Proposal: Let anyone (18 or older) take anything they want

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HammerTime2
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by HammerTime2

In What's the deal with Patrick Lefevere?
RDY wrote:
Sun Mar 19, 2023 11:35 am
otnemem wrote:
Sun Mar 19, 2023 12:41 am
ultimobici wrote:
Sat Mar 18, 2023 12:23 pm
You only have to look at the trainwreck of Sky's hirings after they announced they would only hire clean staff.
And has anyone heard a peep from the UCI on this? There's undeniable proof that a team was being given testosterone. The same team that wouldn't let anyone else even dream of getting close to the GC at the Tour. This also means that the joke that is antidoping control continues - they can't even catch people on the steroid hormone, let alone designer steroids.
Yet, it's like no one knows anything, status quo maintained, etc.
I think they'd like you to think it's just micro dosing of T, steroids, and various stimulants, anabolic agents and the usual blood doping. But looking at the landscape of pharma, almost certainly gene doping and various novel stem cell treatments that haven't made it anywhere near WADA lists are likely rife, and probably have been for some while. You only have to look at how hard tennis is trying to prevent a major scandal breaking - players are regularly informed in advance about their 'random' tests now. This signals to me that the ITF is panicking that it can't continue to directly cover up (on behalf of the ATP & WTA) positive tests and higly dodgy blood work indefinitely as it has done now for many years, and that it fears samples being turned over to third parties in the case that a few are sanctioned.
Maybe the best solution is the libertarian solution of letting anyone* take anything they want, including blood doping (motor doping would still be disallowed, because that is cheating). If they die young, that's their choice and tough luck. That will end, or at least significantly reduce, the hypocrisy.

* At least professionals 18 or older. If they are (considered) adults, they can give consent, and accept the risks. Probably should include anyone 18 or older, including amateurs and college athletes. Maybe should include college and Olympic athletes of any age, so as to not place them at a disadvantage.

Anyhow. this is the general idea. The details can be worked out. Might as well do this for all sports.

basilic
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by basilic

similar proposals have been made before, e.g.:
KAYSER, Bengt E., SMITH, Aaron C T. Globalisation of anti-doping: the reverse side of the medal. BMJ. British medical journal, 2008, vol. 337, p. a584
These authors propose a public health risk-reduction approach, free of moral judgment. I guess it won't work because sports would lose its commercial value, people identifying with the good (= pure, talented, hard-working) guys vs the opponents. If MvdP was just better enhanced, instead of having a better grampa, it wouldn't be the same.

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TobinHatesYou
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by TobinHatesYou

It becomes an arms race to take the best drug cocktails, often at a major risk to long-term health. Kayle Leogrande took something like 8 different banned substances just to stay competitive on the US pro-am circuit, at least one of them known to cause cancer. If these guys gain a competitive edge, then “pure” guys will be forced to partake as well.
Last edited by TobinHatesYou on Sun Mar 19, 2023 7:41 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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C36
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by C36

Terrible idea and I am those who look at the past with a sort of “as long as there was a sort of balance” (meaning that we had cases where it was not the case, Gewiss in 94, Riss in 96, LA years just to talk where we have certainties).

Rather than long term health problem (pro level sport not being good for health in absolute) it becomes a immediate term health problem (death on the bike or during sleep), you add severe addiction problems (personally know 2 pro riders who commit suicide due to their addictions and have many famous cases like Pantani or Jimenez, possibly Vandenbroucke) and there is no way you can shield it to happen to sub 18 or sub 21 in a sport that doesn’t have the separation you have in the US for example between college sport and pro circuit.

blaugrana
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by blaugrana

Apart from all the good reasons why this is a terrible idea that have already been mentioned, there is also another: it is illegal in most (or all, possibly) civilized countries. Most performance enhancing drugs are prescription only, so a doctor would have to be on board. But doctors aren't ethically allowed to prescribe drugs that are a risk to the patient's health unless it's for therapeutic reasons (and the tradeoff is reasonable). Any doctor that took part in this should simply lose their license, and it's hard to argue against it.

Lina
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by Lina

Antidoping rules aren't there to make the playing field even. They're there to prevent people from killing themselves in search of glory.

basilic
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by basilic

@Lina, not so sure about that. Sure there are dangers when the drugs are not used with medical supervision, but Kayser/Smith argue for the latter. We are ok with medical enhancements except in sports - stimulants to improve alertness, betablockers to steady hands, anxiety medicines, viagra, boob jobs, etc. Looking at recreational drugs, many societies are ok with alcohol but not cannabis (even if that's changing), when cannabis is more innocuous. The rules are not only about health.
In cycling, consider erythropoietin - it's a natural hormone that we all produce, and that is used to improve quality of life in people who have trouble producing red blood cells (yes, under medical supervision). There would be no downside to boosting one's hematocrit by a few points, and yet a notable a performance benefit. Certainly women might do it (epo plus some iron), they are naturally a bit anemic from bleeding regularly.

Lina
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by Lina

basilic wrote:
Mon Mar 20, 2023 7:15 am
@Lina, not so sure about that. Sure there are dangers when the drugs are not used with medical supervision, but Kayser/Smith argue for the latter. We are ok with medical enhancements except in sports - stimulants to improve alertness, betablockers to steady hands, anxiety medicines, viagra, boob jobs, etc. Looking at recreational drugs, many societies are ok with alcohol but not cannabis (even if that's changing), when cannabis is more innocuous. The rules are not only about health.
In cycling, consider erythropoietin - it's a natural hormone that we all produce, and that is used to improve quality of life in people who have trouble producing red blood cells (yes, under medical supervision). There would be no downside to boosting one's hematocrit by a few points, and yet a notable a performance benefit. Certainly women might do it (epo plus some iron), they are naturally a bit anemic from bleeding regularly.
You bring up EPO. Surely you know that taking too much EPO turns your blood into such a thick soup that your heart will no longer be able to pump it. A lot of deaths are the end result if doping is allowed without limits. Because people would be willing to dance on the line for fame and money. And when you do that it's really easy to go a step too far and then there's no coming back. "Medical supervision" my ass. Team doctors would be responsible for the supervision. And the same team doctors would also be responsible for producing results.

RDY
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by RDY

basilic wrote:
Mon Mar 20, 2023 7:15 am
@Lina, not so sure about that. Sure there are dangers when the drugs are not used with medical supervision, but Kayser/Smith argue for the latter. We are ok with medical enhancements except in sports - stimulants to improve alertness, betablockers to steady hands, anxiety medicines, viagra, boob jobs, etc. Looking at recreational drugs, many societies are ok with alcohol but not cannabis (even if that's changing), when cannabis is more innocuous. The rules are not only about health.
In cycling, consider erythropoietin - it's a natural hormone that we all produce, and that is used to improve quality of life in people who have trouble producing red blood cells (yes, under medical supervision). There would be no downside to boosting one's hematocrit by a few points, and yet a notable a performance benefit. Certainly women might do it (epo plus some iron), they are naturally a bit anemic from bleeding regularly.
You must be kidding. The number of cyclist deaths that were linked to EPO use "boosting one's hematocrit by a few points" in the 80s and 90s says otherwise.

Medical supervision doesn't make much of any of this much less dangerous. And you'd still have exactly the same cast of 'rogue' doctors and pharmacologists as per now. No conscientious medical professionals would involve themselves in this.

UpFromOne
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by UpFromOne

Libertarianism went out with the ever-increasing regulation of gravel, the last frontier of cycle racing.
It's nothing but a pie-in-the-sky philosophy that mythologizes the rather fuzzy notion of "liberty."

The only reasonable effort is to have the anti-doping personnel as educated as possible about the various substances and their biological effects, whether first-person knowledge or through other experts, and also enough funds to actually carry out their duties. The latter is where cycling still falls short, for rather obvious profit-taking reasons.

otnemem
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by otnemem

Re EPO and deaths, I suggest this article: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10. ... 011.555208

RDY
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by RDY

otnemem wrote:
Wed Mar 22, 2023 11:32 pm
Re EPO and deaths, I suggest this article: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10. ... 011.555208
I wouldn't. The guy's main topic of interest seems to be trying to tear down dangers of doping, on a whole range of stuff, and questioning anti-doping. His background and current area of study is communication, too ...

Skimming some of his papers, he sounds about as credible as Joe Rogan on doping.

Without the mass of other papers on similar lines, you could file it under academic contrarianism. With them, it's difficult to imagine there's not some clear agenda.

otnemem
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by otnemem

You'll notice you're not contradicting the arguments presented but discrediting him for being in communication.

It's really the opposite. You should have papers proving the connection between EPO and the respective deaths - that is where the burden lies, not on disproving it.

Another good article, with good points: https://www.ridemedia.com.au/features/e ... en-deaths/

justkeepedaling
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by justkeepedaling

otnemem wrote:
Fri Mar 24, 2023 12:07 am
You'll notice you're not contradicting the arguments presented but discrediting him for being in communication.

It's really the opposite. You should have papers proving the connection between EPO and the respective deaths - that is where the burden lies, not on disproving it.

Another good article, with good points: https://www.ridemedia.com.au/features/e ... en-deaths/
Huh? The author is not a subject matter expert. We'd also be critical of a surgeon making statements regarding respiratory disease.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17875952/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17804841/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17565925/

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otnemem
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by otnemem

The author states facts. There's no actual link between the deaths and EPO. Unless you can prove conflict of interest, your replies constitute ad hominem.

Those links to irrelevant studies to the subject matter st hand aren't helping whatever point you think you're making. You'd be looking for EPO and healthy young subjects, EPO and athletes, EPO/clots in postmortems of Belgian athletes. I'll wait. You'll be the first in 30 years establishing the link so good luck.

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