National Collegiate Athletic Association
NCAA News Archive - 2007
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Guest editorial - Stay current on drug testing
Sports drug testing is complex.
The compounds are constantly changing, the methods cheaters use to avoid detection are changing and a win-at-all-cost attitude fuels an industry for the manufacture and sale of performance-enhancing products that entices even our youngest athletes.
Journalists don’t write stories that address the complexities of drug testing in part because of the short attention span of most readers. Describing how we detect synthetic testosterone takes more than a few paragraphs. Further, experts in the sports drug-testing field cannot comment publicly on positive cases because the universe of experts in sports drug prevention is so small that almost always they are involved in the case in one form or another. The end result is that media are forced to cite sources who are not reliable.
Athletics administrators and coaches have lost their jobs over the management of drug-use issues on their teams. Some deserved to; most didn’t. In a world where personal responsibility is overshadowed by a desire to blame, the best-intentioned administrator, coach, team physician or athletic trainer can be hung out to dry by a desperate drug user. I have seen it.
Yes. Sports drug testing is complex.
While not specifically related to sports drug testing, a recently published study out of Harvard Medical School supports that testing is complex. The findings from a review of drug-testing results (positive and negative) from 110 adolescent drug users revealed that of 710 drug tests, 85 were susceptible to error. (See the journal Pediatrics, Vol. 119, No. 4, April 2007, pages 843-848.)
The study concludes: “Unless proper procedures are used in collecting, analyzing and interpreting the laboratory testing for drugs, there is a substantial risk for error.”
No argument here.
Another research report you might have missed came from the Annals of Emergency Medicine earlier this year. The report cited four cases of the abuse of niacin (vitamin B3). Niacin is available over the counter and via prescription to treat or prevent niacin deficiency. Drug users take large doses of niacin hoping that the resulting diuresis will produce a urine sample too dilute for the detection of drugs. In these four cases, all patients had adverse health effects after taking niacin and in two of the cases the researchers identified the effects as “life threatening.” Drug users go to dangerous levels to protect their jobs, their careers and their eligibility.
Drug testing is not as black and white as many believe. The science involves measurement and all measurement has error. The science also includes probability and human interpretation. Strict laboratory protocols and redundancies in our systems reduce such error to levels of acceptability.
Even the administration of the program and the collection of urine samples can be complex. When is the “sick” athlete too sick to be drug tested? One of the most high-profile, positive drug tests with which I was involved came about because we sent the collector to the student health center to obtain a urine sample from the athlete who had been admitted for flu-like symptoms. (Maybe he had niacin poisoning?)
When is the injured athlete too injured to participate in post-event drug testing? We have been called “heartless” for requiring an athlete to limp into drug testing. However, I have seen how the possibility of a positive drug test can really aggravate an ankle injury. Swelling is harder to fake. Open fractures make the decision easier.
Does an incarcerated athlete get a bye on a drug test? Only when the authorities refuse to allow us to collect a sample in the jail.
Because sports drug testing is complex, Drug Free Sport urges athletics departments to review their drug-testing polices now. More than 50 percent of NCAA schools have institutional drug-testing programs and summer is a good time to assess whether policies and practices have kept pace with the complexities of performance-enhancing drug use, Internet drug and supplement sales, masking agents and methods, etc.
Don’t wait until a drug-use issue arises to find out that your testing and education programs are out of date.
Frank Uryasz is president of The National Center for Drug Free Sport.
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By Frank Uryasz
The National Center for Drug Free Sport
The National Center for Drug Free Sport
Sports drug testing is complex. The compounds are constantly changing, the methods cheaters use to avoid detection are changing and a win-at-all-cost attitude fuels an industry for the manufacture and sale of performance-enhancing products that entices even our youngest athletes.
Journalists don’t write stories that address the complexities of drug testing in part because of the short attention span of most readers. Describing how we detect synthetic testosterone takes more than a few paragraphs. Further, experts in the sports drug-testing field cannot comment publicly on positive cases because the universe of experts in sports drug prevention is so small that almost always they are involved in the case in one form or another. The end result is that media are forced to cite sources who are not reliable.
Athletics administrators and coaches have lost their jobs over the management of drug-use issues on their teams. Some deserved to; most didn’t. In a world where personal responsibility is overshadowed by a desire to blame, the best-intentioned administrator, coach, team physician or athletic trainer can be hung out to dry by a desperate drug user. I have seen it.
Yes. Sports drug testing is complex.
While not specifically related to sports drug testing, a recently published study out of Harvard Medical School supports that testing is complex. The findings from a review of drug-testing results (positive and negative) from 110 adolescent drug users revealed that of 710 drug tests, 85 were susceptible to error. (See the journal Pediatrics, Vol. 119, No. 4, April 2007, pages 843-848.)
The study concludes: “Unless proper procedures are used in collecting, analyzing and interpreting the laboratory testing for drugs, there is a substantial risk for error.”
No argument here.
Another research report you might have missed came from the Annals of Emergency Medicine earlier this year. The report cited four cases of the abuse of niacin (vitamin B3). Niacin is available over the counter and via prescription to treat or prevent niacin deficiency. Drug users take large doses of niacin hoping that the resulting diuresis will produce a urine sample too dilute for the detection of drugs. In these four cases, all patients had adverse health effects after taking niacin and in two of the cases the researchers identified the effects as “life threatening.” Drug users go to dangerous levels to protect their jobs, their careers and their eligibility.
Drug testing is not as black and white as many believe. The science involves measurement and all measurement has error. The science also includes probability and human interpretation. Strict laboratory protocols and redundancies in our systems reduce such error to levels of acceptability.
Even the administration of the program and the collection of urine samples can be complex. When is the “sick” athlete too sick to be drug tested? One of the most high-profile, positive drug tests with which I was involved came about because we sent the collector to the student health center to obtain a urine sample from the athlete who had been admitted for flu-like symptoms. (Maybe he had niacin poisoning?)
When is the injured athlete too injured to participate in post-event drug testing? We have been called “heartless” for requiring an athlete to limp into drug testing. However, I have seen how the possibility of a positive drug test can really aggravate an ankle injury. Swelling is harder to fake. Open fractures make the decision easier.
Does an incarcerated athlete get a bye on a drug test? Only when the authorities refuse to allow us to collect a sample in the jail.
Because sports drug testing is complex, Drug Free Sport urges athletics departments to review their drug-testing polices now. More than 50 percent of NCAA schools have institutional drug-testing programs and summer is a good time to assess whether policies and practices have kept pace with the complexities of performance-enhancing drug use, Internet drug and supplement sales, masking agents and methods, etc.
Don’t wait until a drug-use issue arises to find out that your testing and education programs are out of date.
Frank Uryasz is president of The National Center for Drug Free Sport.
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