AFL CEO Andrew Demetriou is confident in his league's doping policy. Source: Herald Sun
A LEADING sports scientist has warned the AFL to be vigilant in its fight against performance enhancing drugs, particularly blood doping.
But AFL chief Andrew Demetriou says he is 100 per cent confident in the league's drug testing procedures, saying his organisation is at the "cutting edge'' of testing and preventative measures.
As the sporting world reels from the fallout of the Lance Armstrong saga, Dr Michael Ashenden of Science and Industry Against Blood Doping says there is no fool-proof method of establishing when an athlete has reinfused their own blood.
Despite this, Ashenden, who works closely with the World Anti Doping Authority, said there is no evidence to suggest drug cheats are running around in the AFL undetected.
This doesn't mean, however, the league should lessen its approach to making sure the practice doesn't become prevalent.
"We have to be vigilant,'' Ashenden told the Herald Sun.
"The worst thing we could do is just blindly assume that we don't have a problem, everything's fine. That, what I call vigilance, is different to a sort of scattergun approach of `it happened here, maybe it could happen in our sport as well'.''
Armstrong is accused of, among other things, blood doping during his reign at the top of world cycling.
Athletes do this to increase their oxygen-carrying capacity.
The Australian Sports Anti Doping Authority (ASADA) says after a transfusion has taken place, the athlete is left with a higher red blood cell mass and is therefore able to increase the oxygen-carrying capacity of the blood.
Ashenden said detecting blood doping remains nearly impossible.
"You're trying to find the athlete's own blood amongst the athlete's blood,'' he said.
"The red cells are identical to every other cell in their body, so it's a tremendously difficult scientific challenge to be able to tell whether that cell had once upon a time been inside a plastic bag.
"We have some insights, like you can see sometimes the plastic that's been leaked in to the blood while it's been stored, but the windows that you're talking about there are probably a couple of hours.''
An ASADA spokesperson said: "While a test does not currently exist to directly detect autologous blood transfusions, the effect of both forms of transfusion can be detected using the Athlete Biological Passport.
"An ABP is an individual record of each athlete's biological profile, developed over time from the collection of multiple blood samples. (It) is different from traditional detection methods in that it looks at the effects of blood doping rather than directly detecting the prohibited substances or methods used.
"The advantage of this approach is that the biological effects of blood doping are commonly present and detectable for a longer period than the doping agent itself.''
Demetriou said the AFL's fight against performance enhancing drugs continues.
"Based on all of our information, the information collected by ASADA and our very stringent and world class testing regime, I think we are easily at the cutting edge of performance enhancing drugs and testing and preventative measures,'' Demetriou said.
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