In article <[email hidden]>,
Mark & Steven Bornfeld DDS said:S. Anderson said:"Ryan Cousineau" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:rcousine-
[email hidden]...
Quoted message said:
There's a big difference between the disputes over the
proper theraputic usage of antibiotics (which are not
about side-effects, but rather about misuse in non-
bacterial cases causing reduced effectiveness, and
other less preventable ways that antibiotics become
less effective), and, say, steroids or EPO, where performance-
building levels of use have a good chance of messing
your body up permanently.
Hey Ryan,
I wasn't really trying to say that EPO et al were
comparable to antibiotics in a therapeutic way, more
that we use drugs and steroids for so many things these
days that performance-enhancement really isn't that off-the-
wall. For instance, a pitcher gets tendonitis in his
elbow and he uses cortisone or a steroid to control that
tendonitis. It corrects his problem but in the process
it also improves his performance. Can we consider that a
bad thing?
There are several issues here, and in some areas it is
a judgement call. For instance, as the science
improves they'll be able to maximize performance
enhancement while minimizing risk. This will be easier
to do, of course, if it is made legal and above board.
This is the same rationale used by some western
european countries for legalizing narcotic use as a
recreational drug. In fact, this is done with every
therapeutic drug--maximizing the effectiveness while
minimizing possible side effects. For this reason side
effects for cancer chemotherapeutic agents are
tolerated that would never be acceptable for an
antiinflammatory drug. The fundamental issue now (and
this can change) is that the cortisone in the
pitcher's arm is being used to treat a disease state.
Quoted message said:As I said, this can change, and is probably changing now.
There are
probably plenty of people taking SSRIs because they think
it will make them
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:Is that doping? I'm not saying that wide-open doping is
a good thing medically, far from it. But in the context
of that statement about the NY Times article, I think as
we better understand medically certain drugs, if we know
the side-effects or likely side-effects, I think the
line between bad doping and good doping begins to get
pretty grey. It's easy to point to huge steroid abuse or
EPO usage and say it's dangerous. For sure it sometimes
is. But I can see where that article is coming from,
that there will be more established usages of drugs with
good data on their relative safety. Let's face it, the
current system is a farce.
Well, we let athletes play with some stuff that is
essentially benign: we give them free rein on most
conventional vitamin supplements (well, I'm not sure about
that; maybe you can test positive if you megadose on vitamin
C or something stupid), we expect them to optimize their
nutrition intake, and so forth.
But virtually all of the banned stuff (and all the stuff you
hear about athletes testing positive for) is really noxious
when it's not being used to treat a disease state.
First, let's talk required reading:
outside.away.com200311 drugOpen ↗
_test_1.html
I apologize: you may have to register to read all the
way through.
Short summary: guy wants to plumb the depths of performance-
enhancing drugs, and uses them to train for the Paris-Brest-
Paris (he picked that event not only because there were no
drug tests, but also because he wouldn't be cheating anyone
of a finishing position, and because it's a pretty extreme
test of performance).
Here's what happens:
-He takes HGH, and finds it's all-around pretty good. As he
says at the end of the article, if he had the money, he'd
probably keep taking it.
-He takes testosterone, which has slight benefits, and
which he considers as a way to combat osteoperosis
(ironically, a problem which can afflict cyclists and other
endurance athletes)
-EPO scares the [censored] out of him, what with that "die in your
sleep" side effect, and it gave him headaches
-the mere side effect list of steroids frightened him, but
not nearly as much as how massively and rapidly they
changed his body. He put on 12 pounds of muscle mass
without lifting a weight.
Here's a conversation between him and the "anti-aging
specialist" doctor that is prescribing this stuff to him:
I stared at the chart, fascinated. Then it struck me that
there was no column for side effects, nasty little
consequences like liver damage, impotence, and steroid rage.
I asked Dr. Jones about this.
He sighed and gestured along the wide table. "We don't have
enough room to list them," he said. "The problem with
steroids is that they do have some benefits, but nine out of
ten people who are drawn to them can't resist abusing them.
Then there's all the black-market junk out there. I'm not
going to lie to you and tell you that if you try this stuff
a little, it will kill you. It won't. But you stay on it
very long and you'll have problems."
"Like?"
"Your hair may start to fall out. Your testicles shrink. Of
course, the testosterone can cause all that, too. But any
steroid will accelerate it.
"Deca's not so harmful to your liver," he went on, "but most
steroids can knock the hell out of it. You can get huge mood
swings. Anger,
stop your dosage, you start to shrink. Depression can set
in.
[end quote]
And that's just it. All of this stuff was really, really
effective. But the more you take of most of this stuff, the
more effective it is. And the more you take of most of this
stuff, the more it is likely to cause harm in areas not
related to athletic performance.
Now, as you say, maybe we will work the details out, and in
the future everyone will be on HGH; they'll put it in the
water with the fluorine.
But at present, I can think of no drug or therapeutic
substance other than fluorine and vitamins that anyone
recommends for most or all of the population for much of
one's life. The great HRT experiment now seems to be
dissolving into the land of bad science, for example.
That leaves us with how best to regulate drugs right now.
I don't agree that the current system is a farce. Look at
the situation:
-Major cyclists get tested like crazy. for the most part,
they test clean, every time. Lance is of course the poster
child here. Even Ullrich has only ever tested positive for
being an idiot, not for performance enhancement ("Get the
soigneur! Jan's on E and he can't remember who he is!"
"Quick, tell him he's Eddy Mercx!"😉
-Drug users get caught with enough regularity to indicate
that illicit drug use goes on.
-That said, most of the pack, most of the time is testing
clean. Is this because they're good at cheating, or because
they're good at not using? Let's look further.
Maybe I'm not up on the latest findings with steroids, but
the only drugs I know of right now that cyclists might be
able to abuse undetectably are HGH and EPO, since I've heard
that the latter is only detectable for about three days,
while its therapeutic benefits last longer. But in an era of
routine out-of-competition testing, playing with EPO is
playing Russian roulette. Not to mention the chance of
getting a "fitness failure" because of hematocrit levels.
So what's the story? Is there a new super-drug out there
that powers US Postal and T-Mobile? I'd be a bit surprised,
since there haven't been any credible rumors.
My strong suspicion is that right now cycling is pretty
clean, with elite pros under too much scrutiny to dope
effectively, and what doping there is being done by marginal
riders and teams for marginal benefits. That's still bad,
but it's far from being a farce. I'm sure there are lots of
people reading _The Lancet_ right now trying to figure out
if there's any cheating potential in some new drug, but I
suspect WADA is too.
--
Ryan Cousineau, [email hidden]
sfu.cawiredcolaOpen ↗ President, Fabrizio
Mazzoleni Fan Club
