British Athlete blames UK Athletics medical staff for perscribing Thyroid Hormone, and subsequently damaging her health.

From her Twitter @emmajacko88 :

@MichaelRimmer8 Basically it [the dose] was way above normal. I just worry what they're prescribing to others- obv they have no idea of side effects!

@MichaelRimmer8 No, no apology. I assume they didn't know, they dumped me off funding as I was so crap in 2013 so no contact since!

@Jason_AW @thesundaytimes In my opinion should be TUE in place. Whoever needs it gets it. Simple and fair solution?

Interesting. It's becoming more and more clear that promising runners bearing down and training hard, sleeping a lot, and eating a lot of pasta just isn't the way things are done any more. The little glimpses we receive seem to suggest that the focus nowadays is on hormones and supplements, anything that will enable the athlete to lose weight without loss of power, and or improve the oxygen transport mechanism. Thoroughly depressing.

250+ posts on Salazar's legal and safe supplement, but one post on a more damning look at the culture of medicating? The L-carnatine article was an insight into the culture of approaching/pushing legal and ethical boundaries at NOP. Yet no outcry at that same mindset in practice at the expense of an athlete's well being? No frustration that our sport's medical community is not only validating but encouraging these extreme measures for the sake of performance?

There are plenty of deserving threads that don't take off for one reason or another. There is a certain amount of blind luck involved, and a certain amount of people only responding when somebody they view as an authority has something to say on the matter first.

I wouldn't say this post is "more damning" than the one about Salazar and L-carnitine, though, for the obvious reason that everybody already knows that Salazar is at the forefront of questionable thyroid use. So it's hard to characterize NOP with a "well, at least they wouldn't experiment with something that might damage an athlete's health", when Salazar's history seems to suggest he'll experiment with any dang old thing that might possibly work and he can get away with.

Another issue is that the article is either really short and not particularly detailed, or else we can't access the whole thing.

A further issue is that the athlete in question was supposedly "born without a thyroid", so would have been an odd case no matter what.

This is just the tip of the iceberg regarding UKA (British Athletics) and thyroid medication. Recommended to all funded athletes through the medical team (with some longstanding members leaving over the issue) and a disgusting lack of information giving over the long term effects.

"We don’t take that much stuff and everything that Mo takes is from UK Athletics" - Salazar on Mo

http://www.letsrun.com/news/2015/03/the-good-and-the-ugly-everything-you-want-to-know-about-the-nike-oregon-project-and-l-carnitine-injections/

Hardly reassuring

British Federation wanting to pump their athletes full of hormones so that they can run faster. Sure, there will be some health casualties along the way but this is the price to pay for the Federation's relentless drive to win more medals. It all seems like an old East German or Soviet style of doing things.

She was born without a thyroid glad you idiot. They are not giving to everyone

http://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/Athletics-Emma-Jackson-aiming-stress-fractures/story-22792550-detail/story.html

They are recommending to everyone. She was already on medication prescribed by her gp. The correct amount for her condition. Things went wrong when they started giving her much larger quantities of the drug.

If she was born without a thyroid, toying with her dosage for the sake of performance is bordering malpractice. She probably has a valid case.

Dear Anybody Who Has Access to the Full Article: Can you list what she claims the damage to her health has been from this medication?

Why would UK Athletics perscribe thyroid hormone and then subsequently damage her health? This seems particularly viscious.

love him or hate him, he's usually right.

that article goes a long way telling why so many elites are using/abusing thyroid hormone.

rekrunner wrote:

If she was born without a thyroid, toying with her dosage for the sake of performance is bordering malpractice. She probably has a valid case.

Perhaps but it totally different to upping someones thyroid who has no thyroid issues as seems to be the case in other athletes - which the original poster did not mention.

It's a separate issue

Because UK Athletics is staffed with people on quite nice salaries who have to hit targets in terms of medals etc. in order to keep their positions. Thus they "import" any available talent rather than making the effort to develop our own - Tiffany Porter being. Clearly such people with the attitude they have are going to use any procedure that is not explicitly banned - regardless of possible damage to the athlete. In this case the athlete was not a "name" but might just have developed into a world beater with a bit of "help" so it was well worth the risk (to the athlete) to try and push things along a bit.

The blindest possible eye is turned to use of illegal stuff. Two Welsh athletes get away with the lightest possible slap on the wrist; Ohuruogu is made captain of the national team, chambers is welcomed back into the team because he might help the relay squad win a medal ... the list goes on. there is a results culture at work in the UK that is as demanding as anywhere else in the sport. Extreme measures, short cuts dubious morality is the inevitable result of all this.

mark b wrote:

Because UK Athletics is staffed with people on quite nice salaries who have to hit targets in terms of medals etc. in order to keep their positions. Thus they "import" any available talent rather than making the effort to develop our own - Tiffany Porter being.

If an athlete such as Porter, who has a British passport, declares an interest in running for Team GB, are UK:Athletics allowed to discriminate against her based on her background?

For example, she wins the trials and has a the A-Standard, surely that means they have to select her?

Are they allowed to say 'Nah, you're not British enough, you're not selected'?