One of the many things that jumped out at me while reading The Scold (Michael Sokolove’s piece in the New York Times Magazine) was Dick Pound’s use of “statistics” to bolster his argument that doping runs rampant through various sports. But does it? Does it really?
Finding the answer is tricky, because, while some important information can be gleaned from WADA’s and USADA’s annual reports. In the case of WADA’s annual report, some important statistics are missing, making it virtually impossible to determine the real extent of the problem.
Mr. Pound likes to say, for instance, that one-third of all NHL players are doping, but when questioned by Sokolove, Pound as much as admitted his “statistic” was a total WAG (wild-arsed guess).
Reader Steve Balow shared his letter to Senator John McCain with me, after I’d urged people who feel strongly about how USADA functions to contact various members of Congress and the Senate. In writing his letter, Balow did some research on the number of tests performed by USADA (which can be found in their annual report), how many resulted in adverse findings and how many ultimately resulted in sanctions. The numbers are quite illuminating:
In 2005, USADA conducted 7,675 tests which resulted in 22 Adverse Analytical Findings (AAF) and 9 sanctions. These numbers tell a clear story:
- AAF’s are rare; only 0.28% of all testing identifies the possibility of doping.
- Sanctions – actual penalty to athletes – are even rarer, occurring in approximately one tenth of 1% (0.1172%) of the test population.
He then observes:
Either USADA can’t catch cheaters or performance enhancing drugs are not a problem in US Olympic athletics.
It would appear that way, wouldn’t it? But what of WADA? They publish a yearly summary of lab statistics. Could we, perhaps, see whether USADA’s “nab rate” is similar to the overall rate around for all countries? Sadly, the answer to this question is no. The missing statistic is the number of B samples that confirm the A sample results.
So while it’s not possible to tell whether or not USADA’s statistics are typical, it might not be too far off base to suspect that the number of B samples that confirm the A samples in other places may be on par. But because the statistics aren’t published, we don’t really know.
Pound’s statements about how many hockey players (or cyclists or baseball players or whatever) dope makes the situation sound pretty bad. Not everyone is doping, of course, but if Dick Pound is even close to correct, then the situation is pretty serious.
On the other hand, even though USADA’s statistics show a nab rate of about .1 percent, I think it’s reasonable to assume that the number of athletes who are doping could be a somewhat higher. If the BALCO story has taught us nothing else, it has shown that there are some shady characters finding new and innovative ways to beat the system.
So somewhere in between Dick Pound’s hyperbole and USADA’s tiny nab rate lies the true percentage of athletes doping. The percentages of adverse analytical findings for A samples by sport, lab, country, etc. probably come close to the upper limit of reality, but the question is how close to they come?
The popular mythology that has grown up around anti-doping testing says that more often than not, the B sample confirms the A sample result. Judging by the lower percentage of sanctions (less than 50%) compared to adverse findings for USADA, it would be easy to conclude that the popular mythology is wrong. What I don’t know (because I haven’t taken a detailed look) is whether the lower number of sanctions was due to USADA finding extenuating circumstances or whether it was because the B samples came back negative. (Either possibility is newsworthy, as the popular conception is that the anti-doping process shows no mercy, on the one hand, and the lab tests are infallible on the other.)
If I were going to guess, I’d say it’s probably a little of both. Still, that means that there are a number of times when B samples exonerate athletes. So, for instance, Marion Jones is not so unique as news reports have made her out to be. It’s just that we haven’t heard about other cases, most likely because the athletes involved were not as well known.
The conception that many athletes are doping is useful, especially when it comes to raising funds to keep the anti-doping agencies running. If USADA’s statistics are correct, politicians might be less willing to fund the ADAs. After all, one way to interpret those statistics is to say there isn’t a large problem to begin with.
Another question this information raises is whether the money being spent is going towards the right efforts. Were it not for Trevor Graham (who “anonymously” sent off a syringe containing “the clear” to tip off the authorities), we might not know the word “BALCO” to be a synonym for “doping lab.” Ironic, isn’t it, given all the trouble Graham has been in of late.
The question is, what if (or how many) people are out there beating the system? There are really only a few ways to find out. One, athletes possessed by a guilty conscience come forward. This only happens on rare occasions. Other than Frankie Andreu and Jesper Skibby, how many cyclists have been brave enough to cop to doping? Two, someone snitches — like Trevor Graham. Or three, by some fluke, testing labs stumble upon a new doping substance or technique.
Perhaps more of the resources devoted to the anti-doping fight should be devoted to test quality enhancement or to developing new detection methods for new substances. Without the complete picture, none of us (including those who fund the ADAs) can determine what the right course of action should be.
If money were a problem, I could understand Pound’s hype a bit better. After all, there’s no such thing as bad publicity — is there? But one other useful tidbit Steve Balow dug up, is this: For the most recent years’ financial results, both USADA and WADA made a tidy profit. Not exorbitant, but tidy.
I’ll leave that story for another time, however. With money not being as burdensome an issue, I think it’s good to re-evaluate how to fund the fight against doping. It may well be that how the money is being spent should be adjusted in favor of new programs and test development.
For that reason, alone, I think that the ADAs owe us an explanation of how the money is being spent. And they should allow the public to offer their input on their spending decisions in the future.
Once we can really shine a light on the extent of the doping problem (not just in this country, but in all countries), then we can help people change their ways, if necessary. There’s a big part of me who has the hunch that the powers that be won’t release that information, for fear that it will show the nature of the doping problem to be much less than they’ve said up to now.
And if that’s the case, they may also be afraid that their sources of funding would dry up deader than the Dead Sea if the public ever knew that the doping problem wasn’t so pervasive or wide-spread.
I would be curious to know how statistics compare country to country. Does the UCLA lab catch more or less doping, because either their tests are more accurate, or they use different tests, etc, than a lab in another country? Depending on what the statistics are, and how they are interpreted, I am wondering if we would be in a situation where Americans might say, “there really isn’t much of a problem here” as opposed to European labs/doping agencies who might say, “look at all the dopers we’ve caught!”
We might be able to make a case against funding USADA on a national level, but how does that work internationally with WADA, if there are different perceptions country to country?
There are more pro cycling races this year in America than ever before. I’m wondering if some cyclists are looking at what happened in 2006 in Europe and saying, no thanks, I’ll just race at home.
Actually the AAF rate quoted in the WADA statistics also covers cases where the athlete has a TUE, so all of those count towards A-sample AAF rate but not towards the enforcement rate. There are clearly a large number of AAFs for TUE cases so that explains sopme of the disparity.