Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Doping Tests can be Wrong

Those of us that work in the medical field know that no test exists that is 100% accurate and there is always a chance for a false positive, false negative, or a borderline result. It appears that track star Marion Jones is a victim of this exact occurrence. Her first blood sample was borderline positive for the banned substance EPO. This was quickly leaked to the press and she has been labeled as a doper, costing her endorsements and public image. BUT NOW, her second sample is negative and she has been cleared of all allegations. What do we say to this athlete? "I am sorry that we almost made you a sacrificial lamb, based upon unconfirmed tests.....or you are a doper and got lucky that the second test came back negative."
At least the public and sporting world is now aware that these test results are not black and white. However, it is obvious that the governing bodies are not willing to accept this, and they are willing to penalize the few clean athletes that falsely test positive to help eliminate the larger percentage of true dopers that test positive. And maybe that is the best approach, because if they ever admit that any of these tests is not 100% accurate, there will be room for appeal and protest of sanctions....
My 2 cents, what's yours???

2 Comments:

At Sun Sep 17, 02:31:00 PM, Blogger Bike Drool said...

Guilty or not, I think Floyd Landis really got the shaft!! Instead of being able to enjoy and celebrate his Tour de France win - he can only wallow in guilty speculation, and total media smack-down.

Now, combine that with these recent comments from Frankie Andreau, and things are really getting ugly for US Pro Cycling. Lance Armstrong will NEVER in a billion years fess up - way too much riding on his innocence.

I'm glad the public is being better educated that the doping tests are not simply black and white, right or wrong. But I think somewhere this all goes south.

I think it sucks. "Cheaters never win, and winners never cheat!" Remember your high school coach yelling that at you? If only it were true.

 
At Thu Oct 12, 11:11:00 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I think you need testosterone :)

 

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