Issue of blood doping usage in American sports

By: Brenda Rangel

With so many stereotypes used to logo sports many other performance

enhancement dugs get over looked and arent tested during competition. This is the case
for blood doping. Blood doping is a common performance enhancement drug that
increases the
oxygen distribution to
muscles in order to
improve and athletes
endurance. The use
of blood doping
consists of a blood
transfusion in order to
enhance red blood
cell counts which
ultimately
increases physical
performance with
minimal means of
detection. Due to
how difficult it is to
detect the use of
blood doping, the rules
and regulation
surrounding the subject
are difficult to
enforce.
Table 1 Testing on Athletes (Press, 2008)

Currently
the NCAA is doing
drug tests at
championship levels
year round. As shown in Table 1 about one quarter of the testing done in 2007 for blood
doping was towards track and field athletes. However, a test comparing athletes between
the years of 1972 and 2012 shows that athletes are still being caught using blood doping
while competing. (Table 2 (Graydon, 2015))
Table 2 (Graydon, 2015)

(Table 2 (Graydon, 2015))

Current Action towards Testing

As stated on the NCAA website of NCAA Doping, Drug Education and Drug
Testing Task Force (ncaa.org) the NCAA transferred the administration of drug testing
programs to The National Center for Drug Free Sport, Inc. (Drug Free Sport) in
1999. Since then, Drug Free Sport has administered drug testing for all NCAA sports,
with year-round (including summer) and championship drug testing. The test that are
being done only detect some types of blood doping. Homologous transfusion are
currently being tested and detected. EPO injections are tested though blood and urine
tests and are also detected. However, EPOs only remain in the body for a short period of
time which makes the window for test brief. Synthetic oxygen carries are being tested
and detected. Autologous transfusions are not being tested currently but indirect methods
of testing are being used. The indirect method of testing is comparing the athletes blood
from testing time to a previously collected sample. A difference in blood samples will
result in a positive test of blood doping known as Athlete Passport. (Karriem-Norwood,
2014)
In hope the current administration in control of testing regulation will change
policy I propose testing for blood doping to be done days before competition, before the
event at competition, and after competition. To evaluate how many individuals felt a
change was needed by the NCAA I conducted a survey. The results are as followed.
When asked if testing of drug use should be monitored before ever competition 4 out of
5 agreed that it should. When this same group of individuals was asked if they feel more
comfortable playing a sport knowing that there were efforts to make the playing fields
even, 3 out of 5 agreeded where as 2 out of 5 were indiffernet. Now, when they were
asked what more could be done all replied with saying that random blood tests on every
athlete should be done while one participant said that a blood cell count should be done a
few days prior to competition and right before competition. (Brenda Rangel, personal
survey, March 2016)
Current regulation for blood doping is in need of a change. Athletes need to
reestablish the integrety of a sport which can be done through persistent action of the
regulation of blood doping of testing athlests blood days before competition, right before
competition and after competition. The playing fields need to be evened and I hope this
change can achieve that.