Legalise EPO says British anti-doping advisor to USA Cycling

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The ethics of doping is a grey area. Why allow caffeine, but not other amphetamines? It actually has a performance enhancing effect, whereas others amphetamines just scramble the pain response.  The answer is more to do with the popular and safe use of caffeine and its ease availability. But the performance gains from caffeine are limited and short-term.

I can understand the debate of legalising the use and control, there are benefits. But for me, his idea is effectively lifting the lid on Pandora's box. To be fair, it is wide open, but that's not a good thing. Making it acceptable just moves the goal posts and does not make it any safer. I also think that it is accepting that professional sports cannot be free of doping.

i know some will think that there are analogies with the argument for legalising heroine etc. But the driver here is the wealth, fame and fortune that 'winners' get. So the addiction is not a matter of self-control over a destructive drug, but avarice, greed and adulation - part of which sports fans are responsible for, and if so, is this really what we want? A question for which there is no single answer. I for one do not want synthetic athletes. 

Usual knee jerk, irrational spouting from those who are obviously world class experts. Why else would you rattle on so.

He does have a point you know.    We already allow all sorts of artifcial aids from inhalers through mior pin killers to antibiotics.  They are all artificial so those who spout about purity need to think carefuly about what they actually say.

Having said that I for one would rather we stopped any help. Modern cycling is so ridiculously synthetic, with all sorts of non natural diets etc that may be it's time to go back to basics. That means no team cars, helmets or radios as they all are artificial aids to performance.

Why not just go the whole hog and chop their legs off and replace with bionic limbs?

Madness. I think he's lost sight of what sport is meant to be.

He may be right, he may wrong

He's wrong. 

When does this all start? Junior level? Age 18?

Surely part of the point of elite sport is that everyone can compare themselves against the best, and aspire to join them. But if it involves drugs and blood transfusions, it takes them away from normal amateur sportspeople.

How is it that we're unable to monitor and control riders under the present system, but it would be easy under Dr Dimeo's system? Would the administration of drugs, and the blood transfusions, take place in a hospital, where the riders would sleep during stage races - to check they're fine, and that nobody is taking more than the permitted dose? Or some kind of dormitory that's under surveillance? Because if not, I don't see how you've solved the problem at all by changing the limits of what's allowed.

Hmm I like to get into team X as their drugs programme is the best and they tend dominate everything. 

“A whole generation of cyclists used a lot of EPO and they have survived to tell the tale."

Academics are supposed to have studied their subject - yet Paul Dimeo makes the statement I've copied above. There is evidence that a large part of a generation of cyclists used EPO, some used a lot of EPO; but the real sad truth is that they did not all survive.

The he goes on to say “If we understood the dosages and the timing of dosages then maybe it would be relatively safe. Would an athlete mind taking a small amount of a drug that has been trialled and medically approved?” - the most important word there is MAYBE, followed by RELATIVELY. This statement is not worthy of the title academic.

Perhaps I'd give more credence to an academic who was prepared to behave and particularly to make satements in an academic manner; not making unfounded, somewhat wild and factually incorrect statements as part of his argument.

On the central issue surely allowing some use of EPO (in spite of the risks it carries) will simply mean that it is OK in sport to use unnatural means to boost one's performance and from that point onwards there is no longer any place in sport for those who want to compete but also wish to respect and look after their bodies.

The problem is that whatever new limits are set for use of anything.....they will be assessed and broken by the rule breakers. Legalise 50mg or whatever of a substance and someone will find a way to do 100mg and get away with it. 

This doctor has been too close to performance sport and too far away from real medicine to recognise the barriers of right and wrong. Just because sport has blurred the lines, because of increasing potential financial gains, it's most important that the medics and those employed to look after athletes and their interests, maintain perspective.

The whole point of sport is to find the peak of natural physical performance of any individual, through training and optimal nutrition. To artificially boost training potential or recovery through artificial means is simply cheating.

Blood products have always been safe. Until hepatitis C, HIV, CGD were discovered. Products are screened for what we know, but what we don't know will always come and get us. Hospitals rarely transfuse unless there's a life threatening need and modern surgical techniques usually invole cell salvage at time of surgery or even saving personal blood pre-op to reduce risk.

I for one don't want drug fuelled sport, that pushes our juniors to yearn their next dose of EPO or blood transfusion. This guy has lost the plot and just like the arguement for legalising heroin etc. the arguement for this stacks up even less. He has no place in sport.

I think he's trying to start a sensible rational debate on the subject. It's just a shame that the response from Outraged of Roadcc is to start shouting and swearing. Kind of makes you out to be the least rational voice out of everyone don't you think?

He may be right, he may wrong - either way it probably needs to be discussed using facts not just shouting that he's a moron.

Nothing like a progressive, rational perspective to rattle cages.

People get mixed up easily with notions of ethics or morality or some other made up nonsense. 

i think one of his points is that it's happening anyway, but without adequate safeguards - why not add the safeguards?

from that view it does make sense I think

I don't generally like to be abusive to people I don't know. And certainly not someone who is obviously well qualified and experienced in his specialist field. But in this case I am going to suggest he is a fucking moron. 

"He is not the first academic to call for performance enhancing drugs to be made legal".  Well, that may indeed be the case, but that doesn't make it right.  He's also not the only academic to be found living in an ivory tower either.  Just because a procedure is carried out successfuly in hospital, doesn't make it safe to undertake elsewhere as a quasi-medical procedure.  Equally, whilst the pro's may have access to a well-controlled programme, the wannabes wouldn't.  How can it possibly be a good thing to revert back to riders getting on the rollers at 2am to shift the sludge around their bodies?

It's not entirely clear to me how much of the genie he is proposing to allow out of the bottle, or how you would ever really know if you'd got a bike race or a pharma arms race.  Just because the foundations of the rules were made some time ago doesn't make them wrong, not least of all because the foundations of human physiology are a lot older than that.