Since there hasn't been any controversy in the the forums lately, perhaps we should smack the hornet's nest a bit...
What are your thoughts regarding the following hypothetical situation as it relates to competition:
Suppose that tomorrow morning we wake up to find that medical researchers have discovered that a mixture of various substances (e.g. human growth hormone, testosterone, etc) can be taken with little or no bad side effects. Furthermore, it offers the following benefits on average:
1) A longer life span.
2) Improved general health, both mental and physical.
3) Greater resistance to some of the more common severe health problems such as heart disease, cancers, alzheimer's, etc.
Suppose that it also has a strong positive affect on one's swimming performance.
Suppose further that this treatment is expensive and not covered by most health insurers.
Question: Are the people who take it for the health benefits welcome to compete in master's swimming? Would your answer be different if the treatment were available inexpensively/free to everyone?
-LBJ
Parents
Former Member
One of the problems with the current doping practices is that the drugs have some bad side effects. If they allow doping, then to stay competitive it forces those who don't want to face the risks to face them anyway, or fall behind those who don't care about the risks.
The proposal in the base note specified no side effects. I wonder if such a substance would be universally allowed across all sports.
In essence we already have this sort of situation. (It's a weak connection, but let me give it a try anyway.) It's called food. We know that certain diets improve performance over less nutritious diets. And (as far as we know) there are no harmful side effects.
What if they found that some naturally-occurring "food" (some common leaf that we don't currently eat, such as tomato plant leaves) boosted strength and recovery far more than any banned drug today? Would they ban tomato leaves? (I'm just thinking out loud here...)
One of the problems with the current doping practices is that the drugs have some bad side effects. If they allow doping, then to stay competitive it forces those who don't want to face the risks to face them anyway, or fall behind those who don't care about the risks.
The proposal in the base note specified no side effects. I wonder if such a substance would be universally allowed across all sports.
In essence we already have this sort of situation. (It's a weak connection, but let me give it a try anyway.) It's called food. We know that certain diets improve performance over less nutritious diets. And (as far as we know) there are no harmful side effects.
What if they found that some naturally-occurring "food" (some common leaf that we don't currently eat, such as tomato plant leaves) boosted strength and recovery far more than any banned drug today? Would they ban tomato leaves? (I'm just thinking out loud here...)
