WADA Suppresses Steroid Study That Makes It Look Bad

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) funded a research study in 2011 that sought to investigate the pervasiveness of performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) in athletics. WADA wanted to know how many athletes were really using anabolic steroids. It knew that its anti-doping protocols were not catching all the steroid users. But it was entirely unprepared to learn how poorly it was doing.

According to the results of WADA's "gold standard" anti-doping testing results, only 1-2 percent of athletes were using steroids and PEDs. 

But the research study showed something entirely different. The study involved an anonymous randomized-response survey administered to over 2,000 track and field athletes competing at the 2011 World Track and Field Championships in Daegu, South Korea, and the 2011 Pan-Arab Games in Doha, Qatar.

The participants were asked, “Have you knowingly violated anti-doping regulations by using a prohibited substance or method in the past 12 months?"

Statistical analysis concluded that approximately 29 percent and 45 percent of athletes at the 2011 World Championships and 2011 Pan-Arab Games used steroids (or another performance-enhancing drug or method prohibited by the WADA code).

But when WADA received the final draft of the research study results in the spring of 2011, it prevented the researchers from publishing the results. Since WADA funded the research and required that the researchers sign nondisclosure agreements, it had control over whether the results could be submitted for publication.

The researchers felt confident in the research they conducted and their analysis of the data. They persisted in getting WADA to allow them to submit it for publication. In early 2013, WADA relented and gave the green light for publication.

The researchers submitted the draft to the prestigious journal Science but it was rejected for publication. It is not uncommon for research submissions to be rejected by Science. Most submissions are rejected before they are accepted by other less prestigious journals. But before the researchers could submit the study to other journals, WADA abruptly changed its mind.

The explicit reason given by WADA for suppressing the results was the need for time to allow the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) to review the findings. However, it would not be a surprise to imagine that WADA was embarrassed by the widespread use of steroids in sports and its impotence to stop it.

The researchers were so frustrated by WADA's suppression of the results that three members of the team shared the data with the New York Times. The Times contacted the WADA and the IAAF for an explanation for why these research results were being buried.

Nick Davies, a spokesman for the IAAF, responded to the Times inquiry by email. Davies said the study was not suitable for publication since it was incomplete. He dismissed the results as incomplete and suggested that the nature of the "social science protocol" was not real science. It was only a "kind of vox pop of athletes' opinions."

WADA stood behind IAAF's position.

John Hoberman, a doping expert at the University of Texas, suggested that the study results were "dangerous for WADA" becuase it showed that steroid use was apparently normal and routine among athletes.

“Either the sport is recruiting huge numbers of deviants,” Hoberman said, “or this is simply routine behavior being engaged in by, more or less, normal people.”

He added, “That’s dangerous for WADA, because that’s a character issue.”

Don Catlin, one of the most well-known anti-doping researchers, questioned whether WADA had the resources to stop steroid using in sports. 

“Those are profound numbers,” Catlin said. “It’s disturbing. I’m not surprised, though.”

WADA is essentially powerless to stop doping. This has become increasingly clear with each and every new steroid scandal that emerges. Even the scientific research tends to confirm it. But WADA understandably doesn't want people to know it. 

Source:

Rohan, T. (August 22, 2013). Antidoping Agency Delays Publication of Research. Retrieved from //www.nytimes.com/2013/08/23/sports/research-finds-wide-doping-study-withheld.html