Performance-enhancing drugs don't come in asthma inhalers

Published on Saturday 1 March 2008 18:44

BEFORE Scott MacLeod there was Frankie Sheahan. Two genuine asthmatics and two positive tests for substances found in the inhalers they used to help treat their condition. In MacLeod's case it was Terbutaline, in Sheahan's it was Salbutamol.

In 2003 the Munster hooker was banned for two years, a suspension that was reduced to three months on appeal. And, to be fair, it was one hell of an appeal. Sheahan's people demolished the prosecutor's medical arguments. First, it was established that Sheahan inhaled the substance rather than injected it. A key point. Inhalation showed that Sheahan was merely looking for the therapeutic qualities of the drug. Injection would have damned him for chasing the anabolic benefits.

Next, it was accepted that no amount of Salbutamol, when inhaled, can be deemed performance-enhancing. Half a dozen experts in the field confirmed this. Case studies had already been done. When athletes were given 50 puffs of Salbutamol their performances didn't register even the slightest improvement. One expert pointed out that Sheahan would have needed to give himself 200 puffs of Salbutamol to stand a chance of gaining the merest edge and even then the odds were slim. It was accepted that Sheahan had eight puffs.

Even a doctor for the prosecution advised that Sheahan be cleared and that Salbutamol and other asthmatic medications (Terbutaline among them) be removed from the banned list just so long as it is established that the substances were inhaled and not injected or taken in tablet form.

At the time, the overturning of Sheahan's two-year ban looked like a test case. For people like Dr Conor O'Brien, who introduced the anti-doping programme into Irish sport, it looked like a breakthrough. O'Brien has long since accepted that inhaled asthmatic relievers are not performance-enhancing and should cease to be seen as such. "My concern is that world sport is wasting a lot of money testing for something that is not a problem whereas the time and resources should be used on researching the products that are not only performance-enhancing but are also dangerous to the health of anybody who is foolish enough to take them."

These arguments have been made over and over by many people but the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) refuses to accept them. Their spokesman told me on Thursday that they are not at all convinced and, as such, the MacLeod case is still under review by the International Rugby Board and by WADA.

This is a nonsense. Terbutaline is a milder version of Salbutamol. Its anabolic agent is practically non-existent. Dozens of experts say it is a joke that it is still on a banned list. And yet MacLeod is looking at a minimum of a one-year suspension if he slips up with his paperwork for a second time. Understandably, there was a lot of focus last week on the make-up of the so-called independent judicial committee that dealt with MacLeod's case. The fact that three establishment figures in the Scottish game heard his case did nothing for the transparency of the hearing.

The main issue, though, is whether Terbutaline by inhalation should constitute an offence. It does but it shouldn't.

The hunt for the cheats must continue. And a little more focus from WADA would help.