Blood Doping : Can We Beat It?

Blood doping creates unneeded risk and endangers an athlete’s life for a slightly increased chance of winning a competition. This practice should remain banned and athletes should seek alternative practices that do not come with unusual added health risks. Though there are logical arguments for each side, there is more evidence to support the argument that blood doping should not be legal in athletic competitions. There is too much risk involved for the reward to be so miniscule.

I first learned about this topic on a television show I watch called Hawaii 5-O. The episode had a group of athletes that were blood doping in order to win bicycling races and to get a leg up on escaping the police after robbing their targets. It briefly explained what the group was doing, and why it made them have better stamina and bettered their athletic abilities. Then when Lance Armstrong was accused of many different types of performance enhancing drugs, he admitted to using blood doping among other techniques. He used the method of blood doping that utilizes EPO, which is a hormone that is produced in the kidney for RBC production. He was stripped of all the Tour de France titles in his possession and the bronze medal he won in the Olympics.

Doping has widely become known as the use of banned substances and practices by sports personnel particularly athletes in an attempt to improve sporting performances. No sensible fan of sport today denies the prevalence of drugs in virtually every major sport, yet none would argue they can ever be eliminated completely. Money alone would seem to guarantee that much. High profile athletes today are competing for high stakes, not just millions, but dozens of millions. The fear of losing everything career, opportunity, contracts, name, fame, and money is pushing more sportsmen all over the world to use performance enhancing drugs, mainly

“Did you ever take banned substances to enhance your cycling performance?” Lance Armstrong, seven time Tour de France winner and cycling superstar responded, “Yes” (“Lance Armstrong and Oprah Winfrey”). Lance Armstrong is just one of many professional athletes who doped to get ahead in sports. Armstrong’s guilty verdict exemplifies the efforts to punish athletes using performance-enhancing drugs. The increase in anti-doping efforts is evident.

EPO, or blood doping as it is commonly referred to, is dangerous to heart health and can cause other life threatening issues as well. The WADA has listed a few of the dangers of EPO such as, heart disease, stroke, and cerebral or pulmonary embolism. To me the risks far outweigh the benefits from doing this. Not to mention it is been banned by the WADA as a performance enhancing technique. EPO was not created with the intention of helping athletes get an edge over others, but to help people with anemia, because it increases the amount of red blood cells in a persons body. This in turn can make the persons blood very thick and can lead to the above listed issues.

The subject of doping is an issue in sports that is unlikely to be resolved anytime soon. The win at all costs mentality has both financial and psychological roots growing deep within sports. I too was a fan of Lance Armstrong, and his journey of overcoming cancer and winning the Tour so many times was absolutely beyond inspirational to me at the time. I was crushed when learning of his banned drug usage. Through his own admission, his usage of performance enhancers stemmed from beating cancer and developing that win at all costs mindset (Cycling, 2013). Although I do believe I understand the genesis of his attitude, Lance and others have done the world a great disservice. Anytime an athlete is at the top of the game for any great period of

Why do people think of how blood banks work? Some think think why they exist well i will explain for you why there´s blood banks out in the world. Dr.charles richards drew broke barriers racially split up america to become one of the most important scientist of the 20th century.his pioneering research with the systematic developments in the use and preservation of blood plasma during world war ll not only saved thousands of live,but innovated the nation’s blood banking process and standardized procedures for a long period of time blood preservation and storage techniques adapted by american red cross addition to federal regulations,fda periodically issues guidance documents given recommendation to decrease the potential for transmission of infection diseases when new information or testing methodologies becomes available.for example since november 1999,the FDA has recommended that the blood industry defer potential donors who have lived in the U.K and other european countries to reduce the risk of variant

There is a lot of doping going on in cycling. Some cyclist are getting caught some are still getting away with it. This should not be happening in such a big sport like cycling. There are programs in place to stop doping such as UCI antidoping society. I will now show some evidence of doping. Then the affect that the drugs could do the athletes. Also about the loss of spectators and sponsors.

Blood doping in sports has been a controversial topic for some time now. Debating on whether it should be legal have been plaguing experts for years. Some see doping as a major advantage to athletes. Others see it as just another source of training. Even with all the controversy you can not help but agree with the majority of experts; blood doping should stay illegal in sports.

Blood doping is a form of athletic enhancement that can generate negative impacts on an athlete’s health. Due to the harm it causes I believe that blood doping should not be legalized. To introduce my topic and provide background information I will use, “Blood Doping and its Detection”. This journal will be utilized by using its definition of what blood doping is and what that can do to the body. My topic must be introduced and described to my audience because it is a subject that many people are unfamiliar with, this journal provides a broken down and unbiased definition on the matter that will help readers better understand blood doping.

What is synthetic blood? Synthetic blood is a product that was produced to replace red blood cells. It is specifically designed to transport oxygen and carbon dioxide throughout the body. How synthetic blood is made depends on what type it is, it could be made by using either of these 3 ways; synthetic production,chemical isolation, or recombinant biochemical technology. Synthetic blood has several advantages over real blood. Synthetic blood has a longer shelf life than real blood, they can be stored for one to three years without refrigeration. Unlike real blood, synthetic blood can be given to any patient regardless of their blood type. The patients given synthetic blood will not experience immunologic reactions, but if given incompatible

Since it is considered cheating, it violates the spirit of sports games and athletic competition but it is a fascinating matter of human physiology and science. Despite the adverse side effects, the pioneering idea of being able to manipulate your cardiac output and blood volume using an injection of something your body produces or your own actual blood and actually executing it in this lifetime is truly profound. With further research and technology, I believe we could take the foundation of blood doping and find a way to regulate our red blood cells for life. This would give athletes an untraceable edge for all endurance

One athlete that was caught using drugs for lance Armstrong, because he was caught Nike, his sponsor, dropped him because of the drug use. Nike was not the only company that got rid of Armstrong image. In being dropped Armstrong lost money, credibility, and heroism. “Due to the seemingly insurmountable evidence that Lance Armstrong participated in doping and misled Nike for more than a decade,” (“Nike”). This shows that Nike were not having anything to do with Armstrong. This shows that doping is risky and has major consequences. “Oakley says it's reviewing the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency report, as well as its relationship with Armstrong.”(“Nike”). This shows that doping can have a negative effect on a person, company, and sport, Recently cycling has become one of the most tested sports in the world for doping. The sport is all about endurance, speed, and stamina. So it is one of the most prominent sports for

In 1966, FIFA and Cycling were the first sports to introduce doping tests in their world championships. The International Olympics Committee followed suit the following year, and it tested athletes in the 1968 Olympic Games. By the year 1999, the IOC convened the first World Conference on Doping in Sports, which lead to the formation of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) on November of the same year. By 200, the fight against the use of EPO was ongoing and tests were undertaken during the Sydney Olympics. Currently, more research is undertaken

The question of drug use among athletes in what was previously considered by the unknowing public to be a rather pristine sport, cycling, is important in that it will affect all future Tours and will place them and the athletes under scrutiny. To begin with, in Europe until the 1998 scandal occurred, despite a few exceptions, cycling was considered a drug free sport. The 1998 drug scandal tarnished the Tour de France and the reputation and image of other sports. The media response to the scandal took differing positions on what should be done next to clean up cycling. The scandal also affected advertisements, sales, and without question the 1999 Tour and Lance Armstrong. Since even the most naïve fan no longer trusts the cyclists,