IOC to Olympic Athletes: We’re Keeping Your Body Fluids for 8 Years
D’oh! Just when you thought you dodged an IOC bullet, the overseer of the Olympic Games announced yesterday that it will further analyze blood and urine samples collected from athletes at this summer’s Beijing games. First on the retroactive testing list is Roche’s long-acting red-cell booster Mircera.* But the IOC also warns that it will store the Beijing samples for 8 years to enable additional analyses when new drug tests become available.
In Beijing, 4770 doping tests were conducted on blood or urine, covering the period from July 27th to August 24th. But only 6 out of approximately 11,000 athletes suffered sanctions as a result of positive tests, an unexpected, low number (Table). Therefore the IOC will retest samples with a recently validated assay for Mircera. The announcement comes on the heels of news this week that 3 more Tour de France racers tested positively for the substance.
|
Disqualified Athlete |
Country |
Sport |
Highest Placement |
Detected Substance |
|
|
1 |
Lyudmila Blonska |
|
Heptathlon |
2nd |
|
|
2 |
Igor Razoronov |
|
Weightlifting |
6th |
|
|
3 |
Fani Halkia |
|
Hurdles |
— |
|
|
4 |
Jong Su Kim |
|
Shooting |
2nd |
|
|
5 |
Isabel Moreno |
|
Cycling |
— |
|
|
6 |
Thi Ngan Thuong Do |
|
Gymnastics |
15th |
|
(IOC decisions regarding 3 other alleged Olympic doping cases, Belarussian hammer throwers Vadim Devyatovskiy and Ivan Tiskhan [testosterone] and Polish kayaker Adam Seroczynski [clenbuterol], are pending.)
* A pegylated version of recombinant erythropoietin.
Image of a freakishly bulked-up Lyudmila Blonska from Wikipedia.
A native East Tennessean, Barbara Martin is a formerly practicing, board-certified neurologist who received her BS (psychology, summa cum laude) and MD from Duke University before completing her postgraduate training (internship, residency, fellowship) at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. She has worked in academia, private practice, medical publishing, drug market research, and continuing medical education (CME). For the last 3 years, she has worked in a freelance capacity as a medical writer, analyst, and consultant. Follow Dr. Barbara Martin on Google + and Twitter.
