Explain current drug-testing techniques in sports, and business. Be sure to include the two major drug-testing techniques, how they pinpoint the time of drug use, how steroid users mask drug tests in order to disguise the use of anabolic steroids

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answer: The present status of drug testing as a fact of life in modern sports has brought with it a new form of contest, pitting the skill and ingenuity of the laboratory scientist The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), drug tests are conducted not only for the presence of performance enhancing drugs but also for the presence of drugs that have no particular performance-enhancing benefits.

Major drug screening tests
(1) Enzyme immunoassay (EIA): One of the two major drug-testing techniques for detecting banned substances or drugs.
(2) gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS): A drug-testing technique based on the combination of gas chromatography and mass spectrometry.
(3) EMIT (enzyme multiplied immunoassay technique): A commercial testing kit for screening major controlled substances, based on enzyme immunoassay analysis. the ease with which urine can be analyzed for specific factors, and the fact that drugs or their metabolites (byproducts)
are usually very stable in frozen urine. Therefore, it is possible to provide long-term storage of
positive samples, in case the results are disputed. The disadvantages are that many perceive urine collection to be a humiliating experience, a dehydrated athlete may find it difficult to urinate immediately after competing, and there may be ways to tamper with the urine sample prior to testing.

The two major urinalysis methods are the enzyme immunoassay (EIA) technique and a procedure combining gas chromatography and mass spectrometry (GC/MS). With the EIA method, a separate test must be run on each particular drug that is being screened. First, at an earlier time, the substance to be tested for (THC or cocaine, for example) has been injected into an animal, eliciting specific immunological antibodies to that substance. The antibodies are then purified into a testing substrate. The combination of the collected urine and the testing substrate will yield a specific reaction if the urine contains the banned substance. A popular commercial testing kit for screening major controlled substances (opiates, amphetamines, cocaine, benzodiazepines, and marijuana), called EMIT (enzyme multiplied immunoassay technique).

With the GC/MS method, the urine is first vaporized and combined with an inert gas and then passed over a number of chemically treated columns. Through the process of gas chromatography, technicians are able to identify the presence of a banned substance by the
different colorations that are left on the columns. After this has been done, the gas is ionized (converted into an electrically active form) and sent through an electric current and magnetic field that separates out each of the different ions (electrically charged particles) in the gas.
Through the process of mass spectrometry, a particular "fingerprint," or "signature," of each chemical substance can be detected and measured.

The GC/MS technique is regarded as more definitive than the EIA technique, but it is considerably more expensive and time-consuming. It is also the only testing procedure
that adequately screens for anabolic steroids.

The standard procedure for determining the present or prior use of anabolic steroids is to calculate the ratio of testosterone against the level of epitestosterone, a naturally occurring hormone that is usually stable at relatively low levels in the body. International athletic organizations now use the standard of a 4:1 ratio (formerly 6 : 1) or higher indicates steroid use. If epitestosterone is artificially elevated, the ratio can be manipulated downward so as to indicate a false negative result in drug testing. However, suspiciously high levels of epitestosterone can now be detected by GC/MS techniques, so this form of manipulation is no
longer successful.

Two specific tactics have been employed to disguise the prior use of anabolic steroids so that the outcome of a drug test becomes, in effect, a false negative; both are now relatively obsolete. The first strategy was to take the antigout drug probenecid.

Available since 1987, it does mask the presence of anabolic steroids, but it is now on the list of banned substances for competitive athletes and is easily detected by GC/MS techniques. The second strategy was to increase the level of epitestosterone in the body. The standard procedure for determining the present or prior use of anabolic steroids is to calculate the ratio of testosterone against the level of epitestosterone, a naturally occurring hormone that is usually stable at relatively low levels in the body. International athletic organizations now use the standard of a 4 : 1 ratio (formerly 6 : 1) or higher as indicating steroid use. If epitestosterone is artificially elevated, the ratio can be manipulated downward so as to indicate a false negative
result in drug testing. However, suspiciously high levels of epitestosterone can now be detected by GC/MS techniques, so this form of manipulation is no longer successful.

It is important to remember that a positive result in a drug test indicates merely that the test has detected a minimal level of