Sport
2. Sporting: today just suspected but soon to be a certainty!
Doping in sport remains a current topic.
The urine marker method is being very fundamentally tested in co-operation with the Bundesinstitut für Sportwissenschaft. Dr. Anne-Marie Elbe is reacting here to the known psychological consequences of doping testing on athletes and the negative influence this has on their performance.
Experiences gathered by Dr. Elbe in looking after the psychological health of athletes as well as a series of interviews of doping controllers in July 2006 showed that a large number of female athletes, sufficient to be taken seriously, have major problems with doping testing (Strahler & Elbe, 2007).
The topic is often ignored in the discussion about doping. Clean athletes suffer under a generally perceived suspicion and the checks themselves.
The goal of the study is to sensitise participants in performance sport to this topic. It is also a question of seeing the marker test as a possible measure to minimise the problems met in connection with doping testing and to improve the overall quality of the testing.
Please see and read through a letter below from the National Anti Doping Agency (NADA):
Dear Sirs,
In this letter NADA wishes to inform you about a study on the psychological consequences of doping testing on athletes and their performance and to ask for your support. A series of interviews of doping controllers in July 2006 showed that for a large number of female athletes, sufficient to be taken seriously, there are large time delays during testing for doping. Above all the psychological problems with visual controlling of producing a urine sample can lead to the situation where the female athletes cannot urinate; this can also have a negative effect on their sports performance. The goal of the study by Frau Dr. Elbe from the company Ruma GmbH in co-operation with the Bundesinstitut für Sportwissenschaft (BISp) is to sensitise those responsible for performance sports and to test a marker test in performance sports.
The company Ruma, after ten years of research, has developed a marker with which a urine sample can be assigned to a test subject with one hundred percent accuracy. According to information provided by the company, more than 150,000 analyses demonstrate that manipulation of the sample is no longer possible and that dilutions would be obvious immediately. The urine marker methods was originally developed for analysis of urine from female patients from drug substitution outpatient departments and is approved and licensed by the German authorities. The marker substance is administered orally and 30 minutes later the test subject can pass urine unsupervised. This method could be used as an alternative to visual monitoring by the (female) controllers and could possibly also contribute to improvement of testing for doping for the future.
The study is supported by Ruma GmbH as the distributor of the marker test. The BISp wishes very much to win yourselves and your male and female athletes for this study. The efforts required of the partner are readily comprehensible – the urine marker method will be used in parallel for selected female athletes as part of regular training sessions and/or competition testing.
Please contact NADA (Mr. Matthias Blatt, Department Manager for the Doping Controlling System, matthias.blatt@nada-bonn.de) if you are interested in further information or wish to nominate any female athletes who would be prepared to participate. We are happy to answer any further questions you may have.
Yours truly.
__________________________________________________________________________
We are very happy to have awakened the interest of so many different sports associations and sponsors to participate with selected athletes on the study of the new checking procedure.
Just to begin some further information about the study:
Because of the major problem of athletes being asked to produce a urine sample under observation, our study is to test use of a sport-specific intervention measure, the marker method, during training sessions and/or competition testing. During development of the intervention procedure, diagnosis of the causes played a decisive role, since these can be both of a psychological or a physiological nature but also connected with the existing experience of the female athletes. The centre point is therefore to check whether the urine marker method (the RUMA marker) can represent a suitable intervention measure for the problem.
This urine marker method is based on a test developed for paediatrics. The marker test was originally developed for analysis of urine of female patients from drug substitution outpatient departments. Low molecular polyethylenglycole (about 0.5 g) is administered orally as the marker. 30 minutes later the patient can pass urine unsupervised. Assignment of the urine to the test person is achieved by analysing the marker. There are over 10,000 different combinations possible of the low molecular polyethylenglycoles used as a marker. The marker substances are therefore also identified as a forgery-proof “finger print“. The marker substance itself is harmless and has been licensed for use with humans for many years now. It is not subject in Germany to either the Pharmaceutical Act nor the law governing medical products. Low molecular polyethylenglycoles have been used, for example, as the galenics basis for pharmaceuticals in paediatrics for about 50 years.
The marker method could be used as an alternative to visual monitoring of production of a urine sample by the (female) controller. In this way the performance-hampering and frightening situation for the female athletes can be arranged in a much more pleasant way. This method has already produced very good results in the fields of work medicine, in the judiciary area, for driving license tests and in substance addiction medicine. We are happy to send you literature on request. There have, in the meantime, been 210,000 urine samples analysed from more than 20,000 patients from the work medicine area, etc. as well as from drug substitution outpatient departments. We believe that one can assume that marking of urine in the performance sports field will also be adopted as a meaningful alternative to the previous visual monitoring. In the long-term this will, at the same time, contribute to an improvement in the process and the quality of the doping testing. After the Olympic Games in Athens, this point was criticised by the leading doctor for the German Olympic team, since manipulation of urine samples using urine from other sources was still a subject for discussion (Kindermann, Engelhardt & Eder, 2005).
It is planned to try out the urine marker method on about 70-100 female athletes. This be used for training sessions and/or competition testing. It is, however, necessary at first to train the (female) controllers in use of the new procedure as well to develop a reporting system for performing the tests in co-operation with the National Anti Doping Agency (NADA) and RUMA GmbH.
This reporting system will be made available to NADA and Ruma GmbH in the 29th calendar week.
Until then may we wish you wonderful summer days.
