Rupp certified: Rupp could medal in 2016 as WADA refuses to ban thyroid meds despite lobbying!!

not a NOPer wrote:

So how much did Nike pay WADA?

You got this wrong twice.

#1: You didn't even bother to find out who votes on WADA's board. Sepp Blatter is a permanent member. Meaning, the sports federations run WADA.

#2 This is the same WADA that currently permits Testosterone levels 4x the human norm.

It's possible that thyroid abuse is not possible to test within the current framework of EXTREME proof that an athlete is testing positive.

If any of you read the WADA standards, you'd know this.

The thyroid hormone dopers are ahead of the testers, which is often the case. Once the testers catch up, the cheaters will retire or move on to another drug. It will be banned, just not this year.

To be clear, I dont see a problem with asthma meds. I was saying people point the finger at Rupp when it is a common condition that other great runners have.

Asthmatic Runner wrote:

Over 30,000 Americans have died from asthma attacks over the last decade, 20 million have been hospitalized. Would you take the risk?

Bad Wigins wrote:

How can you be so blind? You state yourself the exact reason why thyroid meds are a perfect PED for elite distance runners - they allow you to train at extreme low weight and bodyfat levels without the consequence of low metabolism. Your causality is backwards - hypothyroidism in a distance athlete is likely a symptom of overtraining. When the body finds itself starving, it tries to shut down and save energy to gain weight.

Your causality is backwards, not mine. You have to have the condition of hypothyroidism to be diagnosed with the condition. There is no taking of drugs to prevent the illness from happening. Over-training may be an underlying cause of an under active thyroid gland but it is certainly not the leading cause in the majority of individuals.

If over-training is the contributing factor to someone developing a thyroid condition, so what? Should people be forced to restrict their lifestyle due to illness when medication is available to allow individuals to thrive at what they like to do the most. Not being ill does not give you superhuman abilities. Many at LRC focus too much on the minutia out of jealousy.

I've seen the same focus on asthma medication. Heaven forbid an athlete should suffer from exercise induced asthma. If extreme physical stress is the underlying cause, again I say, so what? Simply eliminating the symptoms of asthma does not give an individual any advantage over someone that has never suffered from the symptoms at all.

Eliminating symptoms that can take away from an athlete's performance is not something I can get too excited about. Substances that ADD to an athlete's performance like injected steroids and EPO are the things that should be illegal, tested for, and be investigated as thoroughly as resources allow.

You make good points, but you also neglect a reality of the situation: not all diagnosis are thorough, and a diagnosis is just a label.

Similar to asthma, it is all down to the doctor's discretion and interpretation. What many have a problem with is if the athlete's conditions meet certain criteria, but they don't have that condition. Asthma is an easy example, and athlete's have published experiences of very surface level testing to get a positive diagnosis. Literarly, one example described a docotr asking :"Are you out of breath after exercise?" -Yeah, a lot of the time- "Are you out of breath after walking up stairs" Yeah, sometimes. "You have asthma". A doctor actually doing their job would to a spirometry test, or a a variety of other measures. Similar to diagnosing hypothyroidism, a good doctor would be thorough.

But they aren't, much of the time, as has been documented. It could be an over worked doctor, a bad doctor, or a doctor swayed by a manager/coach.

That's the reality. That's why "Should people be forced to restrict their lifestyle due to illness when medication is available to allow individuals to thrive at what they like to do the most." is a red herring - many of the athlete's we're talking about may not dealing with illness or severe illness.

Subclinical hypothyroidism or overt hypothyroidism is quite easily confirmed

Does Rupp have a documented TSH above 5 ( or at least 3) prior to thyroid treatment- if so, case closed ( at least if above 5)- if not his use of thyroid meds would be suspect. Controversial if his level was 3-5.

If his level was above 5- then it really shouldn't matter if he has subclinical hypothyroidism secondary to autoimmune disease or secondary to intense running. Just as it shouldn't matter if one acquires asthma via intense winter training or if one is born with it, or if one has iron deficiency secondary to foot strike hemolysis or malabsorption, etc. The symtoms are the same and should be treated- etiology is not relevant.

No. That is wrong. Confirmation is easy to obtain but hard to validate:

When there are several different standards, a doctor or patient with an agenda can push for the "lighter" standard.

Thats why I said above 5 is more cut and dry, 3-5 controversial. If Rupp's level was above 5 prior to thyroid treatment, then that is above normal on lab references. Treating those with any symptoms with TSH levels of 5-10 is pretty accepted practice- all my partners do and all the endocrinologists I have consulted do as well. I am not going to treat a runner differently with a TSH between 5-10 than I would a non-runner. I am also not going to test a runner unless he has a valid complaint- fatigue, depression, irregular menses, constipation, cold intolerance, etc

ex college coach wrote:

been around 'ya know wrote:

“All the experts in the field came to the conclusion that no, there is no way to believe that thyroid hormone could be performance enhancing,” he said.

Let it go.

Yeah all of the experts except for the British and American doctors who said they wanted it banned as it is performance enhancing.. Thyroid is like adderall. Of course it helps. The idea that it only helps those with thyroid problems is absurd.

When I was coaching, a prominent scientist once told me, "Look there isn't a study to prove it. If the coaches are doing it, it generally works. The coaches are way ahead of the scientfists."

Ex-college coach was never a coach of course.

Just another piece of sheeeeite who hates to see a paleface do well is most likely an apt description of this fraud. Using a slightly altered quote from an interview given by the late Charlie Francis doesn't help your masquerade.

Doing the endurance for a 10,000m, the speed work for the mile, the gym work of an 800m runner, doing 4 x mile repeats after breaking American records, sleeping at an artificially created 10,000 feet altitude, getting extra miles on an underwater treadmill would cause everyone's hormones to plummet. Rupp is able to offset this fatigue with hormone therapy to keep on hammering.

Actually that American indoor record followed by the 4xmile workout caused a lot of former top Americans to really question Rupp on the issue of doping with prescription meds and TUEs.

USADA have declared hormone therapy as cheating. They know what's going on.

Maintaining your health while training hard is not cheating. It's just maintaining your health.

Overtraining and using synthetic hormones to continue training hard is not taking care of your health.

If you are healthy how can you be over-training? Training may exacerbate an underlying thyroid condition. That would require monitoring. However, maintaining a healthy metabolism does not prevent injury or physical exhaustion.

Instead of resting to allow the hormone levels to recover after hard training, Rupp is able to continue training hard because he's using synthetic hormones as a recovery aid.

Does anyone know what supporting evidence USADA and UKAD produced as part of their lobbying? Did they just come with a package of faith and beliefs and statements of fear, and pleas that "this just ain't right!"?Does anyone have any compelling arguments that WADA is ignoring relevant evidence, and their independence?This is not the first time WADA scratched their heads and said "we looked again, but there's just no there there". Thryoid medication is not new. Rupp was known in 2006 to by "hypothyroid". That was almost 10 years ago. WADA has looked at this before, and always arrived at the same conclusion. Surely in 10 years, someone could make a stronger case, if one existed.If you want to successfully argue that thyroid medication should be banned, then you have to show two out of three things:1) Performance enhancing2) Dangerous to health3) Against the spirit (this one seems quite subjective)Arguing just one -- that's it's a PED, even if you succeed -- is only one part. If you could ban things for being performance enhancing, then carbo-loading, spaghetti, and gatorade should also be banned.It would seem in this specific case, that USADA, and UKAD, and pretty much everyone with strong beliefs about the ethics of thyroid medication, have failed to show 1) performance enhancing, and 2) dangerous to health. Without 1) and 2), then "against the spirit" seems unlikely, let alone moot.

not david esptein wrote:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/in-rebuff-to-usada-wada-declines-to-ban-thyroid-medication-1443568862

First people criticized Nike for clearing Salazar. Then they criticsed UK Athletics for clearing Salazar. And now WADA (indirectly), have effectively cleared Salazar with this announcement. If/When USADA does clear Salazar, will people also criticize USADA as well?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Goucher's accusations at Salazar and Rupp was based on Thyroids and insinuating that Rupp was tired before breaking the American record.

This announcement by WADA pretty much demonstrates why Salazar is so confident that he'd be cleared by USADA.

USADA Drs agree it's cheating wrote:

http://coachsci.sdsu.edu/csa/vol13/urhause1.htm

Instead of resting to allow the hormone levels to recover after hard training, Rupp is able to continue training hard because he's using synthetic hormones as a recovery aid.

If you are diagnosed with hypothyroidism, you don't "recover." It is an ongoing imbalance that cannot be corrected simply by rest. Calling synthetic hormones a recovery aid is just silly. If you have a muscle strain it is not going to help. The fact that your metabolism is working properly does not prevent your body from getting tired.

An under active thyroid can make you FEEL tired and lethargic when actually your body is quite rested, healthy and fit. Synthetic hormones correct an imbalance that can make you FEEL fatigued but they do nothing for actual fatigue.

Huh? From your link:

USADA Drs actually wrote:

Thyroid-stimulating hormones ...: No findings that would suggest an applicability in the monitoring of training or diagnosis of overtraining exist at present.

USADA Drs agree it's cheating wrote:

http://coachsci.sdsu.edu/csa/vol13/urhause1.htm

Instead of resting to allow the hormone levels to recover after hard training, Rupp is able to continue training hard because he's using synthetic hormones as a recovery aid.

None of this matters. If you can get hold of thyroid meds without breaking the law in the country that you do it in, its legal to take them.

WADA says they believe if you do take them you don't get any benefit from them if you do not have any underlying hypothyroidism. So why would you take something that has no effect?

And if you do need them, WADA would be OK with that because a) they are OK with thyroid meds anyway and b) you'd have a doctor's opinion that the drugs are necessary to keep you "normal".