Examination of Witnesses (Questions 160-179)
PROFESSOR IAN
MCGRATH,
MR JOHN
BREWER, DR
BRUCE HAMILTON
AND DR
ANNA CASEY
25 OCTOBER 2006
Q160 Chairman: While performance
has got worse. We had world-class athletes like Seb Coe and Steve
Ovett before you all started.
Mr Brewer: I suspect that people
like James Cracknell, Matthew Pinsent and Sir Steve Redgrave would
argue that. Maybe it has moved from one sport to another and let
us hope that Bruce and his colleagues at UKA will soon be reaping
the rewards of more medals in Beijing and 2012. I am sure they
will.
Professor McGrath: Scientists
love doing inter-disciplinary research; it is terrifically interesting
and it is great fun to do. The only reason they do not do more
of it is that they tend to be in the straightjackets of their
career. However, it is very easy to get them together by having
a workshop that has money available for research at the end of
it.
Q161 Margaret Moran: Does UK Sport
consult industry or academia on substances on the WADA banned
list? If they do not, should they? Would you welcome more consultation?
Mr Brewer: If I could answer that
question, the answer is yes. I have sat on the UK Sports Supplement
Review Panel working closely with colleagues at UK Sport on particularly
the monitoring and the measurement of banned substances in products.
As I mentioned earlier in this meeting we work closely with UK
Sport and with HFL (one of the two WADA accredited laboratories
in this country) to have all of our product range tested for contaminate
substances. One major concern that we have at the moment is that
there is a suggestion that WADA may remove their accreditation
from their laboratories that test manufacturers' supplements some
time in 2007. We believe that is a very backward step for WADA
to be taking because we do feel that having their quality assurance
of the laboratories that we work with to have supplements tested
is absolutely fundamental. If WADA do withdraw that accreditation
then we certainly think it is a very backward step for WADA to
be taking.
Q162 Margaret Moran: Why are they
closing?
Mr Brewer: We are not entirely
sure of the reason why. We think it may be due to liability issues
in that if they are accrediting a laboratory that inadvertently
allows a substance to be put onto the market that has a banned
substance in it then WADA could be liable. We, as a business,
have already put our heads above the parapet working with a number
of elite sports bodies including the ATP (Association of Tennis
Professionals) where we are saying that we take liability. We
are confident enough in our systems and in our measurement processes
with HFL to know that we can provide products that are free of
banned substances and have been tested for banned substances.
If WADA withdraw their accreditation from their laboratories and
prevent them, in effect, from testing manufacturers' supplements
then again I think that is not necessarily detrimental to us as
a business but it is detrimental to sport. If athletes have the
ability to have a kite mark for quality assurance taken away from
them, then I think that is something of major concern to us as
a business and should be of major concern to sport in general.
Dr Hamilton: UK Sport has consulted
widely with national governing bodies, sports physicians and the
English Institute of Sport that I am associated with as well.
The limiting factor there is the feedback that they get from the
national governing bodies because there is a limited number of
sports physicians working at that level, so the amount of feedback
and the amount of time people can provide to give that feedback
is quite limited. We try our best but there is a limited number
of sports physicians working professionally in this area.
Chairman: It is quite a depressing picture
that you are painting this morning if I am honest. The Ministry
of Defence has all the money and is trying to share it, but I
make the point seriously that we are searching in this area to
say that by 2012 when the Olympics are in the UK we want it to
be noted in terms of its sporting excellence and not, in fact,
for the other stories which come about (use of drugs and enhancements
and the rest of it). We were trying this morning to really look
at where is the research base and that seems to be very patchy;
where are the specialists, that seems to be very patchy; where
is the money coming into it, again that seems to be very patchy;
this latest set of questions in terms of sports physicians, again
you are right at the leading edge saying there are not sufficient
people. I do not know about the rest of the Committee but I find
it quite depressing really, but I will get over it as we move
to Adam who is an eternal optimist.
Q163 Adam Afriyie: Professor McGrath
has said that genetic manipulation may be a red herring, but there
are many illegal human enhancement technologies that may pose
a threat at 2012: designer drugs, stimulants to the central nervous
system, blood doping, hormones. Which particular illegal human
enhancement technologies do you think pose the greatest threat
to 2012, given the state of research as it is at the moment?
Professor McGrath: Threat to Britain
not winning any medals or threat to health?
Q164 Adam Afriyie: Threat of the
use of substances which one would consider to be unacceptable.
Professor McGrath: I would go
for substances that affect the central nervous system, which in
effect overrides the body's safety mechanisms. I think that is
the way people will die. The body has very well built-in systems
that limit performance and if you can override them a little bit
there is usually enough extra capacity in the heart and lung muscles
et cetera to give you that advantage if you override the safety
mechanisms. I would pin-point that as the most dangerous. Also,
if you start interfering in the healing process in an ill-informed
way you could cause a lot of long term problems.
Q165 Adam Afriyie: Dr Hamilton, would
you agree that the central nervous system stimulants pose the
greatest threat or do you have a different view?
Dr Hamilton: I agree with that
from a health perspective, I think that is one of the major risks
we face. In terms of performance enhancement illegitimately there
have been a lot of developments in the designer anabolic agents
that we are still playing catch-up on, of which the THG is one.
For an endurance sport the EPO I think will continue to be a problem
through 2012.
Q166 Adam Afriyie: In your experience,
Dr Hamilton, how common is human enhancement technology use at
present? Is it widespread?
Dr Hamilton: Human enhancement
technology is widespread; we use it all the time (legitimate human
enhancement technology, that is). As for illegitimate human enhancement
technology I can only suppose that it is widespread. Every time
we see a performance that we think does not quite fit that is
the first thing people are thinking of these days, which is tragic
for sport. I cannot give you a definitive answer to that question.
Q167 Adam Afriyie: You suspect but
you do not have evidence that illegal use is that widespread.
Dr Hamilton: If you look at the
positive tests as an appropriate measure of utilisation then the
positive test rate is very low and so we would assume that 99.9%
of athletes are not using illegitimate performance enhancing drugs
but that is a poor outcome measure.
Q168 Mr Newmark: You say that but
I can tell by your body language that clearly there is a lot of
abuse going on and that somehow people are getting around the
system. I am curious, how are they getting around the system?
Is it through use of other drugs or are the drugs they are using
so smart that they are always one step ahead of the testing regime?
Dr Hamilton: We suspect that it
is a combination. We suspect that there are new drugs being used
out there that are beyond the scope of the testing because we
do not know what we are looking for.
Q169 Adam Afriyie: Who is making
these drugs if there is so little research in the area?
Dr Hamilton: Until THG was found
Balco Laboratories were producing the stuff, so until we knew
what to look for no-one knew to go to the laboratory and look
for it. We continue to suspect that that goes on in other places
although I have to say that one of the great things that WADA
did was to highlight the plight of the practitioner involved in
drug practices and the number of people who have been prosecuted
in the States now around the Balco episode will make people more
nervous to be involved in the development of those types of drugs.
Q170 Adam Afriyie: In your experience
how often is it that an athlete will place pressure on their medic
to assist them with doping or performance enhancement substances
that are close to the line, if not across the line?
Dr Hamilton: In my experience
I have never had an athlete ask me for something that was illegitimate.
Athletes are constantly pressuring you to do legal means of enhancement.
Q171 Adam Afriyie: Yes, and understandably
with the competition. When athletes are caught they often say
they did not know they had taken the substance. There is a view
that some athletes are unintentionally taking banned substances
because they are contained in vitamin supplements and other supplements
that they may take. Do you think that over the last five, 10,
15 years when regulations around labelling have improved, that
the situation of inadvertently taking banned substances has decreased
or is less than it would have otherwise been?
Mr Brewer: If you look at the
plethora of products that are available for athletes—you
only have to go onto the Internet to see how many sports nutrition
supplements are available—it is always going to be very
difficult and very confusing for the athletes to know what works
and also what is free of banned substances. That is why I would
make the plea that we should have a recognised kite mark, a recognised
standard of labelling.
Q172 Adam Afriyie: WADA accredit
laboratories, do they not?
Mr Brewer: Yes, and the point
I made earlier is that WADA accredit the laboratories which conduct
two areas of analysis. One is the urine analysis of the athlete
and the second is the area that we have moved into over the last
five years which is the testing of our products prior to releasing
them for sports people and, indeed, for the mass market. The issue
that we have, as I mentioned earlier, is that WADA are looking
to say to those laboratories that if they want to remain WADA
accredited they can no longer test manufacturer's substances.
That, for us, is a really big negative step. What we would rather
do is work with WADA or work with colleagues at UK Sport to have
a recognised kite mark that has a standard of manufacture, a standard
of distribution and a standard of testing that enables a kite
mark, a tick mark or whatever that would be, to be put on products
that gives athletes across a range of sports the security in knowing
that those products have been tested for all of the substances
listed on the WADA banned list.
Q173 Adam Afriyie: Dr Hamilton, do
you think that if that were done world-wide there would be no
excuse whatsoever for an athlete saying he did not realise he
had taken an illegal substance?
Dr Hamilton: Yes, I think it is
important to clarify the difference between accidentally taking
something that has a contaminate in it and accidentally taking
something like ephedrine which you might have bought for a cold
because people will still accidentally take something. We do not
pay athletes for being smart or anything like that; we pay them
for being athletes. We can all make those mistakes and so athletes
will make those mistakes. Strict liability applies so that is
the way it is.
Q174 Mr Newmark: You say that but
at the end of the day an athlete knows that anything other than
meat or vegetables that he is putting in his mouth, anything that
looks, smells or tastes like a supplement—a pill, something
for a headache—will have an impact on any urine or blood
test. I still do not understand; do they not ask before they put
any tablet in their mouth, if it is going to have an impact because
there is a competition the following week. You say they are not
that smart, but they are. They know that if they put a tablet
in their mouth that is going to have an impact on a test.
Dr Hamilton: I did not say they
are not that smart; I said that we do not pay them for being smart
(many of them are very smart). It does not happen very often,
but every now and then, under the pressure of a given situation—and
every situation is different—I am sure that people do inadvertently
take something that they should not take. As an example, many
athletes will not take pseudoephedrine and yet pseudoephedrine
is not on the banned list. They do not know that; they have not
caught up with that and yet we are three years down the line.
They are almost overly-protective.
Q175 Mr Newmark: Why can there not
be a mechanism whereby if an athlete has a cold they inform the
dope testing people they are going to take a particular legal
substance.
Dr Hamilton: There is such a process.
Professor McGrath: A point has
been troubling me in this area recently which is that the ignorance
of the pharmacology here is fantastic right throughout the whole
world. What is fascinating is how do these people develop these
designer drugs? Drugs companies spend hundreds of millions of
pounds developing drugs, what is the actual process by which these
people get these compounds and how do they test them to know which
ones work because they must be making dozens of compounds? There
just is no academic literature out there which describes all this
and I think it would be much better if there was more information
in the public domain through which you could educate both the
coaches and the athletes so that you know what these things are,
how they have been developed and how dangerous they are. These
people are very clever; they make up these compounds and they
work but we know absolutely nothing about the toxicity of these
compounds. I think that is another area where there should be
some effort put in.
Dr Casey: I do think that one
of the major threats to 2012 is potential contamination of food
supplements which are taken in good faith and that is why I entirely
support what Mr Brewer was saying in that there has to be, between
now and 2012, more effort put into making available certified,
contaminant free food supplements. I think it is entirely naive
to take the view—which used to be the view of UK Sport—that
we tell athletes not to take anything. I think it is an entirely
naive position. It has been shown not to work. We have to accept
that they will take supplements; we have to accept that some supplements
are worth taking. Some supplements are legal, they are worth taking
and they will aid training, they will aid recovery and we have
to accept that that is the case. What we need to do, I believe,
is to put far more effort in and this is something that could
be done between now and 2012. I agree with Professor McGrath that
there is probably little we can do about the basic research base
in the next six years—I believe it probably is too late
for that, the pull through is a much longer time than that—but
I think what can be done between now and the Olympics is to put
much more effort into making available certified, contaminant
free supplements to athletes. I think that would avoid a lot of
the bad publicity that we have had in the past.
Q176 Adam Afriyie: Would there be
unanimity of view on that level, that the accreditation, the proper
labelling of supplements so that athletes know they can take them
not with rash abandon but knowing that they will not be taking,
unless through contamination, an illegal substance? Does everybody
agree with that?
Dr Casey: I think it is less an
issue of labelling. These substances are not subject to any controls;
there is no requirement for research to do be done on these things.
As long as they are not drug claims they can make essentially
what claims they like. It is not a question of labelling; I think
it is a question of doing our best to produce contaminant free
lines of the legal food supplements and other substances that
we know they would like to take. I think that the initiative that
Mr Brewer is talking about is very valuable in that case. That
is something that can be done in the short term, something that
you could do something about.
Q177 Adam Afriyie: John, surely there
must be a commercial incentive to do that and, if there is, why
are commercial organisations not producing contaminate free or
properly labelled supplements and marketing the positive aspects
of their brands?
Mr Brewer: There are manufacturers
that are doing that. The problem is that in order to do that at
the moment there is no regulation; there is no standard to enable
you to put that tick mark on your product. What we are saying
is that we should raise the bar as high as we possibly can and
have a recognised audited process from the production of the raw
material through to the manufacture of the product, the testing
of the product, the distribution of the product that a manufacturer
has to comply to in order to put that tick mark on their product.
There are manufacturers—ourselves included and others I
am sure within this room—who are producing products where
they make contaminate tested claims. That is great and we would
completely and utterly endorse that across the industry. What
we are saying is that we should raise the bar as high as possible
and perhaps consider having a global tick mark, one that is recognisable—a
kite mark, whatever it would be—by sports people, certainly
in the UK if not around the world.
Q178 Chairman: It would be asking
WADA to actually endorse particular products and give a kite mark.
Mr Brewer: Conceivably.
Q179 Chairman: I can see a major
problem with that.
Mr Brewer: Or it could be industry
led. We, as an industry, have already done that.
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