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it's not looking good for Team Pacquiao
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Experts warn of undetectable drugs
By Jacquelin Magnay
Sydney
October 25, 2003
World sport drug experts fear that athletes are now hiring chemists to tweak existing steroids to make them undetectable - a process that could be as simple as adding hydrogen atoms to an existing drug, or fiddling with the composition of a steroid by adding enzymes.
The issue has exploded on to the world stage with the discovery of the previously undetected steroid tetrahydrogestrinone (THG) in urine samples of several star athletes.
Dr Peter Larkins, spokesman for the Australian College of Sports Physicians, said that at present there would be "scores of variants of testosterone around" that have been made to order.
"There is actually an infinite number of variations, just by fiddling with a branch of molecules, by changing one or two you get a different drug," Larkins said yesterday.
"Some of the changes make for a stronger steroid, some for a weaker one and the challenge for the chemist is to put together one that works well."
As the sporting community comes to grips with the drug sting that has ensnared British sprinter Dwain Chambers, US shot-putter Kevin Toth and 40-year-old world indoor 1500 metres champion Regina Jacobs, top administrators say the extent of the conspiracy to cheat has reached a new level.
Officials fear it will not be too long before the next drugs nightmare - athletes abusing developments in genetic engineering.
World Anti-Doping Agency chief executive David Howman said THG showed athletes had moved beyond abusing drugs developed for medical conditions - some of which are undetectable - and are now designing their own.
He likened the "intentional and criminal doping" discovery to the tearing down of the Berlin Wall.
"We are confronting a different beast, a different animal and cheating at a much higher level than we have probably seen in the past," Howman said.
American College of Sports Medicine doctor Gary Wadler concurred: "If there is one great concern that THG has exposed, it's the potential that other non-detectable anabolic steroids may be in the pipeline. The scientific and public health implications of this issue are quite disconcerting."
Professor Don Catlin, the head of the UCLA Olympic laboratory that worked out the "tell-tale signature" of THG, said he had long suspected this tweaking of testosterone, but until now there had no evidence of such designer steroids.
So far the scientists believe that THG was dissolved under the tongue, but they are uncertain whether it is an oil-based steroid - which would offer longer benefits - or a water-based one, which is cleared out of the body within a matter of days or weeks.
Catlin believes THG is a variant of the steroid gestrinone, and that the unknown chemists had added four hydrogen atoms to make the drug undetectable.
There is also the suggestion that it could have been made using another steroid, trenbolone, and fiddling with its composition by adding enzymes.
Wadler said this would have made it virtually impossible to find because it would have broken down as the urine sample was vapourised in the testing process.
"It is an ongoing process for those in the know," said Larkins.
"Once one of their drugs becomes detectable, they turn back to the same people for the next thing - they would be working on new ones now.
"It takes months to develop one that is effective, but once it is in the marketplace the g****vine is very efficient and nothing stays a secret from those who are able to pay for it."Comment
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nobody is a coward and bob is using that serious talk to cover his boy.for 45million i'll take any drug test whenever where ever.Comment
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this article u just pulled is 7 YEARS AGO. dont u think testing labs are far ahead of this???Comment
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