Last Call for Performance Enhancers: Richard Pound's Take
Last Call for Performance Enhancers: Richard Pound's Take
Editor's Note
Richard Pound was one of the founders of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). He served as president for 3 terms until December 31, 2007. He remains a member of the governing Foundation Board, representing the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Currently, he is Chancellor of McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and also works a tax lawyer and chartered accountant in Montreal.
Mr. Pound is best known for his long and energetic fight against drug cheats in sports. He was a swimmer and won a gold, 2 silvers, and a bronze medal for Canada at the 1962 Commonwealth Games in Australia, and he was a double finalist at the 1960 Olympics in Rome.
Mr. Pound is author of the book Inside the Olympics: A Behind-the-Scene Look at the Politics, the Scandals, and the Glory of the Games. Pippa Wysong of Medscape sat down with Mr. Pound to get his take on the recent Major League Baseball steroids controversy and other key issues swirling around the shadow landscape of performance-enhancing drugs in sports.
Medscape: It was announced recently that your term as president of WADA was up. Can you tell Medscape readers just how long you were there?
Mr. Pound: I was there right from the very beginning, when there was the first suggestion of the development of an independent international agency in August 1998. I stayed in various capacities until December 31, 2007. I spent 3 terms as president of WADA.
Medscape: Now that your term, or I guess I should say your terms with WADA are up, can you look back and describe what you feel you and WADA accomplished during your time there?
Mr. Pound: When we started, there was nothing to deal effectively with doping in international sports. No one trusted the IOC, no one trusted cycling and the other sports to police their own sports. No one trusted countries to deal with their own athletes, which was why an independent international agency was required.
So, we, meaning some people from the IOC and I, did a variety of things to address this lack of trust, and to get a trustworthy system into place to really get at what was going on. And, of course, to do testing. We got an agency (WADA) established and up and running. We managed to get it financed by the sports movement and governments on a 50-50 basis. We developed and adopted a single set of rules (the World Anti-Doping Code) for all athletes, all sports, and all countries. Over time, those rules were adopted by the entire Olympic movement -- and others too. We even helped with the negotiations for an international convention signed by 191 countries in what I think was world record time -- that's a lot of cooperation by a lot of different people and organizations. It was quite satisfying to get that far. While I was at WADA, we also agreed upon a single dispute resolution process (Compliance Assessment Survey) to deal with all final dispositions of doping cases. We also worked hard to increase public awareness of the problem of doping.
Medscape: I guess part of that raising of awareness about doping in sports and the dangers of doping was the fact you were quoted in the media a lot. You've been quite a high-profile figure.
Mr. Pound: There was outreach via the media, and I did do a lot of interviews. While at WADA we also established a secure base of research funding and developed new tests, something you and I talked about in detail in a previous interview. We also worked a lot to get increased cooperation from governments, which was a big success for us.
Medscape: That's quite an impressive list of accomplishments. Surely everything didn't go smoothly. Could you highlight some of the areas that didn't work out as well? Failures?
Mr. Pound: Undoubtedly there are some areas that still need to be worked on. One of the big failures is the stonewalling on antidoping issues and testing being done by professional leagues -- baseball, hockey, and so on. Many IFs (international federations) are still not doing enough. While we've been successful in the past in getting funding to start up and keep basic programs running, WADA still needs to get significant increases in funding to improve the fight. There are several areas that could use more resources, such as research for developing new and improved tests, funding to improve testing programs, and more intensive efforts to prevent doping in the first place.
Medscape: How did you like working for WADA? Did you have a lot of freedom to do what needed to be done? Were your goals and WADA's goals the same? Could you tell Medscape readers what the biggest challenges were?
Mr. Pound: I enjoyed my experience at WADA very much, though it was hugely time-consuming for a voluntary position. I guess I have a certain passion about these issues that keeps me motivated. I had very little trouble in getting the things done that needed to be done, since I was, in effect, the CEO and was driving the agenda. The goals of the WADA stakeholders and my personal goals were pretty much the same. As for challenges, well, the biggest one always has been to develop genuine buy-in within the sports movement.
Medscape: You've been so much a part of WADA for such a long time -- your name is almost synonymous with the agency. Will you continue to be involved with them at some level? If so, doing what?
Mr. Pound: I will remain as a member of the governing Foundation Board, representing the IOC.
Medscape: A topic that's in the minds of a lot Americans these days is baseball, especially after the release of the Mitchell Report. Do you have general impressions or criticisms? Is it accomplishing what it needs to?
Mr. Pound: Well, there were some unfortunate limitations. Major League Baseball (MLB) tried to tie Mitchell's hands with a narrow mandate by limiting the report to steroids only, with a focus on BALCO Steroids aren't the only drug being used in sports. That aside, a good and important aspect of the report is the conclusion that testing must be 24-7, 365 days a year, be independently administered, and be reported upon publicly. The Major League Baseball Players Association was outrageous in its refusal to cooperate in the course of the Mitchell investigation.
Medscape: Didn't WADA offer the MLB some sort of help with testing? What sort of help, and happened with that?
Mr. Pound: At WADA we did offer to help with development of a meaningful antidoping policy, including effective testing, but they declined. We have had some minor contacts, but aside from using a WADA-accredited laboratory in Montreal (where the results are kept outside the United States), there has been no substantive progress.
Medscape: A big issue in baseball these days is steroids and human growth hormone (HGH). A couple of big-name players such as Andy Pettitte of the New York Yankees have said they used HGH alone and not any steroids. How likely is this?
Mr. Pound: I have not seen the data, but generally these things tend to be used in combinations and not just on a one-time basis.
Medscape: What are the best tests for steroids and/or HGH? How accurate are they?
Mr. Pound: Right now the best test for steroids is urine-based gas mass spectrometry. It's a very accurate test. The HGH test is newer, but the test is very accurate also; however, the HGH test does not go back far enough to detect usage, say, 2 or 3 months before the test.
Medscape: There was a new study saying a genetic trait can lead to false positives and false negatives in people being tested for steroids. Could something like this lead to trouble in baseball, sports in general, and potentially put a damper on testing?
Mr. Pound: I'm not familiar with this study, and can't really evaluate it because I'm not a scientist. That said, no one has ever said tests were 100% on everybody; nothing ever is. I doubt something like this would cause much of a stir.
Medscape: The Olympics are coming up. Are there any new performance-enhancing drugs that are going to be a problem testing for? What's on the horizon for testing?
Mr. Pound: There often seems to be something in the works. But that's why we are always updating the banned substance list and doing work to both improve existing tests and develop new tests.
Medscape: Do you have any other comments on these areas for Medscape readers? How about a glimpse at the future?
Mr. Pound: Genetic doping may eventually be on the horizon, though it's been on the WADA banned list since 2005. Gene doping would be the manipulation of genes and cells to improve muscle strength, increase endurance, that sort of thing. It's all still pretty experimental right now. But studying ways to understand and detect gene doping is one of WADA's priority research programs right now. So, along with the development and evolution of the entire field of gene doping, work is being done in parallel to find ways to test for and detect it. WADA will be right there on top of all of these developments.
Medscape: That's certainly looking ahead. Thanks very much for your time.
Editor's Note
Richard Pound was one of the founders of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). He served as president for 3 terms until December 31, 2007. He remains a member of the governing Foundation Board, representing the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Currently, he is Chancellor of McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and also works a tax lawyer and chartered accountant in Montreal.
Mr. Pound is best known for his long and energetic fight against drug cheats in sports. He was a swimmer and won a gold, 2 silvers, and a bronze medal for Canada at the 1962 Commonwealth Games in Australia, and he was a double finalist at the 1960 Olympics in Rome.
Mr. Pound is author of the book Inside the Olympics: A Behind-the-Scene Look at the Politics, the Scandals, and the Glory of the Games. Pippa Wysong of Medscape sat down with Mr. Pound to get his take on the recent Major League Baseball steroids controversy and other key issues swirling around the shadow landscape of performance-enhancing drugs in sports.
Medscape: It was announced recently that your term as president of WADA was up. Can you tell Medscape readers just how long you were there?
Mr. Pound: I was there right from the very beginning, when there was the first suggestion of the development of an independent international agency in August 1998. I stayed in various capacities until December 31, 2007. I spent 3 terms as president of WADA.
Medscape: Now that your term, or I guess I should say your terms with WADA are up, can you look back and describe what you feel you and WADA accomplished during your time there?
Mr. Pound: When we started, there was nothing to deal effectively with doping in international sports. No one trusted the IOC, no one trusted cycling and the other sports to police their own sports. No one trusted countries to deal with their own athletes, which was why an independent international agency was required.
So, we, meaning some people from the IOC and I, did a variety of things to address this lack of trust, and to get a trustworthy system into place to really get at what was going on. And, of course, to do testing. We got an agency (WADA) established and up and running. We managed to get it financed by the sports movement and governments on a 50-50 basis. We developed and adopted a single set of rules (the World Anti-Doping Code) for all athletes, all sports, and all countries. Over time, those rules were adopted by the entire Olympic movement -- and others too. We even helped with the negotiations for an international convention signed by 191 countries in what I think was world record time -- that's a lot of cooperation by a lot of different people and organizations. It was quite satisfying to get that far. While I was at WADA, we also agreed upon a single dispute resolution process (Compliance Assessment Survey) to deal with all final dispositions of doping cases. We also worked hard to increase public awareness of the problem of doping.
Medscape: I guess part of that raising of awareness about doping in sports and the dangers of doping was the fact you were quoted in the media a lot. You've been quite a high-profile figure.
Mr. Pound: There was outreach via the media, and I did do a lot of interviews. While at WADA we also established a secure base of research funding and developed new tests, something you and I talked about in detail in a previous interview. We also worked a lot to get increased cooperation from governments, which was a big success for us.
Medscape: That's quite an impressive list of accomplishments. Surely everything didn't go smoothly. Could you highlight some of the areas that didn't work out as well? Failures?
Mr. Pound: Undoubtedly there are some areas that still need to be worked on. One of the big failures is the stonewalling on antidoping issues and testing being done by professional leagues -- baseball, hockey, and so on. Many IFs (international federations) are still not doing enough. While we've been successful in the past in getting funding to start up and keep basic programs running, WADA still needs to get significant increases in funding to improve the fight. There are several areas that could use more resources, such as research for developing new and improved tests, funding to improve testing programs, and more intensive efforts to prevent doping in the first place.
Medscape: How did you like working for WADA? Did you have a lot of freedom to do what needed to be done? Were your goals and WADA's goals the same? Could you tell Medscape readers what the biggest challenges were?
Mr. Pound: I enjoyed my experience at WADA very much, though it was hugely time-consuming for a voluntary position. I guess I have a certain passion about these issues that keeps me motivated. I had very little trouble in getting the things done that needed to be done, since I was, in effect, the CEO and was driving the agenda. The goals of the WADA stakeholders and my personal goals were pretty much the same. As for challenges, well, the biggest one always has been to develop genuine buy-in within the sports movement.
Medscape: You've been so much a part of WADA for such a long time -- your name is almost synonymous with the agency. Will you continue to be involved with them at some level? If so, doing what?
Mr. Pound: I will remain as a member of the governing Foundation Board, representing the IOC.
Medscape: A topic that's in the minds of a lot Americans these days is baseball, especially after the release of the Mitchell Report. Do you have general impressions or criticisms? Is it accomplishing what it needs to?
Mr. Pound: Well, there were some unfortunate limitations. Major League Baseball (MLB) tried to tie Mitchell's hands with a narrow mandate by limiting the report to steroids only, with a focus on BALCO Steroids aren't the only drug being used in sports. That aside, a good and important aspect of the report is the conclusion that testing must be 24-7, 365 days a year, be independently administered, and be reported upon publicly. The Major League Baseball Players Association was outrageous in its refusal to cooperate in the course of the Mitchell investigation.
Medscape: Didn't WADA offer the MLB some sort of help with testing? What sort of help, and happened with that?
Mr. Pound: At WADA we did offer to help with development of a meaningful antidoping policy, including effective testing, but they declined. We have had some minor contacts, but aside from using a WADA-accredited laboratory in Montreal (where the results are kept outside the United States), there has been no substantive progress.
Medscape: A big issue in baseball these days is steroids and human growth hormone (HGH). A couple of big-name players such as Andy Pettitte of the New York Yankees have said they used HGH alone and not any steroids. How likely is this?
Mr. Pound: I have not seen the data, but generally these things tend to be used in combinations and not just on a one-time basis.
Medscape: What are the best tests for steroids and/or HGH? How accurate are they?
Mr. Pound: Right now the best test for steroids is urine-based gas mass spectrometry. It's a very accurate test. The HGH test is newer, but the test is very accurate also; however, the HGH test does not go back far enough to detect usage, say, 2 or 3 months before the test.
Medscape: There was a new study saying a genetic trait can lead to false positives and false negatives in people being tested for steroids. Could something like this lead to trouble in baseball, sports in general, and potentially put a damper on testing?
Mr. Pound: I'm not familiar with this study, and can't really evaluate it because I'm not a scientist. That said, no one has ever said tests were 100% on everybody; nothing ever is. I doubt something like this would cause much of a stir.
Medscape: The Olympics are coming up. Are there any new performance-enhancing drugs that are going to be a problem testing for? What's on the horizon for testing?
Mr. Pound: There often seems to be something in the works. But that's why we are always updating the banned substance list and doing work to both improve existing tests and develop new tests.
Medscape: Do you have any other comments on these areas for Medscape readers? How about a glimpse at the future?
Mr. Pound: Genetic doping may eventually be on the horizon, though it's been on the WADA banned list since 2005. Gene doping would be the manipulation of genes and cells to improve muscle strength, increase endurance, that sort of thing. It's all still pretty experimental right now. But studying ways to understand and detect gene doping is one of WADA's priority research programs right now. So, along with the development and evolution of the entire field of gene doping, work is being done in parallel to find ways to test for and detect it. WADA will be right there on top of all of these developments.
Medscape: That's certainly looking ahead. Thanks very much for your time.
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