King Boonen
Moderator
Althletes are taking sponsorship deals for supplements that are contaminated with banned substances. It's not on WADA to make the list easier to cheat so that they can do this and not fall foul of their mistakes. I believe this is what Shanya Jack is claiming.With respect, I fail to see a cause and effect relationship between having a more clearly defined ' banned list' of substances and athletes accepting sponsorship deals.
Anyway you are coming from it from a scientific viewpoint and i am approaching it from a 'lay persons' view point - We can agree to disagree![]()
It has been explained on multiple occasions why a list containing only specific substances wouldn't work. I will do it one more time and I will try to make it as simple as possible.
Morphine, codeine and heroin are all opioids. They have a similar effect but are different due to slight molecular differences. On a defined list you would have to specifically name all three. As soon as you do that a chemist can make a slight change to one of these so it is different but still has the same effect. This then needs to a) be found out about and b) added to the list. As soon as that happens the cycle repeats.
This can be done very easily with anabolic steroids, it's exactly what Patrick Arnold did when he developed "The Clear" (THG). This is why a defined list does not work.
The claims that the list is difficult to understand and too easy to fall foul of don't hold up to scrutiny. If it were, we would be seeing many more athletes banned than we are.
As a side note, it was Patrick Arnold who reintroduced methylhexanamine (DMAA) to the supplement market and a couple of prohormones.