LONDON, 18 June 2004 — Anti-doping authorities believe they are closing the net on drug cheats with news that tests have finally been approved for two substances which have defied researchers for decades.
Tests for human growth hormone (HGH), which can help sprinters as well as endurance competitors, and haemoglobin-based oxygen carriers (HBOCs), which aid stamina for long and middle-distance events are in the pipeline, The Times newspaper reported yesterday.
News of the tests comes less than two months before the Athens Olympics.
The International Olympic Committee made a similar breakthrough on testing for erythropoietin (EPO), the substance that boosts the red blood cell count, just before the 2000 Games in Sydney.
HGH, used to help undernourished children, has been popular with drug cheats since the 1980s when it was used by athletes such as Ben Johnson, the disgraced Canadian sprinter. HGH was originally taken from human bodies but 20 years ago began to be manufactured for clinical use. Competitors in a variety of sports began to use it instead of anabolic steroids, which are readily detectable. Because HGH is produced by the body it has been difficult to prove whether it has been taken artificially.
However, scientists now expect to test for it in Greece after a breakthrough in research conducted at Southampton University and in Germany. “Since these are foreign substances and are detectable, well be able to catch competitors trying to cheat at the Olympics,” Professor David Cowan, of Kings College London’s WADA-accredited laboratory, told The Times.
Olivier Rabin, WADA science director, told AFP in January that research teams had made major progress in developing new tests.
“You’ll know we’ve succeeded the day we announce a positive test for a substance which was previously unheard-of or thought to be undetectable,” he said.
There has been extensive research on HBOCs, available in veterinary form for several years, in Australia and France.
Several pharmaceutical companies in the US and Canada have been working on clinical trials for the human form of the drug.
Dr Michael Ashenden, an Australian exercise physiologist, who took part in EPO testing at the Sydney Olympics, said that all but one of the companies had made the products available for testing. Another substance that has become readily detectable is Aranesp, otherwise known as darbepoietin, which mimics the effects of EPO.
