Should MLB, others test for HGH? An expert weighs in

This business of whether blood testing for human growth hormone should be implemented by Major League Baseball and the other professional sports leagues is "where science and society collide," Brown University molecular biology professor Will Fairbrother noticed. A test used to detect HGH abuse is "so important for the health of athletes and the fairness in sport," he said, even as he cautioned that "any test has its issues" in terms of absolute infallibility.

In a lengthy telephone conversation Fairbrother, whose research involves understanding the fundamental rules that govern gene processing and how genetic differences in people can affect that processing, lent what he described as his "two cents" - which is far more unbiased knowledge than baseball officials and baseball pundits have - to this week's hot sports topic: the announcement of the first positive test for HGH use by a British rugby player.

Response to that news, hailed by anti-doping experts as proof that the 6-year-old HGH blood test indeed works, prompted inside-baseball harrumphing that a good test should have been catching cheaters from the moment it was introduced at the 2004 Athens Olympics. And hand-wringing that diving into a blood-testing regime - so far, the players' union has insisted that urine testing is sufficient - was far too invasive.

The "too invasive" argument ignores the fact that big-league players already give blood in routine physicals. And the what-took-so-long logic betrays a lack of knowledge about drug testing and performance-enhancing drugs in general.

Because HGH, like steroids, is a training drug, athletes use it virtually on a daily basis in cycles apart from competition. The 900 or so HGH tests administered in three Olympic Games - about 300 in Athens in 2004, 100 in Turin in 2006, 500 in Beijing in 2008 - were not likely to catch users, who were aware of when the tests were coming and that HGH, more than most doping agents, clears the system within a couple of days. (Thus the call by anti-doping authorities for year-round, unannounced screening.)

Furthermore, HGH blood tests have not been conducted nearly as often as had hoped since 2004, because the production of antibodies used in the tests, which isolate the form of synthetic HGH artificially introduced to the system, only recently have been as available as planned.

But, back to somebody who knows what he's talking about:

"I'm reluctant to criticize somebody's test," Fairbrother said. "I think [synthetic] HGH is really a tough thing to detect, because it clears from the body quickly and because it exists [naturally] at variable levels and at variable times.

"In fairness, I know the anecdotal evidence is that a lot of athletes are taking it and very few are caught by this test. I see this as a kind of look at the future. Can we look at the genetics of people and understand if there's a person-to-person variability in isoforms ? If we can characterize that, we can make the tests more sensitive."

Fairbrother believes in the need for testing - "You have to, right? You don't let 'em hit with metal bats" - and suggests increased punishment for dopers. But he does worry about "falsely accusing someone."

His answer to whether it is scientifically possible to have a reliable test is: "I mean, do we have a reliable legal system? It depends on who you ask. The way scientists deal with this is with statistical analysis. I have a confidence level that scientists can provide you with a threshold" that would set the evidence of HGH presence so high that it obviously is unnatural. "I see it as laying out that ratio and deciding where on the curve you'll hang 'em high."

Essentially, that is what endocrinologists do in developing drug tests. The extra leeway means that some cheaters, calculating how to use just enough of a substance to get a performance boost but not enough to set off alarms, will escape the doping police. No one is naive enough to believe that a test is perfect, anymore than anyone believes that eradicating HGH use will be the end of athletes attempting to find an illegal chemical edge.

The question is whether we ought to try.