FIBA: Players don’t know what they’re taking

Drug testing in the Philippines has come to a crossroads. It is obvious that the widely-publicized issue of drug use in the PBA has shown how well we are doing in the fight against drugs–at least in professional basketball–but how far we have yet to go.

True, we have sophisticated equipment, comparable to any in the world, capable of detecting illegal drugs in urine and blood. But our catalogue of substances is still lagging behind the manufacturing mecca of the United States. Athletes have access to a far greater number of supplements, performance enhancers and drugs than are listed under the Bureau of Food and Drugs or BFAD.

But what does FIBA, the world governing body for basketball, have to say about drug use?

On February 10, FIBA warned all national federations of the potential dangers to players taking nutritional supplements. The letter explained that such supplements are largely unregulated, and some contain prohibited substances that could damage a player’s health and worse, could cause him to test positive in a doping control. The national federations were asked to conduct information campaigns to bring these dangers to the notice of players of all ages and levels.

The following is data culled from research conducted by FIBA in connection with the widespread and unregulated use of supplements by basketball players and other athletes all over the world, exclusively furnished The STAR.

In 1993 Dr. David Kessler of the US Food and Drug Administration said, "The market is overfilled with products which have no curative or preventive value whatsoever, whatever they pretend to be. Some supplements are even clearly dangerous." In a connected report, the New England Journal of Medicine quoted the University of California’s Christine Haller as stating that "out of 140 samples (of nutritional supplements), 31 percent would contain Ephedrine."

According to Anselmo Avenido, director of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), the component Ephedra in Ephedrine is used in the manufacture of cocaine. In fact, it is used in equal amounts as the cocaine itself. Ephedrine is listed among substances banned by the 1988 United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances.

An investigation launched by the International Olympic Committee and carried out by the Cologne Institute of Biochemistry in 2002 showed the following: from October 2000 to November 2001, 634 samples of non-hormonal nutritional supplements, from 13 countries and 215 suppliers, were analyzed. Out of 634 nutritional supplements, 94 contained prohormones which were not declared on the label (positive supplements). Also, 68.1 percent (64 samples) contained testosterone prohormones. Other substances were found in many of the samples. Of 316 samples of capsules, 20 percent were positive. Twelve percent of tablets were positive, and so on. Others showed creatine, which is banned for sale in some countries, and is, ironically, used by some of our local basketball players for building muscle mass.

Even if the player feels that he has not taken anything illegal (often accusing the Department of Health in supplying dirty bottles in the case of PBA players who failed their urine test), he may have actually contaminated himself. The FIBA study discovered that product labels do not clearly indicate the origin of the product, and, at times, subcontractors who pack the product inadvertently contaminate it with other substances. This has been reinforced by a study of the University of California.