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High Schools Take On Doping With No Consensus on Strategy
[SIZE=-1]New York Times, United States - 4 minutes ago[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Drug testing is expensive, scattered and full of loopholes. Some believe that education is a better preventive measure than testing, but experts question methods frequently used to inform athletes about the health hazards and ethical considerations of doping.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1][...][/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Only three states New Jersey, Texas and Illinois have mandatory drug testing of high school athletes. Florida halted its program this year after losing $100,000 in funding from its state legislature because of budget cuts related to the economic downturn. Because the tests are so expensive they can cost up to $200 or $300 each states generally do not test a large number of athletes or monitor the same range of performance-enhancing drugs as, say, the Olympics. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]The biggest hurdle is the cost, said Bob Gardner, the chief operating officer of the National Federation of State High School Associations.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Illinois and New Jersey, the first state to begin mandatory testing, in 2006, test athletes only when they reach postseason competition. When athletes know they will be tested, antidoping experts say, a screening becomes more of an I.Q. test than a drug test. Even at the high school level, athletes are sophisticated enough to know when to stop taking a cycle of steroids and how to quickly flush the drugs from their system or mask them, experts say. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]New Jersey has reported two positives among 1,000 athletes tested the last two years.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Texas performs random, unannounced testing of athletes, both during the season and out of season. But that system is hardly foolproof, either. Like New Jersey and Illinois, Texas does not test athletes during the summer, when athletes can bulk up illicitly without fear of detection. And its testing system has raised much skepticism. Some 10,000 of Texas 700,000 high school athletes were screened as part of a $3 million program during the 2007-8 school year, but only two positive tests were reported. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]It can be a mistake to conclude that the program is not working because of the paucity of positive results, experts caution. Perhaps the tests served as a deterrent. But more likely, some antidoping researchers believe, there was a flaw in Texas testing protocol, such as testing too few athletes in sports like football, screening for too few drugs or providing too much advance notice for the tests.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]The University Interscholastic League, which governs high school sports in Texas, said there was insufficient data after one year to know whether the program was effective at catching or deterring drug users. Another 30,000 to 40,000 athletes will be tested this school year.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Somethings wrong, said Dr. Gary I. Wadler, a New York University internist and the chairman of the World Anti-Doping Agencys committee on prohibited substances. Two positive tests in Texas, a state where high school football is hugely popular, and where a border is shared with Mexico, from which many steroids enter the United States, seems virtually impossible, Wadler said.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Dr. Linn Goldberg, the head of the division of health promotion and sports medicine at Oregon Health and Science University, was the co-author of a study last year in the Journal of Adolescent Health that showed testing did not deter high school athletes from using performance-enhancing drugs. Teenagers can feel immortal in taking risks and challenging authority, Goldberg said. And so few athletes were tested, he said, they knew the chances of being caught were infinitesimally small.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Instead, Goldberg stresses educational programs that he and associates developed, called Atlas and Athena. But federal funding even for educational programs can be difficult to obtain. For instance, Goldberg said that $15 million had been earmarked for education annually for six years by the 2004 Anabolic Steroid Control Act, yet not one penny has been put forward.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]So Goldberg has partnered with 16 teams in the N.F.L. A two-year, $2.6 million initiative funded by the league will reach 40,000 kids and 1,500 coaches with the Atlas and Athena programs this year, he said. But Goldberg cautioned that some methods frequently used by schools did not work, including the use of pamphlets, adult lectures and scare tactics [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]...[/SIZE]
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[SIZE=-1]New York Times, United States - 4 minutes ago[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Drug testing is expensive, scattered and full of loopholes. Some believe that education is a better preventive measure than testing, but experts question methods frequently used to inform athletes about the health hazards and ethical considerations of doping.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1][...][/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Only three states New Jersey, Texas and Illinois have mandatory drug testing of high school athletes. Florida halted its program this year after losing $100,000 in funding from its state legislature because of budget cuts related to the economic downturn. Because the tests are so expensive they can cost up to $200 or $300 each states generally do not test a large number of athletes or monitor the same range of performance-enhancing drugs as, say, the Olympics. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]The biggest hurdle is the cost, said Bob Gardner, the chief operating officer of the National Federation of State High School Associations.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Illinois and New Jersey, the first state to begin mandatory testing, in 2006, test athletes only when they reach postseason competition. When athletes know they will be tested, antidoping experts say, a screening becomes more of an I.Q. test than a drug test. Even at the high school level, athletes are sophisticated enough to know when to stop taking a cycle of steroids and how to quickly flush the drugs from their system or mask them, experts say. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]New Jersey has reported two positives among 1,000 athletes tested the last two years.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Texas performs random, unannounced testing of athletes, both during the season and out of season. But that system is hardly foolproof, either. Like New Jersey and Illinois, Texas does not test athletes during the summer, when athletes can bulk up illicitly without fear of detection. And its testing system has raised much skepticism. Some 10,000 of Texas 700,000 high school athletes were screened as part of a $3 million program during the 2007-8 school year, but only two positive tests were reported. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]It can be a mistake to conclude that the program is not working because of the paucity of positive results, experts caution. Perhaps the tests served as a deterrent. But more likely, some antidoping researchers believe, there was a flaw in Texas testing protocol, such as testing too few athletes in sports like football, screening for too few drugs or providing too much advance notice for the tests.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]The University Interscholastic League, which governs high school sports in Texas, said there was insufficient data after one year to know whether the program was effective at catching or deterring drug users. Another 30,000 to 40,000 athletes will be tested this school year.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Somethings wrong, said Dr. Gary I. Wadler, a New York University internist and the chairman of the World Anti-Doping Agencys committee on prohibited substances. Two positive tests in Texas, a state where high school football is hugely popular, and where a border is shared with Mexico, from which many steroids enter the United States, seems virtually impossible, Wadler said.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Dr. Linn Goldberg, the head of the division of health promotion and sports medicine at Oregon Health and Science University, was the co-author of a study last year in the Journal of Adolescent Health that showed testing did not deter high school athletes from using performance-enhancing drugs. Teenagers can feel immortal in taking risks and challenging authority, Goldberg said. And so few athletes were tested, he said, they knew the chances of being caught were infinitesimally small.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Instead, Goldberg stresses educational programs that he and associates developed, called Atlas and Athena. But federal funding even for educational programs can be difficult to obtain. For instance, Goldberg said that $15 million had been earmarked for education annually for six years by the 2004 Anabolic Steroid Control Act, yet not one penny has been put forward.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]So Goldberg has partnered with 16 teams in the N.F.L. A two-year, $2.6 million initiative funded by the league will reach 40,000 kids and 1,500 coaches with the Atlas and Athena programs this year, he said. But Goldberg cautioned that some methods frequently used by schools did not work, including the use of pamphlets, adult lectures and scare tactics [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]...[/SIZE]
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