Laboratories

[Parker]

Re: Re:

All sports who sign up to the WADA Code are part of the whereabouts system - Personally think it's an onerous and unwieldy system.

And how would you fix it?

Test hair and fingernails, a common practice in workplace testing (hair, anyway). Drugs are much more persistent in hair and fingernails than in blood and urine. Hair/nail testing would negate the need to be perpetually aware of rider whereabouts because test effectiveness no longer is tied to the half-life of the drug. Timing of the test need not be nearly so precise.

Hair/nail testing is only good for certain drugs (like recreational ones). You can't detect EPO or a blood transfusion from hair or nails.

 

[Alpe73]

Re: Re:

All sports who sign up to the WADA Code are part of the whereabouts system - Personally think it's an onerous and unwieldy system.

And how would you fix it?

Test hair and fingernails, a common practice in workplace testing (hair, anyway). Drugs are much more persistent in hair and fingernails than in blood and urine. Hair/nail testing would negate the need to be perpetually aware of rider whereabouts because test effectiveness no longer is tied to the half-life of the drug. Timing of the test need not be nearly so precise.

It does present a new battery of technical difficulties, such as testing for "detoxing" shampoos and other adulterants. But I see no reason professional athletes should have to live life under perpetual "house arrest" when the technology exists to do otherwise. Having an approved list of shampoos and soaps would be much less burdensome to the athlete.

Very interesting. Thanks.

 

[Alpe73]

Re: Re:

All sports who sign up to the WADA Code are part of the whereabouts system - Personally think it's an onerous and unwieldy system.

And how would you fix it?

Test hair and fingernails, a common practice in workplace testing (hair, anyway). Drugs are much more persistent in hair and fingernails than in blood and urine. Hair/nail testing would negate the need to be perpetually aware of rider whereabouts because test effectiveness no longer is tied to the half-life of the drug. Timing of the test need not be nearly so precise.

Hair/nail testing is only good for certain drugs (like recreational ones). You can't detect EPO or a blood transfusion from hair or nails.

What drugs (other than recreational) would this testing pick up, if any?

 

[Merckx index]

Re: Re:

What drugs (other than recreational) would this testing pick up, if any?

Almost any small molecule drug. E.g., a recent study of horses detected steroids, clenbuterol (hair testing of which was discussed in this forum during the Contador case) and GW:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29430877

Here are a couple of human studies, one for testosterone/epitestosterone and the other for clenbuterol and salbutamol:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22559991
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10641933

Test hair and fingernails, a common practice in workplace testing (hair, anyway). Drugs are much more persistent in hair and fingernails than in blood and urine. Hair/nail testing would negate the need to be perpetually aware of rider whereabouts because test effectiveness no longer is tied to the half-life of the drug. Timing of the test need not be nearly so precise.

It does present a new battery of technical difficulties, such as testing for "detoxing" shampoos and other adulterants. But I see no reason professional athletes should have to live life under perpetual "house arrest" when the technology exists to do otherwise. Having an approved list of shampoos and soaps would be much less burdensome to the athlete.

There are other problems. As Parker notes, not all doping manipulations can be detected through hair analysis. In theory, peptides like EPO, IGF-1 and hGH, might be, but there are major technical problems, and of course blood transfusion can’t be. The very small amounts obtained are also problematic. T/E screening might be done with a hair test, but probably not the IRMS which is required following a positive T/E.

Also, a positive test can be evaded by simply shaving one’s hair. You can’t forbid athletes from ever cutting their hair, so this would potentially result in problems. For starters, you can’t make a correlation between amount present in hair and amount consumed, so hair analysis wouldn’t be feasible for specified substances like salbutamol. For non-threshold substances, athletes could certainly reduce the likelihood of getting caught by shaving at strategic times. Maybe hair in other places, such as around the genitals, would be sufficient, I don’t know.

All this is not to say that hair detection might not be a useful supplement to current testing matrices, but I don’t see how it could completely obviate the need for a whereabouts program.

 

[Alpe73]

Re: Re:

What drugs (other than recreational) would this testing pick up, if any?

Almost any small molecule drug. E.g., a recent study of horses detected steroids, clenbuterol (hair testing of which was discussed in this forum during the Contador case) and GW:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29430877

Here are a couple of human studies, one for testosterone/epitestosterone and the other for clenbuterol and salbutamol:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22559991
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10641933

Thanks, MI ... will have a look.

 

[yaco]

Some of the professional sporting organisations in Australia test hair samples once a year to determine the use of recreational drugs, though allegedly they are used only for data records - And of course they are separate to anything under the WADA Code - Of course if you shave your head, then any test is redundant.

 

[Parker]

Re:

Of course if you shave your head, then any test is redundant.

The hair doesn't have to come from the head

 

[fmk_RoI]

Re: Re:

Of course if you shave your head, then any test is redundant.

The hair doesn't have to come from the head

Plucking pubes. Now there's a job you don't see advertised on LinkedIn every day...

 

[StyrbjornSterki]

Re: Re:

Of course if you shave your head, then any test is redundant.

The hair doesn't have to come from the head

Plucking pubes. Now there's a job you don't see advertised on LinkedIn every day...

Eyebrows, eye lashes. If you suspect they've been using a masking agent, pluck some nose hairs. That'll teach 'em!


In '98, they tested hair samples from all nine of the Festina squadies and six TVM riders. I don't recall which team but I believe some entire team or other showed up in the aftermath of the Festina affair with dyed hair in protest/as precaution.

Tristan Hoffman was popped for amphetamines in 2001 from a hair sample.

 

[fmk_RoI]

Re: Re:

In '98, they tested hair samples from all nine of the Festina squadies and six TVM riders.

'They', there, were les flics, not UCI.

Festina went bleach blond.