Intrigue continues to swirl after a recent article in SportsNet brought
up potential questions surrounding Chris Colabello’s Major League
Baseball positive drug test for Dehydrochlormethyltestosterone,
otherwise known as DHCMT or Oral Turinabol. The article quoted
statements by our Chief Science Officer, Don Catlin, M.D., apparently
questioning the test results and also exploring a common point source of
DHCMT. We wished to provide additional clarity as to Dr. Catlin’s views
on the test results and add some thoughts on Colabello, oral turinabol
and the MLB positive drug tests.
Turinabol powder supplier
First we wanted to clarify the comments made as to the test results
and laboratory data. Dr. Catlin was quoted in the article in the excerpt
below:
“The one (DHCMT) case where I looked at the laboratory data, I
didn’t think it was very good,” he said in an interview with Sportsnet.
Asked what that meant, Catlin, who has overseen drug testing at
multiple Olympics and years ago received a grant from Major League
Baseball to help develop a test for HGH, replied: “There’s a long
process involved and I just didn’t think the laboratory did a very good
job in demonstrating that the (DHCMT) metabolite was present in the
urine. But I didn’t want to get into it because of a whole bunch of
other issues.”
While that doesn’t necessarily exonerate the players, from a scientific perspective, isn’t that an issue?
“It’s a huge issue, yes.”
Enough of an issue that a player can use it in appeal process?
“Sure.”
And present a reasonable case, and perhaps even win?
“Yes. But that would be a huge concern for baseball and (the testing lab in) Montreal.”,
Because it would call into question the results of other tests and
open the door for multiple athletes to contest their doping sanction?
“Right. I did not wish to get into it. But I was interested not so
much in the chemistry, but in the source. The three baseball players I
talked to were all adamant that they had never used it, didn’t know what
it was. And that’s fairly typical, but it also suggests that there’s a
source of it somewhere, and my view of it was that it was probably
coming from a supplement that they all took.”
Please allow us to distill the intended meaning behind those
comments in relation to Colabello, oral turinabol and the MLB positive
drug tests. Before we begin, please consider that Dr. Catlin has been
reviewing laboratory documentation packages for more than three decades,
both those from his own UCLA Olympic Analytical Laboratory, as well as
those from other laboratories in the WADA system. He is regarded in the
anti-doping arena not only as one of the most renowned scientists but as
one of its most frank individuals.
In this situation, Dr. Catlin was taking issue with the way in which
the data in the documentation package was presented, not the underlying
chemistry involved. This should not come as a surprise to our friend
and dedicated colleague Christiane Ayotte, Ph.D., director of the
respected Montreal laboratory; it is probably not the first time she has
heard Dr. Catlin gripe about her doc packs (Madame Ayotte,
malheursement le Don reste inchangé). Gripes aside, it does not mean the
results were wrong.
Is it, “Enough of an issue that a player can use it in appeal
process?” In Dr. Catlin’s view, if a documentation package is not
presented in a clear fashion, it can leave room for athletes or their
representatives and experts to attempt to construct a reasonable case to
refute the finding. That is what he was alluding to in his response.
As for the chemistry, Dr. Catlin said he did not want to get into
it, but wanted to focus instead on the possible source of the issue. As
for Colabello, oral turinabol, and the MLB positive drug tests the
results ultimately indicated the presence of a long-term metabolite of
DHCMT. No parent drug was found and no other metabolite was identified,
which is common when relying on the recently identified DHCMT long-term
metabolite to detect long-term use of the drug. The finding was
considered to be a trace finding for the long-term metabolite of DHCMT.
Before exploring potential sources of DHCMT, we wanted to comment on
the DHCMT test itself, and the chemistry involved. Oral turinabol is an
old drug that became infamous when it was the primary drug fueling the
East German state-sponsored doping from 1968-88. The testing for the
drug initially had a short window of detection of a few days. As
research expanded on the drug and additional metabolites were
identified, the retrospectivity of the testing improved to about 20
days.
In the last several years, a new long-term metabolite, referred to
as the M4 metabolite, was identified that increases the window of
detection to at least 40-50 days, perhaps longer. The chemistry of
DHCMT, however, appears to be such that after 20 days only the long-term
metabolite would be detectable, while the parent and other identifying
metabolites would no longer be detectable. While not many drugs in the
WADA system rely on the presence of a single metabolite to demonstrate
the presence of a drug, doing so is certainly acceptable.
When validating such methods, it is commonplace to verify that there
are no ‘false positives.’ Whether there could be a genetic anomaly that
may produce a ‘false positive’ circumstance that did not present itself
during the validation process remains a remote possibility that
presents a difficult theory to explore. Many of the athletes in question
have been tested before and did not produce positive results. Chasing
an inconsistent anomaly could prove to be an endless pursuit. Cody
Stanley’s circumstances certainly heighten the intrigue behind the
theory, but it has yet to be considered or proven.
Unfortunately, limited research dollars are available to the
anti-doping community and labs rightfully use those to validate and
demonstrate new testing methods, as they have in the case of DHCMT.
However, the community is certainly not afforded the resources to
research all the theories on how a ‘false positive’ might occur. As you
can imagine, we hear a lot of theories in that regard. If such a
possibility does exist, we know our dedicated colleagues in anti-doping
like Dr. Ayotte, the experienced folks at Kings College, Cologne, the
UCLA Olympic Analytical Laboratory and others will be working diligently
to evaluate it and further improve the testing platform for DHCMT.
As for the potential sources of DHCMT, unfortunately it is not hard
to find. A quick google search for supplements that contain DHCMT or
oral turinabol brings up at least ten different websites where you can
buy the drug in pill form. It is clear that oral turinabol remains
available, likely through raw material providers in China or elsewhere.
Unfortunately, many of these raw material providers also offer
legitimate and legal supplement ingredients to the supplement
marketplace, leaving open the real possibility for inadvertent
contamination of benign products.
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