Gary Wadler, a New York-based internist with special expertise in the field of drug use in sports, is the chairman of the World Anti-Doping Agency's (WADA) Prohibited List and Methods Subcommittee.
FanHouse asked Wadler to address some of the issues raised during the recent demise of a potential megabout between WBO welterweight (147 pounds) king and seven-division titlist, Manny Pacquiao (50-3-2, 38 knockouts), and five-time champion, Floyd Mayweather (40-0, 25 KOs).
Mayweather-Pacquiao was slated for March 13 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, but the negotiations reached an impasse over random blood-testing.
The Mayweather (pictured above, right) camp wanted testing throughout the fighters' training leading up to the fight as well as after; Pacquiao wanted to be tested no closer than 14 days of the bout and after, which the Mayweather camp said it later agreed to.
Still, the talks fell apart.
In many ways, Wadler echoed the sentiments from a Jan. 9 FanHouse interview with Travis Tygart, chief executive of the United States Anti-Doping Agency whose organization initially was brought in to oversee the Olympic-style, random blood-testing that was at the center of the Mayweather-Pacquiao controversy.
Never before has random blood-testing been used in boxing, which uses only urinalysis to detect the use of steroids and other illegal drugs.
Wadler also address other sports, however, making it clear during this Q&A that his position is that all sports -- professional and amateur -- should employ random blood-testing along with urinalysis.
FanHouse: How could boxing be helped by blood-testing?
Gary Wadler: I don't think there is any sport that is inherently immune from doping. The issue is not so much the sport of boxing as the doping. People in agencies who are not particularly enamored of aggressive anti-doping efforts are throwing in roadblocks, and one of the roadblocks that has been thrown in over the past has been the issue of taking blood.
That's not a new complaint. Some 20 years ago, there were people who felt that giving blood was a dangerous thing in terms of getting an infectious diseases. But of course, they had it backward. You have to get blood not take blood to get an infectious disease.
There have always been groups out there who have resisted blood-testing. But I must say that in the last number of years, that has sort of faded into the background. But this Pacquiao-Mayweather thing is the first resurfacing of it that I'm aware of in a while.
I'm not in the testing end of the business, I'm in the list end of the business, but it [Mayweather-Pacquiao] sort of awakened the argument about blood-testing.
Having said that, when I was testifying before congress, the point I made about Major League Baseball and The National Football League is that they ought to do blood-testing to enable the testing for things like human growth hormones, and, of course, they have resisted.
And to this day, they have resisted for a variety of reasons that are unclear. The argument, apparently, in the Pacquiao case is that it has resulted in the diminished performance if he's deprived of having all of his blood.
My comment is that the amount of blood that needs to be taken is so insignificant as to have no meaning in terms of performance at all. Virtually zero if not absolutely zero I thought that that was something that needed to be said -- that you can't use the argument that if you're taking a tube or two tubes of blood, now you've weakened me so that I can't any longer perform at an optimum level.
I felt that was fallacious reasoning and a disingenuous argument. I think that argument still goes on.
FH: Should boxing and MMA be policed similarly?
Wadler: I think that there should be a standardized list that applies across all sports, and that's how I think that you should view that. One of the problems in boxing of course is that there are all of these different governing bodies, which I can't even begin to name.
And they all come with a different menu. And if if blood-testing is going to work, you can't have all those different menus.
You have to have a standard menu across all sports, and I think that has to be consistent, and everybody has to know what the rules are and what the prohibited substances are, and what the testing requirements are.
The key is standardization so that everybody knows the rules and they all have the same rulebook. You can't have one set of substances banned in this sport, and another in another sport, and another in another sport. There are too many variables that it makes it difficult for the athletes to even know the rules that they're operating under.
FH: Do you see any problems with a fighter or fighters dictating a timetable for being randomly blood-tested before or after a fight?
Wadler: There's not only a question of the drugs, but the mechanisms used to subvert the test itself. You can manipulate any drugs. There are lists of methods and techniques to evade detection, because that's really what you're asking.
You have to understand the issue is not that the EPO itself does not enhance performance by having it in your body. EPO has to result in increased red [blood] cells, and that takes time.
EPO is just a marker of the manipulation. It's 'I'm trying to increase my red [blood] cells using a substance called EPO, or one of the related substances.'
The real issue is 'What's the red [blood] cell count at the time, and what's the time sequence.' If you give somebody EPO, the life of a red cell is 120 days, so we're talking about a long period of time. The bottom line is 'What is the red cell count.'
You want to look at a series of numbers and not just the EPO. So if the red count is going up -- say your red count was normally 45 percent, 45 percent, 43 percent, 44 percent, 46 percent, over a period of weeks and months for years. And then, suddenly, it's 52? That would run a red flag in that circumstance.
So it's not a single test or a single substance -- and red cells are really important in that regard. It's the so-called biological passport. And that's the method into which we're moving more and more.
FH: If a boxing commission or commissioner came to you and asked you what methods to use in order to improve their drug-testing process, what would you tell them?
Wadler: I would tell them to sterilize the system using exactly the testing protocol called for under the World Anti-Doping Code, which is what USADA uses for example.
I would tell them that, within the united states, contract out to USADA, or establish some sort of relationship with USADA using the prohibited list of the USADA, which is the WADA list.
Using the testing protocol, the where-about protocols, and the protocols that are part of USADA and which are enunciated in the world anti-doping code.
I think that they should externalize and contract [the random blood-testing] out to an independent, transparent and accountable entity which has no vested interest in the results, and that's the way that it should be done.
I don't think that it should be a political debate. Anybody who is participating in competitive athletics wants to be
assured of a level playing field.
And to me, part of having a level playing field is to have a first-class, anti-doping program.
Source: boxing.fanhouse.com
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