There are endless debates on the stalled fight between Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. for failure of both parties to agree on the Olympic style blood testing requested by the latter. Some says that it is too much for Mayweather to demand that kind of testing while others believes that it is an effective way to know if Manny Pacquiao is on steroids or human growth hormone. But according to a health expert, testing for steroids or human growth hormone may not be the answer to their objective in determining whether a boxer is doping or not.

Victor Conte, who considers himself as a health expert, provided new insights on the drug testing conducted by USADA and the state athletic commissions. “Traditional testing in boxing, it’s basically worthless other than the detection of some types of stimulant, before and after a fight,” he said. For him blood testing in boxing is necessary but not for steroid or HGH since boxers may not need these drugs to gain competitive advantage. He suggested that random blood testing should be done to determine if a boxer is blood doping particularly for the drug called EPO.

Conte was convicted for his involvement in prescribing performance enhancing drugs to professional players from the major league, football and athletics. He was the founder of BALCO or the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative which was investigated by the federal authorities for illegal distribution of steroids and other performance enhancing drugs.

Bryant Maxwell of Bleacher Report quoted some of the statements of Conte to Maxboxing. Maxwell described Conte as an expert in the art of making steroids undetectable so his statements are also invaluable. In Conte’s explanation, measuring the hematocrit levels or the percentage of red blood cells to total whole blood volume is very important. “An elevated hematocrit can provide a significant advantage to a fighter by enhancing oxygen uptake and utilization. This would benefit a fighter in training and especially during the later rounds of a fight,” said Conte. He cited as an example the case of cyclists where they are temporarily suspended for two weeks if their hematocrit is greater than 50% even if tested negative in the urine test for EPO.

“One, I think that increasing hematocrit levels, whether it’s by traditional blood-doping or the use of EPO, is of greater benefit to a boxer than the use of growth-hormone,” Conte explained. “So growth-hormone is more of an anti-catabolic agent that may help to accelerate the healing of the tissue repair process. But growth-hormone is not anabolic as an anabolic steroid. It’s an anti-catabolic agent and I believe that you don’t get a very big bang for your buck. I’m not a huge fan of growth-hormone,” he said. Conte does not believe that HGH will greatly benefit the boxer. “EPO, though, in terms of boxing, is absolutely huge, both in training and as well as in a fight, especially during the later rounds,” the BALCO founder added.

Conte also commented on the current drug testing procedures being conducted by USADA. “There’s lots of loopholes. They call that the ‘gold standard testing’. I’ve said this as far back as 2004, that there are huge loopholes that you can drive an equivalent of a Mack Truck through. The USADA testing is certainly better than what is used in professional sports but it’s still relatively easy to beat the test,” Conte said.

The appropriate steroid cycling of athletes and proper combination of enhancers will return a negative result in laboratory tests. According to Conte, the fastest drugs to leave the body system of an athlete are Creams and Transdermal. It is followed by drugs in Oral form and water based drugs including testosterone. Oil based performance enhancers are said to stay longer in the body. “So some of these can clear in a matter of hours and days. If you know when you’re going to be tested a week out, you go off the use of oral testosterone,” he said.

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