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Re: [RC] [RC] EN Drug Test Fee-to vet committee - AprilAngie, et al,According to the Jan article, the excess fees would not go for the actual drug testing. The extra $4 (we already pay $1/start for drug testing) would be to defend the "no pharmacological effect" rule if somebody decided to challenge it. "Setting upper limits of legal blood levels for foreign substances is a more gray area, open to debate and more difficult to defend legally. Because of the increased possibility of legal action..., the costs of legal defense for AERC can easily increase dramatically and therefore the cost of the drug testing program for AERC will need to increase..." Since we'd be defining the acceptable limits of different drugs, I imagine the limit would be what could be challenged in court if a horse tested barely over the acceptable limit for a particular drug. To me, this "no pharmacological effect" rule is a way to protect against "false positives." Per the article: "laboratories have gotten better, and will continue to get better, at detecting levels of drugs long after their pharmacological effect has been lost." I agree with this. However, I have looked at the published drug test results and I do not see a problem with false positives. According to the AERC web site (http://www.aerc.org/Drug_Tests_Results.asp ), 284 horses have been drug tested in 80 rides between July 2002 and October 2005. Of those, 283 resulted in a negative test result. The other test result is not listed as positive or negative (LBL Express 2003). These numbers do not indicate a problem with false positive drug tests. Might there be a problem in the future? Maybe. But I don't see a problem now or even an imminent problem with false drug tests. Definitely not enough to justify an additional $80k-$100k annually to support it. I will send my views to the vet committee under separate email. April Nashville, TN www.tracetribute.com PS. In 2004, we had 22,831 starts. On 2/5/06, rides2far@xxxxxxxx < rides2far@xxxxxxxx> wrote: > Note to Ridecamp: > I have typed in the addresses to all veterinary committee members in the > cc box. If you reply to this message, it will go to all vet committee > members. > > > Feedback is desired about raising the drug test fee to $5.00 > > How many "entries" were there in AERC rides last year? Multiply that by > $5. Is this problem this big...compared to loss of trails, etc. etc. > etc.? Are we going to put as much money towards drug testing as > everything else combined? (usual per rider fee) I looked at the 2003 > yearbook. (can't find a newer one). We had 20,860 starters.
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