The last leaf of the big dilemma in the anti-doping battle is about to fall. It is expected by the World Anti-Doping Agency that they will have to circulate a new set of instructions for all the accredited drug testers. The instructions would contain a detailed list of revised methods and modified testing procedures with the aim of catching athletes who are cheating with EPO, which is one of the most abused substance in the sports arena.

In a recent USA TODAY report, WADA warned EPO users that a nasty surprise is waiting for them. Past samples which earlier failed to confirm the presence of the drugs in the athletes systems can now be retested and the case against the athletes reopened. These samples are stored in specialized freezers and are merely awaiting WADA’s new and much more efficient anti-EPO tools.

Olivier Rabin, WADA’s science director, was quoted by the Associated Press as saying that this was indeed an interesting discovery. The new technology which can now detect the presence of EPO in an athlete’s system are the so-called biosimilars, which is being created by the dozens of people in almost 20 countries all across the world such as in China, Brazil, India, and elsewhere. It’s quite popular because manufactured EPO plays an integral part in medicine and because its business is worth billions of dollars per year. These copies are able to escape sports’ doping controls, hence users are not caught.

However, EPO should not be regarded as something that will not do any good to our health. Scientific research has shown that is creates a dramatic benefit for the kidney and for cancer patients that are undergoing the pangs caused by anemia, which is a shortage of red blood cells that works to transport oxygen all around the body. But when used inappropriately, EPO which stands for erythropoietin, can create a lethal condition by stimulating patients’ bone marrow to create more and more red cells. That said, athletes would normally make use of this because more red cells mean that there will be oxygen for the muscles so they can do things faster.

Starting 1990s, EPO was able to make a big difference for athletes who turned out to be winners in their chosen sports. However, the consequences are high. Since EPO is not really advisable because of its fatal effect, it joined the long list of banned substances.

EPO is the same drug that led to the downfall of former U.S. track star Marion Jones while she was at the peak of her career. It was known that EPO in sports was first utilized during the Sydney Olympics in the year 2000, by which Jones amazingly won three golds as well as two bronze medals.

For sure, testing the presence of EPO is hard, because traces of this drug doesn’t stay in the urine for quite a long time. Testers would also complain about the copied versions of EPO. Nonetheless, the birth of this gadget hopes to shed the light so that users will be given their appropriate sanctions. Let sports be an arena of honest players but not of drugged individuals who are left with no bright future.

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