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Doctor: Doping 'all about money'
(CNN) -- The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency has announced it has uncovered a doping "conspiracy" involving previously undetectable steroids used by track and field athletes. Dr. Gary Wadler, a member of the World Anti-Doping Agency's Health, Medical and Research Committee, talked Friday with CNN Anchor Bill Hemmer about the findings and implications for athletes. HEMMER: Intentional doping of the worst sort. You agree with that? WADLER: [It] has the potential. HEMMER: How so? WADLER: Well, steroids have been around a long time, and athletes and chemists and those who want to cheat have been looking long and hard to try and get around various drug tests that we have to detect steroid and other drug abuse, and this seems to be another example of that. HEMMER: It is called the THG steroid. Can you explain this to us? WADLER: Well, THG is another steroid, synthetic, made in the laboratories. [It's] tetrahydrogestrinone, which is a complicated word ... but basically, all these people are doing is taking a basic testosterone molecule, which is the father of all steroids, and making slight modifications. So that something that's new on the scene, has never been there before. The laboratories are not looking for it because they did not know it existed. And in this case, they used reverse engineering since June to figure out what this new thing in the urine that showed up was. They had no idea what it was. And Dr. Don Catlin of UCLA very cleverly did reverse engineering for a number of months. And finally, they figured out that somebody came along with a new modification of an old substance, an anabolic steroid, for the purpose of evading detection. HEMMER: So if you're one of the best athletes in the world, you're taking this steroid to do what? WADLER: Anabolic steroids have been around ... for a long time. And certainly [they were] in football back in the '50s and '60s. The idea is to make you bigger, make you stronger, more aggressive, decrease your recovery time. So it's really ... one of the most major performance-enhancing drugs we know. HEMMER: There is a gentleman in the story by the name of Victor Conte. I believe he's the president of a company out in California. He released a statement indicating, "The USADA has been reporting that the agent is a controlled substance and illegal, and that is just simply not true. Just because it may be structurally similar does not mean that is has anabolic effects." What he is suggesting here is that perhaps you detected it, but it's not what you think it is. WADLER: Well, there are actually two laws that govern this in the United States. One is a supplement act, the DSHEA Act [the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act], which enabled andro. Remember the famous andro with Mark McGwire? [It's] a steroid but not controlled under the Controlled Substances Act. And then there are those things which are governed by the Controlled Substances Act of 1990, which are controlled substances, and these people have tried to walk that middle ground, where in one case it would be a controlled hormone. In another case, it would be a hormone. Very different consequences. But from everything I understand about this particular molecule -- this looks like and sounds like it's going to be the real thing. HEMMER: If this is true and if it is the real thing, do you go along with this suggestion that it has to be a true conspiracy between the athlete, the coach and the chemist who makes the product? WADLER: Well, let's face it, this is all about money. ... This is hard work to do. And there's an incentive, if somebody's doing this for a reason. It's not just a homework assignment. There has to be a motivation to use the laboratories, to use those resources to develop the product, and that gets around to the notion of a conspiracy. HEMMER: So you would agree with that if indeed it's true? WADLER: I think certainly it would suggest that. HEMMER: [The] Athens [Olympics] come around in about 10 months from now. This is a significant event for the world. The impact from this story right now is what? WADLER: If these people are confirmed positive, they have the so-called "A" specimen. If the "B" specimen, the confirmatory specimen is positive, then it's deemed to be a true anabolic steroid, and the consequences are a two-year mandatory suspension, which means those athletes would be ineligible. HEMMER: [This] may change the face of many teams out there. WADLER: Absolutely.
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