Cleaning up the games
The following editorial appeared in the San Jose Mercury News on Friday, March 7:
The Olympics have plenty of problems. But when it comes to performance-enhancing drugs, the folks who run the Games aren't complete dopes like their counterparts who run Major League Baseball.
The new president of the World Anti-Doping Agency, John Fahey, announced last week that an effective blood test for detecting human growth hormone, or HGH, will be in place for the Beijing Olympics this summer. HGH is believed to be the most widely abused performance-enhancing drug used by athletes today, and many believe it also helps mask the use of steroids.
The new test isn't perfect. But at least the Olympics organizers are taking their best shot at cleaning up the games.
Meanwhile, the union that represents baseball players trashed the new testing method and said it would fight blood testing to detect cheats.
Team owners weren't much better. Major League Baseball took in $6 billion last year, but - despite the biggest threat to their sport's integrity since the 1919 Black Sox scandal _ the owners opted to spend only $100,000 apiece, $3 million total, on research to find new testing methods over the next four years.
In baseball parlance, that's bush league.
