Various forms of blood doping have been used in sports for more than 40
years and are still very much with us. International sports
organizations tried to pretend it wasn't happening until a mess bubbled
up in the U.S. Cycling Team following the 1984 Olympic Games. At that
point, the U. S. Cycling Federation became the first governing body to
formally ban blood doping. Other national and international sports
organizations subsequently followed suit, including the International
Olympic Committee.
A number of articles now have been added to the Cyclops USA archive,
which recently moved to http://www.stanford.edu/~learnest/cyclops/ and
provide contemporary accounts of bloody developments in the 1980s.
Articles are listed there and below in inverse chronological order, as
follows.
GROWING RICHER BLOOD, published in January 1989 shortly before EPO
became available as a prescription drug, naively advocated its use as a
replacement for other forms of blood boosting provided that it could be
shown to have no serious side effects. I had earlier requested through
channels that the U.S. Olympic Committee undertake a medical review of
this matter and had been assured that the study was underway.
Unfortunately that turned out to be a lie. If that study had been done
in a timely manner and suitable warnings had been issued, it is likely
that some of the riders who died as a result of EPO use might have been
spared.
BLOOD DOPES OF THE 1984 OLYMPICS, published in August 1988, reviews the
unethical use of transfusions on U.S. cyclists and points out that this
probably did not improve their performance but later might have had
serious medical consequences, particularly for women.
STONED, in the April 1985 issue, tells how Rolling Stone magazine and
the Tank McNamara cartoons publicly denounced blood doping that occurred
during the 1984 Olympics. However, Rolling Stone’s claims were mostly
fabricated, even though they had accurate inside information. PLEASE BE
POLITE! reported that the U.S. national cycling coach continued to
advocate blood doping even after it was made illegal.
CARDIOVASCULAR CAPERS, which appeared in January 1985 just as the
Olympic blood doping story was emerging in public media, circumspectly
discusses how the threat of terrorism was used to justify illicit blood
testing during the 1984 Olympic Games. (Note that this was long before
the Bush administration discovered the political power of terrorism.)
BLOOD BATH is an apocryphal account of how blood doping became
established in the United States Tiddlywinks Federation (Wink-wink!
Nod-nod!).
-Les Earnest