16 replies to this topic

[Terras]

In a major breakthrough in the fight against doping, a British rugby league player has become the first athlete to be suspended for using human growth hormone.

link

Human growth hormone is banned by Major League Baseball, but everybody knows the sport does not test for it. As written here before, it's like having speed limits without any radar guns in place. The stance of baseball has long been that once there was a reliable and commercially applicable test for human growth hormone, then it would get on board.

From Buster Olney's Insider blog

Pretty big news, especially in baseball. Could spell trouble for a lot of players and the end of effectiveness for others. Given the recent shift of the MLBPA's stance toward steroid testing, is testing implemented this season?

[Wreck 'Em Tek]

Looks like MLB isn't wasting any time trying to implement the test in the minor leagues this year. It will be interesting to see what the Players Association has to say about this and how hard they'll push back.

"We are well aware of the important news with respect to the HGH blood test in England," Major League Baseball said in a statement Wednesday. "We are consulting with our experts concerning immediate steps for our minor league drug program and next steps for our major league drug program. The commissioner remains committed to the position that we must act aggressively to deal with the issue of HGH."

http://sports.espn.g...tory?id=4938135

[absintheofmalaise]

link


From Buster Olney's Insider blog

Pretty big news, especially in baseball. Could spell trouble for a lot of players and the end of effectiveness for others. Given the recent shift of the MLBPA's stance toward steroid testing, is testing implemented this season?

Do you have any evidence that HGH helps an athlete perform at a higher level?
Here is a good article by Daniel Enberger from 2007 that has links to various studies of HGH.
I agree that it could spell trouble once the testing is implemented in MLB, but I doubt that it will end the effectiveness of any of them.

[glennhoffmania]

Isn't the issue that MLBPA wouldn't agree to any sort of blood testing? I thought there already was a reliable blood test available.

[absintheofmalaise]

Isn't the issue that MLBPA wouldn't agree to any sort of blood testing? I thought there already was a reliable blood test available.

According to the article MLBPA said that the tests weren't universally accepted by the scientific community.

A blood test has been in existence since the 2004 Athens Olympics, but baseball officials have said until now that its validity was not universally accepted by the scientific community.

"It's the first time and very significant," WADA director general David Howman said, regarding Newton's positive test and subsequent ban. "It shows the people who say that HGH cannot be detected that it can. The sports people who said it can't be detected are fooling themselves."

Travis Tygart, the chief executive of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, said the British finding blasts a hole in that thinking, according to the New York Daily News.

"All of us who have helped develop a test wouldn't put it in place if it wasn't forensically sound and reliable," Tygart said, according to the Daily News. "Particularly in [Newton's] case, it's proof positive the test works."

Looks like they will have to come up with a new reason now, but the PR hit would be bad.

[Terras]

Do you have any evidence that HGH helps an athlete perform at a higher level?

Not particularly, but effectiveness was probably the wrong word to use in this situation.

One of the major things I remember from looking through the Mitchell Report was that for every Roger Clemens or Mo Vaughn, you had someone like Todd Pratt or Manny Alexander, guys that needed all the help they could get and still were largely ineffective. I'm not saying HGH enhances effectiveness, but for guys whose effectiveness is strongly propped up by the use of HGH because of the pure strength or endurance it brings, the minor league lifers, the constant AAAA guys, their careers are going to be seriously impacted.

Edited by Terras, 24 February 2010 - 02:11 PM.

[jimc]

"All of us who have helped develop a test wouldn't put it in place if it wasn't forensically sound and reliable," Tygart said, according to the Daily News. "Particularly in [Newton's] case, it's proof positive the test works."

How can a player testing positive and being banned "prove" that the test works? Like the "witch" drowning proves that the drowning test works? I know Newton admitted to using HGH, but it's still an N=1 experiment that doesn't tell me anything about the quality of the test itself. That's MLB's 'out' right there.

[absintheofmalaise]

How can a player testing positive and being banned "prove" that the test works? Like the "witch" drowning proves that the drowning test works? I know Newton admitted to using HGH, but it's still an N=1 experiment that doesn't tell me anything about the quality of the test itself. That's MLB's 'out' right there.

I'm sure they implemented the test without doing any scientific studies on it to see what the percentages of false-positives and to see how effective it was at detecting HGH in blood. You don't think that the rugby guy would try fighting the results if the test wasn't reliable?

[jimc]

I'm sure they implemented the test without doing any scientific studies on it to see what the percentages of false-positives and to see how effective it was at detecting HGH in blood. You don't think that the rugby guy would try fighting the results if the test wasn't reliable?

I was poking more at the sloppy logic in the quotation than the soundness of the test - all I'm saying is that this event alone doesn't really change anything. If MLBPA wanted to stick with (rightly or wrongly) the position that testing isn't sophisticated enough, they could do it without being disingenuous.

[absintheofmalaise]

I was poking more at the sloppy logic in the quotation than the soundness of the test - all I'm saying is that this event alone doesn't really change anything. If MLBPA wanted to stick with (rightly or wrongly) the position that testing isn't sophisticated enough, they could do it without being disingenuous.

I understand your point about the quote, but if they are starting to implement the test in other sports leagues and if they are successful in implementing it in the minors then the MLBPA is going to have to use another argument if they want to continue to keep it out of MLB.

[Terras]

Report coming out in the wake of this that the NFL wants to begin using blood testing, a notion the NFLPA has outright rejected.

"Our position is that HGH blood testing has advanced to the point where we are taking steps to incorporate it into our program," Greg Aiello, NFL senior vice president of public relations, told The Post.

The players' union, which would have to approve any proposal before blood testing can be done, rebuffed the NFL's plan, part of the ongoing labor talks, according to The Post.

"At this point, there's no reason to believe that blood-testing for NFL players will or should be implemented," George Atallah, union assistant executive director of external affairs, told The Post. "We should instead focus on preserving the drug-testing policy that we have in place."

[Orel Miraculous]

If the MLBPA fights this and turns it into a public battle the results will be disasterous. It would destroy any credability they have left and for many casual fans it would be the last straw for baseball. They'll walk away and won't come back.

[Alternate34]

If the MLBPA fights this and turns it into a public battle the results will be disasterous. It would destroy any credability they have left and for many casual fans it would be the last straw for baseball. They'll walk away and won't come back.

I think this is overblown. The MLBPA already fought steroid testing which was far less intrusive and no significant portion of the fans walked away. Personally, I think that the MLBPA has the right to use it as a bargaining chip. There is a lot of shit that owners can do to intrude upon their life to test for drugs. They could require private investigators or inspections of their house and locker to search for drugs because so many drugs have been developed to beat testing. The MLBPA is put into a tough spot because the owners have nothing to lose from imposing stringent testing while the MLBPA has stuff to lose for defending legitimate privacy interests. As you point out, they also have alot to lose by defending illegitimate interests as well.

Blood tests can open up a host of problems. You can test for so much more than HGH. Samples could be "leaked" and used to expose other medical information. The players could negotiate some sort of privacy agreement, but that didn't work for the list of 104.

[Buckner's Boots]

If the MLBPA fights this and turns it into a public battle the results will be disasterous. It would destroy any credability they have left and for many casual fans it would be the last straw for baseball. They'll walk away and won't come back.

If I'm the MLBPA, my first line of resistance is the botched confidentiality of the "anonymous" 2003 blood tests. Making the case that "fat cat owners" in conjunction with "the bumbling Federal government" can't safeguard the confidentiality of the players would be a compelling place to start. (It wouldn't be entirely accurate, but little is when framed in a political light.)

[absintheofmalaise]

If I'm the MLBPA, my first line of resistance is the botched confidentiality of the "anonymous" 2003 blood tests. Making the case that "fat cat owners" in conjunction with "the bumbling Federal government" can't safeguard the confidentiality of the players would be a compelling place to start. (It wouldn't be entirely accurate, but little is when framed in a political light.)

That would be quite the bargaining session since, if my memory serves me this time, the Feds got the list of the 104 from the union that matched up the names with the numbers from the tests. If the union had destroyed the names, there would have been no list for the Feds to get a hold of. Granted, it would be a good bet that the Feds are the source of the individual names that have been leaked, but to blame the owners is wrong in this case.

[Smiling Joe Hesketh]

I'm for improved testing as the HGH issue always stood out as a huge loophole, but what concerns me is the possibility of releasing results that turn out to be a false positive for whatever reason. I oppose the usage of HGH, but I also oppose the torches and pitchforks reactions every single time a name comes up as testing positive. A false positive would really ruin a player's professional reputation and even a repudiation of such a result would not be able to achieve full reparation as the bell can never really be unrung.

I think they really need to get the nitty-gritty details correct on the agreement before anything gets signed.

[Buckner's Boots]

That would be quite the bargaining session since, if my memory serves me this time, the Feds got the list of the 104 from the union that matched up the names with the numbers from the tests. If the union had destroyed the names, there would have been no list for the Feds to get a hold of. Granted, it would be a good bet that the Feds are the source of the individual names that have been leaked, but to blame the owners is wrong in this case.

I stand corrected. I still would expect the players association to be able to deflect some of their concern toward the way the 2003 tests were handled.