into the game. Sports have recently had a conflicted position with regarding to technological advances in pharmacological ergogens. But it’s difficult to counteract technology (progress).

The thing about technology is that it always evolves at a rate much faster than efforts designed to stop it. Don’t believe me, ask the recording industry. In the case of performance enhancing drugs, the drugs will always outpace the tests designed to detect their presence/ use. To try to combat this, testing has to become more frequent, more intrusive. Like anything the more frequent and more intrusive you make it, the more likely their will be false results. Which means there need to be procedures around appealing tests, results, etc. All of a sudden, testing requires an infrastructure, and then you’re in trouble.

Does this sound familiar? It should. It’s basically how the Tour de France and track and field operate. Bet you have no clue who won last year’ tour de france, but know Floyd Landis cheated. Likewise, bet you have absolutely no clue who holds what records for any track and field events, but are very familiar with the Marion Jones scandal.

The problem with false positives is very disturbing. The problem is compounded by the flimsy standards of evidence required for guilt by anti-doping agencies. I can’t imagine the degree of uproar if our own imperfect criminal justice system in the United States abandoned “beyond a reasonable doubt” and “preponderance of the evidence” and adopted the “comfortable satisfaction” standard advocated by the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA).

Markson continues by discussing how the ultimate outcome is the destruction of the sport.

This is what happen when you try to use policing measures to keep up with technology. The drug tests, their results, the appeals, etc. actually become the only interesting/ memorable thing about the sport. The become the brand of the sport. And, since this isn’t nearly as fun/interesting as remember the actual games or plays themselves, the fans eventually abandon.

Baseball should stick to the business of balls, strikes, beer and caps and leave police work to the pros [...]

At the end of the day, juice or no juice, talent and skill are still the ultimate arbiter of performance.

Most elite athletes strive to be the best at their sport without qualification. And most fans want to see the best without qualification. After all, who really cares who is the best cyclist riding on a bike that costs no more than $200 or the best baseball player who doesn’t lift weights? Let’s see the best.

• Boldione (aka androsta-1,4-diene-3,17-dione)
• Desoxymethyltestosterone (aka DMT 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.

“As I have previously suggested, perhaps the Congress should examine whether the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act–DSHEA, as it is commonly known–is being adequately enforced,” Fehr said […]

I have got some news for Donald Fehr: They don’t sell steroids in the supplement aisle. They don’t sell the “cream” or the “clear,” either. That’s because this industry does a better job of policing itself than Major League Baseball ever could.

It’s a sad and unfortunate day for the supplement industry when Major League Baseball has more credibility than supplement industry leaders. The DEA has news for Loren Israelsen – YES, they do sell steroids in the supplement aisle and the supplement industry is no better at self-regulating than MLB; at least the MLB finally acknowledged they have a steroid problem.

Obviously, this is bad news for the future of the supplement industry. Deserusan of Gaspari does a good job at summarizing the risks to the future of the industry (“The DEA Has Their Eye on Online Supplement Retailers,” April 30).

It’s no myth that physique enhancement often points one down paths which lead them to “illegal” compounds after unsuccessful trials with legal OTC supplements. However, there are numerous “grey area” supplements which are in clear violation of FDA policies that are still sold as legal supplements. My issue with these grey market compounds is that they indeed put the full spectrum of OTC supplements at risk of being banned.

We all know the FDA has been a sleeping monster for quite a few years when it comes to this, but now the supplement industry has caught the eye of the DEA.

Deserusan appeals to the industry to take “proactive” steps in light of the news.

I guess the question is, since the DEA is now looking into these compounds, what proactive steps will supplement distributors take in order to see that the DEA doesn’t crack down on more “grey area” or even perfectly legal OTC supplements? [...]

My message to them is, don’t get greedy on a few flagged steroids which puts everything else OTC on the market in harms way as well. Uncle Sam is not ****ing around anymore when it comes to steroids and that cat is out of the bag regarding these three compounds.

But sadly, I don’t think supplement retailers will heed Deserusan’s warning. When the FDA raided LG Sciences and seized over one million dollars in dietary supplements containing 1,4,6 etiocholan-dione (ATD) and 4-etioallocholen-3,6,17-trione (6-OXO-4-androstenedione), I don’t think a single supplement retailer stopped selling products containing these ingredients. Even when the owner of a supplement company brutally murdered his girlfriend with a baseball bat, I couldn’t find a single supplement retailer who had a problem continuing to sell his dietary supplements.

I am afraid that retailers don’t recognize the significant of the Dietary Health and Supplement Education Act (DSHEA) and will take it for granted until it is too late.

Does Roger Clemens’ personal and/or sexual relationships have any bearing on his alleged use of performance enhancing drugs (or vice versa)? Already, the blogosphere is suggesting that steroids may have caused Clemens’ infidelity. But as far as the legal proceedings are concerned, Yahoo Sports’ Tim Brown doesn’t think his philandering has relevance to his alleged steroid use (“We’re no closer to the truth about Clemens,” April 29)

Clemens had an affair with a country singer, according to the New York Daily News. Therefore, the thinking goes, the defamation case against his accuser and former trainer is weak. Didn’t we already have a pretty good notion of that? As for claims in the petition regarding marital purity, well, it doesn’t address that, exactly. It does claim that McNamee has sullied “Clemens’ good reputation,” and has caused him to suffer “mental anguish, shame, public humiliation and embarrassment.” Presumably, the Daily News report has piled onto that, but what does a private relationship have to do with Clemens’ public reputation, whatever it may be? I’m sure the lawyers will enlighten us.

Now the attorneys chime in…

Richard Emery, McNamee’s attorney, believes the news of an extramarital affair by Roger Clemens clearly hurts Clemens’ defamation lawsuit claiming McNamee lied about Clemens use of anabolic steroids and human growth hormone (“Roger Clemens had 10-year fling with country star Mindy McCready,” April 28).

“The issue in Roger’s suit against McNamee is Roger’s reputation and how it has been damaged,” said Richard Emery, one of McNamee’s lawyers who is handling the defamation suit. “If it’s proved that he’s a philanderer, his reputation is already damaged. When you sue for defamation, you put your whole reputation in the community at issue. Anything is fair game, including his claim of sanctimonious purity. We would cross-examine him and other witnesses who might impact on his alleged behavior. We would probably subpoena her and witnesses who knew [of the relationship]. He’s a ‘family man’ – he implies that. It’s about what his damages are. All is fair game.”

Richard Emery believes the lawsuit will be dismissed.

“If the case heads to trial and is not dismissed, as we feel it should be, we will be calling [McCready] as a witness,” Emery said.

“The point is whether he was damaged by the allegations that he used steroids – he claims he was hurt. But if there are other women – and there’s not just one case, but many – and he holds himself out as a family man and an American paradigm, it’s relevant.

“None of this would have been revealed but for his lawsuit and sanctimonious testimony before Congress.”

But Rusty Hardin, Clemens’ attorney, tells the press that Roger Clemens’ (alleged) infidelity is irrelevant to the veracity of Brian McNamee’s statements regarding Clemens’ steroid and growth hormone use.

“I think it’s totally irrelevant to the issue of whether Brian McNamee is telling the truth about Roger using human growth hormone and steroids,” said Hardin. “The character trait that you put in issue should be the character trait that the defamatory statement was made about.”

I guess the specter of anabolic steroid use is so bad that Clemens would rather publicly embarrass his wife Debbie Clemens with revelations of an extramarital affair and her illegal use of human growth hormone a Sports Illustrated swimsuit photo shoot than admit steroid use. At least, Roger Clemens will have officially gone on record as officially denying steroid use.