Jul
23
So I was wondering how WADA had suddenly caught up with the dopers in being able to detect the latest and greatest in performance enhancing drug technology. After apparently being several years behind the cheaters in the drugs they were able to detect, I read on a good friend of mine’s blog this morning about the fascinating news that some drug developers are actually working with the anti-doping agencies on testing for new drugs during the development stage. In the recent Ricardo Ricco doping case, drug maker Roche Pharmaceutical had added a marker molecule to the drug in question (CERA) that would allow testers to easily detect it.
In the development of that substance close cooperation occurred between WADA and the pharmaceutical company Roche Pharmaceuticals so that there was a molecule placed in the substance well in advance that was always going to be able to be detected once a test was undertaken. – John Fahey of the World Anti-Doping Agency on Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio
Now this is a step in the right direction. It’s almost like DRM for drugs. I wonder if WADA has shared this work with the independent testing agencies like the Agency for Cycling Ethics that are contracted with teams like Slipstream and High Road. With the question of whether Saunier-Duval’s doping was one “rogue individual” or a team-wide program and the sponsors pulling out with the positive tests, this team-based “Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval” assuring potential sponsors of their honesty will become ever more important.
Then again, how long, really, before the cheaters find ways to mask the markers…
Here’s a couple of articles on the subject:
Comments
2 Responses to “How WADA Caught Up with Ricco”
As is quite normal in ‘WADA World’ there’s been a bending of the truth here. Roche denies they inserted a “molecule” to act as a marker.
Was WADA’s Fahey lying on purpose or was he just mistaken?
Either way, doesn’t fill you with much confidence in WADA, though, does it?
Athletes need to be 100 percent perfect with their ethics and answers, and anti-doping agencies are deemed by many to be infallible, yet few raise eyebrows when WADA is caught telling porkies.
Here’s the Roche rebuffal, from International Herald Tribune:
“Roche Holding, which makes a version of a stamina-building drug illegally used by some athletes, said it didn’t plant a molecule in the substance to help identify it in doping tests, spokeswoman Martina Rupp said…John Fahey, the president of the World Anti-Doping Agency, said in an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corp. that Roche planted a molecule in its red-cell boosting product CERA, or Continuous Erythropoietin Receptor Activator, during its manufacture to help anti-doping authorities detect its illegal use. Roche sells the drug as Mircera.
…
“The information that a special molecule has been added to Mircera is wrong,” Rupp said in an e-mail.”
Even if the use of “marker molecules” was true, it still doesn’t help with the problem of designer drugs like those distributed through BALCO.