It is well-known that a high percentage of elite swimmers have exercise-induced asthma. It is also known that most asthmatic swimmers competing in the Olympics have therapeutic use exemptions (TUEs) to use beta-2 agonists like albuterol, formoterol, salbutamol, salmeterol and terbutaline for therapeutic purposes.

The amazing swimmer Dara Torres makes no secret of her use of albuterol and formoterol; these are two different beta-2 agonists (LABAs). She probably tests positive for these substances on a regular basis too since United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) tests her frequently due to her participation in Project Believe.

Dara Torres has a therapeutic use exemption. She is permitted to take the banned performance-enhancing drugs Albuterol and Symbicort for “therapeutic” purposes as long as it does not exceed the arbitrarily defined threshold of 1,000 nanograms per milliliter.

The 2008 WADA Prohibited List has provisions for athletes to use specific banned performance enhancing drugs as long as they are granted a therapeutic use exemption (TUE). Athletes can use the following banned asthma drugs if they have a TUE and the banned substances never exceed the defined threshold during testing – albuterol, formoterol, salbutamol, salmeterol and terbutaline.

So why is Jessica Hardy’s positive test for a similar asthma medication such a problem?

Hardy is known to have asthma. We are guessing that she has a therapeutic use exemption. And it is has been reported that the levels of clenbuterol detected in her positive samples were very low, certainly at levels consistent with therapeutic use.

Apparently, two asthma medications in the beta-2 agonists (LABAs) category have been prohibited even for therapeutic purposes. These asthma medications are clenbuterol and zilpaterol; they are classified as “anabolic agents” and detection will result in an adverse analytical finding (AAF) or failed test.

Some examples of LABAs approved by WADA for therapeutic purposes include Advair Diskus, Advair HFA, Brovana, Foradil, Perforomist, Proventil, Serevent Diskus, Symbicort, and Ventolin.

Interestingly, the effects of these “approved” drugs are very similar to clenbuterol. Clenbuterol was classified as an anabolic agent based on dosages used in livestock and NOT therapeutic dosages used in humans. We expect that Albuterol and other approved LABAs would exhibit practically identical anabolic effects if they were administered at similar dosages in livestock.

Oh and by the way, the dosages of LABAs shown to be anabolic in livestock would be fatal in humans as it is several hundred times the therapeutic human dosage.

A three-member arbitration panel ruled last December the testing of her sample, given at a meet in Belgium, was not done in accordance with WADA rules that require tests be run by two different technicians.

That broke USADA’s perfect record in front of arbitration panels, which was 35-0 according to the best available statistics.

To the question of Jenkins’ appearing to have won on a technicality, Valparaiso Sports Law Clinic director Michael Straubel had said, “[The arbitrators] set aside the test results because they were not based on reliable lab results.”

She was represented by the Valpo Sports Law Clinic with free legal assistance. The clinic is a pro bono service of Valparaiso University School of Law based on financial need. The Valpo Sports Clinic was founded in 2005; the clinic will have an on-site service for athletes at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.

Professor Michael Straubel, the Director of the Valpo Sports Law Clinic, has previously commented on the unfairness and inconsistency of anti-doping efforts in the context of the Floyd Landis case (“Sports Law Clinic director comments on Landis case,” May 24, 2007).

“It is important to eliminate cheating in sports and enforce anti-doping rules consistently and fairly, but the USADA v. Landis hearing is a rare public airing of the many tensions and growing pains that haunt the doping control process,” said Professor Straubel. “Those tensions include a bureaucracy that needs to prove itself vs. an accused athlete’s need for information to defend himself. The system is designed to be quick vs. the need to be thorough in order to be fair. It is a system based on breach of contract dispute procedures vs. claims and charges that are criminal in their seriousness.”

Professor Straubel added, “However, at the heart of the Landis case are questions about the reliability of a still developing science and anti-doping enforcement using that science. Floyd Landis and his attorneys are challenging a system which presumes the science is reliable and testing is properly done, but which then limits the information available to athletes about that science and testing. This challenge has clearly shown how difficult it is to put the testers to their proofs. Perhaps the larger result of the Landis case will be a system that is more self correcting and reliable.”

“I may get in trouble for talking about it but I want people to know I’m doing everything in my power to stay clean,” said Clay, who began having extra tests done before last month’s world indoor championships.

In spite of Clay’s concerns, it is unlikely that Clay or Felix will face any sanctions by USADA for revealing the existence of “Project Believe” prior to its official launch.

Trust But Verify believes the “Project Believe” trial is based of cycling’s bio-passport program. The expensive nature, the importance of establishing a physiological baseline, and the frequency of urine and blood tests over time seem to confirm the similarities with cycling’s longitudinal testing programs (“Anti-doping program takes root,” April 17).

The project, according to athletes and antidoping officials familiar with it, aims to compile a physiological baseline of each of the initial 12 volunteers. Subsequent tests would be compared to the baseline numbers to see whether there are any changes that could be attributed to doping…

In one three-week period, [Clay] he said he was subjected to six blood and urine tests, with five vials of blood taken for each of the blood tests. Some of the tests were pre-planned, but others were surprises, he said.

Don Catlin believes athletes who do not use banned substances will eagerly embrace this new anti-doping system.

Don Catlin, an anti-doping expert and one of the foremost authorities on longitudinal testing, said the theory behind the USADA project is solid, a “much more powerful technique than simply taking one slice in time.”

“It’s no surprise that good athletes, clean athletes, will jump up and down for this thing,” Catlin said. “That’s great. It’s about time they started doing something. So now, it’s ‘OK, it’s here, it’s now.’ And I’m sure there are going to be issues about how to get on the program.”

Details on the cost of such testing have not yet been revealed.

Slated for publication in September under the Skyhorse imprint, the book’s working title is “BALCO: The Straight Dope on Barry Bonds, Marion Jones and What We Can Do To Save Sports.” Conte, in conjunction with co-author Nathan Jendrick, promises to share “the dirt, the drugs, the doses, the names, dates and places, and a ‘prescription’ for a brighter future.”

He promises the “complete truth in its honest, unadulterated and raw form” and says he is “ready to tell the world everything.”

Most people will be interested in hearing “the dirt” on the various athletes allegedly involved in recent years’ doping scandals. But my attention will be on  what Conte has to say about IRS Special Agent Jeff Novitsky. As Jeff Novitsky testifies on the stand against cyclist Tammy Thomas in her perjury (doping) trial, Victor Conte is working with co-author Nathan Jendrick to pen a book that is highly critical of Novitsky. Forget about the athletes like Barry Bonds or Marion Jones that have doped; Conte has told me that Novitsky is the biggest cheater in the entire BALCO steroid scandal is Jeff Novitsky. The NY Daily News confirms that Novitsky is a target.

One of Conte’s biggest targets is likely to be Jeff Novitzky, the federal agent who sniffed out the BALCO conspiracy in 2003 and has tenaciously chased down every twist in it ever since.

Conte claims Novitzky, who is on the witness stand Monday in the government’s prosecution of cyclist Tammy Thomas (the first BALCO athlete to refuse a plea bargain and take her case to trial), fabricated a confession he says Conte gave on the day of the BALCO raid, and lied in court documents.

The more we learn about doping related events like the BALCO scandal and the Floyd Landis doping scandal, the more we realize that we live in a society where “winning at all costs” is the only standard.  This not only applies to the “dopers” but particularly to the “anti-dopers.” It’s all about winning – not about following the rules, pursuing justice, leveling the playing field, right or wrong or integrity in sports. Jeff Novitsky, WADA, USADA, etc. simply want to win and will seemingly use any unfair advantage and break the rules to do so.

Landis, 32, has spent millions of dollars on a defense that tried to cast doubt on the scientific validity of doping tests and the procedures followed at antidoping labs. But last September, in a 2-to-1 ruling, a United States Anti-Doping Agency arbitration panel concluded that Landis had used synthetic testosterone to achieve his comeback win at the 2006 Tour. As a result, he was barred from racing until January 2009….

In its 84-page ruling last year, the United States Anti-Doping Agency panel accepted Landis’s argument that the French antidoping lab that tested his urine samples from the Tour was sloppy in some of its operating procedures, and in how it documented its work. But the panel also found that a more sophisticated second test, conducted after the initial screening proved positive, was accurate.

But make no mistake about it, this isn’t just about Floyd Landis. It is also about the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the anti-doping organization and program that is held as the model for drug testing around the world.

The 2006 Tour de France winner, who was stripped of his victory last year, seeks to have his title restored by the Court of Arbitration for Sport. It’s the final step in a series of appeals that have cost upward of $2 million, a good portion of which has been paid for with federal funds…

But it will still be costly, and a good chunk of the cost will be footed by USADA, which gets about 70 percent of its $12 million annual budget from the federal government, and the rest from the U.S. Olympic Committee.

Some newspapers, like the Akron Beacon Journal, have redistributed the aforementioned Associated Press news article only to change the title and imply that U.S. taxpayers are also paying for Floyd Landis’ defense (“Taxpayers to Pay for Landis’ Defense,” March 16).

But cycling websites were quick to point out the biases and inaccuracies in the stories and headlines. Trust But Verify discusses how truth is often a casualty of journalistic sensationalism.

Ohio.com proves that little things like “details” don’t really matter much when you’re trying to get a reaction to a headline. “Taxpayers to Pay for Landis Defense“ insinuates that we have footed the bill not only for USADA’s prosecution of the case, but also for all of Floyd Landis’ defense as well. Let’s never let the truth get in the way of “journalistic” sensationalism. Landis has enough on his plate without being stoned by angry US taxpayers.

Racejunkie finds it interesting how the media can’t get enough of the Congressional hearings on steroids in baseball without nary a complaint about the colossal waste of taxpayer funds.

[N]ow there’s a brand new outrage to stick on him: he alone is sucking up your precious tax dollars that could be used to fill deserving potholes in your own neighborhood with his malicious selfish whining about “Justice this!” and “Fair play that!” Leaving aside that no-one’s been crying about using tax dollars to exonerate a pack of couch-glomming overpaid baseball players whose necks and biceps clearly increased in size from toothpicks to actual redwoods over the suspicious span of about a week…

Velo Vertomax suggests that the blame be redirected towards WADA and their failure to remedy incompetent testing procedures at so-called accredited labs which lead to astronomical costs of defending sloppy work.

There has been some discussion of the amount of money spent by USADA to defend the Floyd Landis Adverse Analytical Finding. What is always forgotten is the deplorable state of Chatenay-Malabry testing and how expensive it is to defend bad lab work. WADA could correct these problems if they trained their personnel on how to the lab work, how to keep records straight, and how to keep a strict chain-of-custody…

If USADA and the taxpayers are burdened with expensive litigation to defend the poor lab performance of LNDD then WADA should encourage the laboratories to train their personnel on how to run the tests, how to set up the equipment, how to code the data on the Lab Document Package, how to make corrections correctly, and how to maintain a credible chain of custody. Then these expensive and prolonged appeals would be prevented saving everyone money. U.S. taxpayer and athlete. Until WADA makes a valiant attempt to correct the existing problems appeals will continue since the laboratory results can not be relied upon to prove the Adverse Analytical Finding.

Of course, my basic question is why does the federal government need to have any role in enforcing the rules of sports? And why is federal funding of one particular rule (doping) the only rule that requires federal intervention? As far as I’m concerned, all federal taxpayer money spent on enforcing the rules of a sporting game is a waste.

The lawsuit alleges that USADA cheated violated anti-doping rules and regulations when they asked the UCLA laboratory to test the ‘B’ even though the ‘A’ sample came back negative. Since a positive results on a doping test can only occur when both the ‘A’ sample and the ‘B’ sample are positive, the only reason to test the ‘B’ sample was to intimidate the cyclist and/or damage the reputation of the cyclist.

The lawsuit also alleges USADA has informed race organizers that is under a doping investigation thereby harming his ability to secure sponsors and compete in cycling races. Such behavior also violates USADA rules that prohibit representatives of the USADA from discussing specific cases.

Leogrande is listed on the controversial Rock Racing California squad scheduled to compete in the Amgen Tour of California. Race organizers have stated that any rider with an active doping investigation will not be permitted to compete. Whether Leogrande is permitted to compete in the Tour of California remains to be seen.

Vyacheslav Fetisov, Russian sports minister who happens to be a founding member of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), expresses his admiration of USADA.

The Americans have made great strides in the fight against doping and we’re keen to learn more about their system.

The structure of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency will be modeled upon USADA. Travis Tygart, the CEO of USADA, believes USADA independent model of doping control has been effective.

Of course, not everyone believes USADA has been fair, must less competent and effective. Trust But Verify is amused that Russia is looking to the USADA for answers:

There’s something about the blind leading the blind that comes to mind, but the thought that RusADA is being formed only now is also mind blowing. This just in: rumours of sports doping behind the Iron Curtain.

The allegations and naming of specific baseball players was the sensationalistic information that the public eagerly consumed. Some news organizations dismissed all of this as “hearsay.” This is incorrect. Willamette law professor Jeffrey Standen offers an excellent clarification:

[A]ll this talk about “hearsay” (I’m watching ESPN) is incorrect. Most of the evidence in the report is not hearsay. When a player asks a trainer to order him some steroids, the player’s statement is not hearsay. (It is a party admission specifically exempted from the definition of hearsay.) When a player writes a check for steroid purchases, the cleared check is not hearsay (it’s a business record, assuming a foundation could be laid, which would be easy.) When a trainer states he supplied or injected a player with drugs, it’s not hearsay (the statement is that of a co-conspirator, and thus is exempted from the definition of hearsay). Little of this report is hearsay; for the most part, the report consists of valid evidence. The only question about the report is whether or not the (valid) evidence it gathers is sufficient to conclude the named player actually used illicit enhancements. It’s a question of the weight of the evidence, not its validity.

So, the Mitchell Report does offer legal evidence about steroid use. But does that “prove” guilt of any of the players? That all depends on the standard of proof. In criminal prosecutions, it is “beyond a reasonable doubt.” In civil cases, it is a “preponderance of the evidence.” But what standard is applied to drug use in athletes? If we use the World Anti-Doping Association (WADA) and U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) as a guide, the standard is apparently “comfortable satisfaction.” Was this simply invented to increase the apparent success rate, prove the effectiveness of the drug testing programs, and therefore gain more funding? This standard of proof seems like it is slightly higher than “suspicion.”

Senator Mitchell told AP that the standard of proof wasn’t really relevant since the investigation was a private inquiry commissioned by MLB.

It is not a judicial proceeding. It is not a trial… But it doesn’t make any difference what standard or what court you’re in: direct, personal, eyewitness testimony, it is the principal form of evidence in most proceedings.

One thing is for certain – the standard of proof required in the court of public opinion is significantly lower than “comfortable satisfaction.”

The study was done by Informed Choice, a nonprofit coalition of dietary supplements, and the analysis was conducted by the British company, HFL, to investigate levels of steroid and stimulant contamination in popular supplements available on the US market. The names of the supplements that were tested were not identified. This is most likely out of fear of legal action against them by any company should it be named in the study results.

Of course, the results shocked Travis Tygart, the CEO of the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA). In recent years, the USADA has asserted, even in the absence of any hard data, that contamination of dietary supplements is not a problem for drug-tested athletes. He further claimed that no American athletes has tested positive for steroids due to contaminated supplements since 2004. He has called for Informed Choice to publish the names of the implicated supplement company so the “illegal activity” can be stopped.

Of course, such assertions have been made in the self-interest of the USADA rather than out of concern for athletes. The presence of undeclared banned substances in dietary supplements could lead the way for significant doubt about the guilt of athletes who fail drug tests, thereby making the job of the US Anti-Doping Agency significantly more difficult.

The present study is only further evidence of the quality control problems in the dietary supplement industry and the risks for competitive athletes subject to doping tests. In recent years, at least one athletes has successfully sued a supplement manufacturer. The IOC conducted a similar study between 2000 and 2002 that revealed 15% of dietary supplements purchased in various countries contained undeclared steroid and/or prohormone ingredients.

There are several explanations for the high incidence of steroids and stimulants found in sports supplements:

1. Intentional contamination. There have been allegations that some supplement companies may have added some undeclared ingredients, usually by the addition of a stimulant, so that the consumer actually “feels” that the product is working. The overall success of the sports nutrition supplement industry is largely due to the “placebo effect” – if the consumer “feels” something from the supplement, they think it is working. If they think it is working, it may actually have benefit (placebo) and they will continue to buy the product.
2. Cross-contamination. Many factories manufacturer various different categories of supplements in the same facility.  For example, ephedrine products may be processed on the same equipment as vitamin and mineral products; hormonal products may be processed on same line as protein powders. If the equipment is not cleaned properly, contamination could result.
3. Contaminated raw material. Supplement manufacturers often import raw materials from Asia, India and Eastern Europe. This could be contaminated with impurities.

Informed Choice Supplement Research Report (PDF)