HGH POLICY LACKS BITE
Lack of timely, efficient test among issues NFL faces
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell was basking in the glow of a new season, and a new collective-bargaining agreement at the first of many events to celebrate Super Bowl XLVIII, to be played three years later at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., the league’s first cold-weather championship game.
But there was one issue that would prove to be a thorn in Goodell’s side as the commissioner mingled with guests and the media during that 2011 breakfast at the Museum of Modern Art: human growth hormone. The owners and the Players Association had agreed in principle a few weeks earlier to implement blood testing for the drug, but the union later balked over questions about the effectiveness of the test.
“It’s our intention to do it as soon as possible,” Goodell said then of HGH testing. “We hope sooner rather than later. We wanted to start at the beginning of the (2011) regular season.”
The NFL’s HGH testing wasn’t implemented until September 2014, three years later, thanks to the union’s relucatance. It continues to be a lightning-rod topic as Peyton Manning prepares for his fourth Super Bowl appearance Feb. 7, perhaps his final football game in an NFL uniform.
No players have tested positive for HGH since the NFL began testing for it, raising questions about the effectiveness of the NFL drug policy.
“It’s 100% propaganda. If the NFL was interested in catching players who are doping, they wouldn’t be doing the testing the way they are now,” says BALCO founder Victor Conte, who has for years been an anti-doping advocate.
Conte says he believes players are able to avoid detection by microdosing or using fast-acting PEDcreams that stay in an individual’s system for a very short window of time.
“I think the policy is completely inept,” he said.
Human growth hormone – banned by the NFL and other sports leagues -- shot to the forefront of NFL news last month thanks to Al Jazeera’s documentary, “The Dark Side.” A pharmacist named Charlie Sly says on camera that an Indianapolis anti-aging clinic sent HGH to Manning through his wife Ashley in 2011, when Manning was with the Colts and recovering from a career-threatening neck injury and multiple surgeries. Sly later reca nted his claims in a You- Tube video and Manning has denied using HGH or any other performance-enhancing drug.
According to the NFL’s Policy on Performance-Enhancing Substances, players are subject to no more than six blood tests per calendar year (with exceptions for players who are tested for reasonable cause), and -- here is a key element -- never on game days.
Don Catlin, who founded the UCLA anti-doping lab more than three decades ago, says one of the hurdles any sports league encounters trying to catch HGH users is the time element.
“The current HGH Isoform test used in sport has a very short window of detection, considered to be less than 24 hours,” says Catlin. “There are ample opportunities to use HGH given the short window of detection. A second HGH test focused on biomarker detection is under evaluation. It has a much longer window of detection. When that test comes on line the NFL will have a much better way to detect HGH,although the use of the test will have to be negotiated by the relevant parties.”
During the preseason and regular season, a computer program is used to select five players “from eight randomly selected clubs,” who “will receive serum testing in addition to urine testing,” according to the NFL policy. During the postseason, five of 10 players selected from every club who qualifies for playoffs will submit both blood and urine samples, as long as the team is active.
“Specimens may be collected on any day of the week, except blood specimens will be prohibited on game days. Specimen collections occurring at a Club facility, stadium or scouting combine venue will be conducted at the discretion of the Independent Administrator and Collection Vendor without advance notice to the Player,” the policy says. But during the preseason and regular season, players know when they have to report to practice facilities or stadiums, so how much randomness in testing is really in effect?
Catlin’s son, Oliver, the president and co-founder (along with his father) of a California research lab
called the Banned Substances Control Group, says another hurdle sports leagues face is trying to keep up with the science of what constitutes a banned substance.
“The flaw is not with the NFL’s intent, the flaw is with the collective bargaining agreement,” says Oliver Catlin. “You have to collectively bargain the banned substances list, and when you are opening up the (CBA) for negotiations on an infrequent basis, you don’t have the ability to update that list. It’s a major problem throughout professional sports and college sports. We’re in the modern times of drug testing, but you see so much inconsistency as to what is banned and not banned.
“The growth hormone test is an IQ test. You know you’re not going to be tested on game day, so it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out how to get around that. If you’re a savvy athlete, why use growth hormone and not the numerous other peptides out there that are not on the banned substances list but which do the same thing?”
A request for comment from NFLPA representative George Atallah on whether the union thinks the NFL’s drug-testing policy is working went unanswered.
While Don Catlin offered praise for the NFL’s drug-testing policy overall -- “It’s detailed, thorough and far improved compared with 10 years ago” -- both he and his son say that pro sports leagues’ anti-doping efforts would be strengthened by utilizing the biological passport program adopted by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).
And Dick Pound, the former WADA president, agrees that for sports leagues to get tough on doping, they need to adopt the biological passport system, which is used to measure biological markers of an athlete over time to determine if he or she has doped.
“Are you really going to try and solve the problem, or are you just blowing smoke up your a--?” says Pound.
Travis Tygart, the chief executive officer of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, declined to comment for this article because of the recent announcement that he is working with the NFL and Major League Baseball to investigate the Al Jazeera claims of PED use among pro athletes.
But Tygart also has long advocated the adoption of a biological passport system in anti-doping programs. Tygart also said as far back as 2008, when he testified before Congress, that in order to ensure a “matrix of effectiveness” in drugtesting policies, those programs must include “effective out of season and out of competition, no advanced notice testing; a full list of prohibited substances and methods that would capture new, designer drugs as they are developed; partnerships with government, particularly law enforcement to ensure that in addition to holding athletes accountable, those who illegally manufacturer, traffic and distribute these dangerous drugs and who are typically outside of sports jurisdiction are also held accountable for their illegal behavior.”
Manning said last week that he welcomes a USADA-NFL investigation into the allegations made in the Al Jazeera documentary. But he may want to take some advice from Lance Armstrong: Be careful what you wish for.
“I do welcome it… It’s been garbage from the first day it came out,” Manning said. “Still
garbage today.”