Criticism of HGH Test

[MarkvW]

https://sports.vice.com/article/living-in-the-dark-ages-why-scientists-say-the-nfls-hgh-test-is-bs

The context is the NFL, but might be of interest here.

 

[sniper]

interesting read.
I'd be surprised if HGH isn't very widespread in sports like soccer, tennis, athletics and cycling.
some snippets:

Problem No. 1: In 10 years of use, only 10 athletes—total, in the entire world—have flunked hGH tests, across sports such as rugby, cycling, skiing, and Canadian college football. Two of those suspensions have been overturned or dropped, with an Olympic skier and a MMA fighter successfully challenging the isomer method.
...
the test's one-year, one-positive-test rate isn't a misprint: in 2013, 2,798 isomer tests were given and no athletes were suspended, good for a batting average of .000.

Why is the isomer test so useless? Start with detection windows. Depending on which scientific experts you ask, the test only works if administered between 10-20 hours after an athlete injects hGH—a limitation that led performance-enhancing drug testing pioneer Dr. Don Catlin to tell me in 2010 that the isomer screen was "simply not a useful test, no matter how you cut it or spin it."

Masking techniques also can hide hGH use by fooling the isomer test, according to a 2011 report atironmagazine.com by Anthony Roberts, who has written extensively about PED testing flaws. How so? Simple. Roberts says that athletes are now shooting up with synthetic 20kDa isoforms, as well as the 22kDa variety.

"I have no faith in whatever WADA does," Berry told VICE Sports in an email. "In particular, increasing sample size does not make up for lack of science."

"WADA's entire approach is bereft of science," he wrote. "They're living in the dark ages. They seem to think that getting more [population study] makes their test valid.

"Biased data in, biased data out."

"I am a little surprised the Players Association bought into this," Yesalis said. "But maybe they know the test is so bad it's not going to catch anybody, anyway."