Re: [RC] APF What is in it, and would residues from its administrationviolate rule 13? - Truman Prevatt
Ed & Wendy Hauser wrote:
How do you define drug? Only those
drugs normally prescribed for horses? What about substances that are
not in regulated by the government?
OK I think you are advocating
producing a list of substances that will be tested. Now some of these
will be legal drugs, and some will be illegal substances with no known
use in equine medicine. Apparently, you feel it would be OK if
someone were feeding anabolicsteriods to horses, as long as they
withdrew long enough before a race.
There are people out there with expertise in the field of pharmacology
that could help work through this. I fact one such person went to the
AERC in in mid 90's and offered her services (she runs the
pharmacology program at a major medical school and her husband and son
were endurance riders ) and was told to mind her own business by a
couple of the at that time board members.
The list would have to be revised on
a frequent basis. One of the problems in human sports is that there is
a constant stream of new designer substances so the authorities are
playing a continuous game of catch-up.
The issue with designer substances is testing. They are designed to
avoid testing and the catch-up is to develop effective test.
I used to think that it might
be useful to develop a listed "action level" , as you suggest, for
normal useful vet medicines with any level of illegal, harmful, or non
useful substances being banned in any measurable amount. The vet
committee sort of does this now by looking at the amounts and type of
substance found on a case by case basis when considering penalties. I
have since changed my mind.
The issue here is the sensitivity of testing has gone up between two or
three orders of magnitude since the AERC drug policy was crafter, i.e.
they 100 to 1000 more sensitive. They are in the parts per billion now
and in some cases more sensitive and getting more sensitive. Today they
can detect a anabolic steroid use six months prior - that's why there
are designer steroids. If a person gave their horse two grams of bute
today, he would test positive 1 month or two later if the most
sensitive test were used. They are expensive but I suspect the prices
are coming down every day. Do we really want to detect two grams of
bute given two months ago and call that an infraction - that's zero
tolerance.
Human sports are in a real mess
because of the administration of banned substances. I don't know, but
suspect, that other horse sports have more evasion of the spirit of
their rules than we do. I also see postings on Ridecamp every few
months from people who want to give a magic substance (usually herbal
and therefore OK) to their horses. I am beginning to believe that
allowing this camel's nose under the tent wall would probably result in
the whole camel inside in a few years. I do not want endurance riding
to be as corrupt as human sports.
When I was running there was no drug use other than aspirin every now
and again. There may have been the odd person that tried something but
it wasn't a problem. The biggest issues where the East German and
Chinese women(?) in the Olympics. Today in track drug use is a major
problem and every in every modern Olympics there is evidence of drug
use. The use of designer drugs and blood doping agents is the biggest
problem. What's the difference - money. When I was running track was an
amateur sport and the Olympics were amateur. Today it is big business
with the top runners pulling down six and sever figure incomes. The
brass ring of a NFL, NBA or MLB contract is a huge insensitive. It even
gets down to the high schools. In other equine sports where there is a
lot more money there is a lot more incentive for performance
enhancement. If the money comes to this sport the drugs will come with
it.
Just because someone post that they have a magic elixir that did
wonderful things doesn't mean that the elixir did more than enrich the
producer of the elixir. The bottom line come right down to detection
and enforcement. If something won't test it doesn't exist. It may be
there but testing is the ARC method of observing it existence.
It is not an easy issue and for the most part the ARC has avoided many
of the problems. Hopefully that will continue - but then there are is
the debate on Gastroguard. As far as I am concerned if a substance has
been show to have no effect like MSM and DMG then who cares. By arguing
over these things and worrying about them we lose the sight on the
bigger threat to the sport - allowing in drugs that have proven
pharmacological effects, e.g. Gastroguard, so horses that should not be
running on a given day could compete. IMO that is threat and any change
in the policy that would allow that would make us no better than TB
racing.
Truman
-- We imitate our masters only because we are not yet masters
ourselves,
and only
We
imitate our masters
only because we are not yet masters ourselves, and only
because
in doing so we
learn the truth about what cannot be imitated.
