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The efforts of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) have often been described as a “crusade” in this Olympics. It is an apt description, for a great deal of faith and optimism is necessary for its role. Flushing out all sportspeople who have used performance-enhancing drugs is a bit like chasing your shadow: no matter how much progress you make, science always seems to be a step ahead.
WADA’s comprehensive list of banned drugs is regularly updated. But every week, thousands of new chemicals are manufactured for legitimate reasons. If any of these are misused, no one would know-unless it is revealed deliberately or by accident. The latest drugs on the WADA list are testimony to such rare displays of conscience.
Last year, Trevor Graham, coach of the Olympics 100 m champion Justin Gatlin, rocked the athletics world when he sent a syringe of a designer drug called THG (tetrahydrogestrinone) to the US Anti-Doping Agency.
The chemical was undetectable because it was not known. This led to the unmasking of a veritable who’s who of drug cheats-British 100 m champion Dwain Chambers, American shot-put champion Kevin Toth, women’s hammer throw champion Melissa Price, men’s hammer thrower John McEwen and others.
However, even with known drugs it is easy to cheat by using masking agents. Tests pick up the main chemical characteristic of the drug-its chemical shape or the colour it emits under certain conditions. The masking agents throw tests off track by, say, changing the shape of the drug by binding to it or by colouring the urine. Most masking agents are also banned or their use restricted but one has to know about them to restrict them.
Broadly, there are five categories of banned drugs: anabolic steroids, peptides, painkillers, stimulants and diuretics. Anabolic steroids are the most widely abused. These are either hormones that are present naturally in the body in small amounts or similar chemical derivatives. However, when taken in large quantities, they can provide a huge edge in most areas of sports by increasing muscle and bone strength.
It was an anabolic steroid stanozolol that sprinter Ben Johnson infamously tested positive for. More recently, male hormone testosterone caused Pratima Kumari’s disgrace. “Pumped in large amounts, testosterone and other steroids will give wrestlers that crucial edge with bigger bodies,” explains Dr Prateek Gupta, head of sports medicine at Delhi’s Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, who treated top athletes in New York and London before returning to India.
Peptides also occur naturally in our body and have the same boosting effect as steroids. Painkillers like morphine and opiates too are misused. Without pain as an obstacle, a sportsperson can push himself or herself that much farther. Like all narcotics, they can also be addictive.
Diuretics are chemicals that help the body lose fluid. By losing 2-3 litres of water boxers can falsely qualify for a lower weight category. But in the process, their body also loses vital salts. Other drugs like beta blockers, usually prescribed to patients with high blood pressure or heart problems, lower the heart rate and prevent trembling. These are banned in shooting, but not where it cannot make a difference, like rowing.
It is, however, almost impossible to keep track of the sheer number of natural chemicals which boost health in indirect ways and can be misused. EPO (erythropoietin) is a classic example. Produced naturally in the kidney, it stimulates the bone marrow to boost the production of red blood cells that carry oxygen to the body. When more oxygen is carried to the muscles, their function improves. Genetically engineered EPO, now available, is indistinguishable from its natural counterpart.
The next big danger is gene therapy, where they directly inject bits of DNA for performance enhancing genes. The gene for EPO has already been discovered. It is only a matter of time before the technique is used by sportspeople. To succeed, WADA will need not only optimism, but also technical assistance.
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