Drug Testing

Tom Kunich <[email hidden]> schreef in berichtnieuws
[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

So there are good reasons that drugs don't appear to have
been given

enough

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attention.

Perhaps it is better to make 'sporting fraud' illegal in all
countries and let the police handle it. They might provide
the needed evidence for free.

Jonathan v.d. Sluis said:

Tom Kunich <[email hidden]> schreef in berichtnieuws
[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

So there are good reasons that drugs don't appear to have
been given

enough

Quoted message said:

attention.

Perhaps it is better to make 'sporting fraud' illegal in
all countries and let the police handle it. They might
provide the needed evidence for free.

I think Bush, along with Clinton have resisted this, by
listening too much to the players unions and the sports
organizations, i.e. let them police themselves. MLB has made
a laughingstock of this arrangement. Maybe once the
investigations show how widespread it is congress will
finally get moving on it ... and pass some useless
legislation, heavily influenced by lobbyists, which won't be
enforced anyway. That'll show 'em!

The drug tests run by WADA/USADA/etc do not cost that much
since it is really not a total screening.

The false positive rate is not that high. See the
literature.

"Tom Kunich" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

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I was talking to an old friend of mine yesterday. He has
a PhD in

chemistry

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specializing in separation sciences and has been the
manager of several commerical laboratories that perform
blood and urine analysis.

I asked him what was going on with the drug testing
business and he sure clued me in - A total drug screening,
done on a large scale would cost between $5,000 and $7,500
PER INDIVIDUAL. In a Pro race where they test

the

Quoted message said:

first three and perhaps three to five randoms that would
mean some $50,000 in drug testing costs. Moreover, some of
those tests are known to have

high

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false positives rates so if you get a positive you have to
test it with

one

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or two other methods to varify it. And in other cases, if
you get a

positive

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on the 'cheap' test it doesn't give good "quantity"
reports so you have to do yet another test to get a
quantitative analysis that you can rely on.

So there is the expense of testing as one factor.

He then went on to say that although it was expensive and
events such as

the

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Olympics can run into millions of dollars in drug testing,
that the real problem was political.

In most sports, he said, a positive result means that you
are completely washed up as an athlete. That means that
even if you catch an athlete red-handed doped to the
gills, many of them will sue anyway in order to maintain
their franchise in sports. Defending against these law
suits runs into the real money.

And there is always the chance of a false positive
destroying the

reputation

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and career of an honest and innocent athlete.

What all this adds up to is that finding the drugs is not
hard. The really effective drugs are all scheduled drugs
and when analogs are discovered

they

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are scheduled as soon as possible. The FDA tries to remain
on top of it

and

Quoted message said:

my friend tells me that most of the illegal stuff is
reported to them by coaches very soon after it appears.
The problem isn't in detecting the new drugs but in
proclaiming them as doping until the various organizations
ammend their regulations.

So there are good reasons that drugs don't appear to have
been given

enough

Quoted message said:

attention.

"Richard Adams" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Jonathan v.d. Sluis said:

Tom Kunich <[email hidden]> schreef in
berichtnieuws
[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

So there are good reasons that drugs don't appear to
have been given

enough

Quoted message said:

attention.

Perhaps it is better to make 'sporting fraud' illegal in
all countries

and

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

let the police handle it. They might provide the needed
evidence for

free.

Quoted message said:

I think Bush, along with Clinton have resisted this, by
listening too much to the players unions and the sports
organizations, i.e. let them police themselves. MLB has
made a laughingstock of this arrangement. Maybe once the
investigations show how widespread it is congress will
finally get moving on it ... and pass some useless
legislation, heavily influenced by lobbyists, which won't
be enforced anyway. That'll show

'em!

Quoted message said:

I would say that law enforcement should have higher
prioritites.

"Tom Kunich" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

In most sports, he said, a positive result means that you
are completely washed up as an athlete. That means that
even if you catch an athlete red-handed doped to the
gills, many of them will sue anyway in order to maintain
their franchise in sports. Defending against these law
suits runs into the real money.

Yes, this is a relatively recent tactic though. When Ben
Johnson tested positive he didn't launch a lawsuit, but if
it happened today that is what would happen.

Quoted message said:

And there is always the chance of a false positive
destroying the reputation and career of an honest and
innocent athlete.

Positive test evidence will always have a hard time holding
up in court because no test can claim to be 100% free of
false positives, and there are lots of procedural points
which can be disputed.

The only thing that can solve this problem is money. If
players start suing other players because they feel
defrauded out of records or other sporting achievments and
income then maybe things will get tightened up.

The fans don't really care or accept doping. The leagues
and teams of course only care only so far pleasing the
sponsors go.

People don't understand why the major leagues work so hard
to maintain a "professional" image, it's for the sponsors,
not for the fans who aren't as turned of by
unprofessionalism.

"Sam" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

The drug tests run by WADA/USADA/etc do not cost that much
since it is really not a total screening.

I understand that and so stated. But the problem if finding
drugs is finding them all and not the most common. That is
why I asked for and got the

Quoted message said:

The false positive rate is not that high. See the
literature.

Maybe you missed the part where I said that ANY false
positives are very serious. Also, certain types of chemical
analysis are known for 30% false positives and 10% or so
false negatives. Whenever a positive is achieved they resort
of another sort of test with a much lower rate of false
positives in order to varify it. This means that there s
something like a 10% chance of missing a real positive by
using a cheaper analysis method and might be the source of
some of those hare-brained schemes to "prevent detection"
that Jesus Manzano was discussing.

If you wish to discuss this I can connect you with my friend
but let me warn you that he knows precisely what he knows
and he loves to argue. What is more, aside from a bachelors
in chemistry, a master's in chemical engineering and a PhD
in separation sciences he also speaks a half dozen languages
well enough to have provided scientific translations in both
directions. Oh, yeah, and he also holds a law degree as
well. I doubt you have the ability to win an argument with
him on that subject. I've never been able to win one on any
subject with him.