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Outside Magazine, July 2005

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The Awful Truth About Drugs in Sports (cont.)

NOW OR NEVER
Catlin has a long way to go before this idea becomes more than a dream, but in recent months he's been preparing for his push by sounding out trusted friends among sports administrators. Next, he'll present a formal case to the powers that be—USADA, UCLA, perhaps the USOC, maybe even the federal government through the National Institutes of Health—to seek the necessary research funds.

Meanwhile, the plan has already received a few endorsements. One prominent backer is Thomas Murray, a well-known bioethicist who serves as the chairman of the Ethical Issues Review Panel for WADA. "Don's idea is fascinating," he says. "I would like to see it discussed much more thoroughly as a way to break out of this cops-and-robbers cycle we've been in."

Dr. Robert Wolfe, a human-metabolism expert at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, says Catlin's plan "could overcome some of these problems with one new drug after another. I think this is a great idea, a fantastic idea, really, and I hope he is successful."

And Evelyn Ashford, who inspired Catlin and now sits on USADA's board, says the plan sounds "great... more logical, like a better way of doing things. I could get behind this, because it is a more positive approach to the problem."

But Catlin will certainly face resistance. Lawyers for some prominent athletes are vocally skeptical. Edward G. Williams, a New York attorney whose clients include accused dopers like Regina Jacobs—who set the 1,500-meter indoor world record in 2003 only to later test positive for THG—says Catlin's idea "sounds hokey." After hearing the basics of the plan, he notes that if an athlete's biomarkers were changed for any reason, not just drugs, he or she might flunk out of the Volunteer Program.

Howard Jacobs (no relation to Regina), a Los Angeles attorney who represents Tim Montgomery and Tyler Hamilton, praises Catlin's objectivity but says the plan sounds too subjective to risk damaging an athlete's reputation for not taking part in it. He wants solid proof of drug use. "It troubles me to have a system where it's OK to say, 'Something looks funny.' You should have to show more than 'Something doesn't seem right, but we do not know what it is.' "

USADA reacts with lukewarm caution; spokespeople for the organization declare their respect for Catlin but issue caveats and polite boilerplate about the need to explore new solutions.

WADA officials pooh-pooh the idea outright, arguing that they're already on the case. "We call what he's talking about the 'longitudinal approach,' " says WADA's chief scientist, Olivier Rabin. "We are well aware of it and have some projects in that direction," he says, referring to WADA's now-defunct Athlete's Passport, which kept track of some biological parameters. But the Athlete's Passport, a voluntary program that had a stop-and-start history at WADA, was mainly a record of drug-test results. Catlin dismisses any comparison.

Nobody, not even Catlin, believes his idea is a sure thing. But he feels obliged to fight. If he can't live with the current system, he says, "it is time to pass the baton. But I'm not ready. I need to give the Volunteer Program a go... I gotta get the damn thing off the ground."

For Catlin, and for sports as a whole, time is short.

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