Facourou Sissoko from Mali and Ukrainian Liudmyla Osmanova have been excluded from the Paralympic Games after being found violating the doping policies.

Both powerlifters have been disqualified from the Beijing Games and banned for two years.

From Espnstar.com:

The results take the number of violations at the Games to four.

Pakistan powerlifter Naveed Ahmed Butt tested positive for methandienone metabolites on Tuesday, while German wheelchair basketball player Ahmet Coskun was banned for using a substance he insisted was he took to combat hair loss.

Coskun tested positive for finasteride, which can be used as a masking agent.

The athletes can appeal the decision up to seven days after receiving the notification.

To date, a total of 461 tests have been carried out at the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games.

The duo tested positive for boldenone metabolite and 19-Norandrosterone (anabolic agents), respectively, in pre-Games out-of-competition tests.

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The NFL Players Association (NFLPA) has filed a lawsuit to block the suspensions handed to five players.

The suit was carried out in response to penalties handed down to Pat Williams and Kevin Williams of the Minnesota Vikings and Deuce McAllister, Charles Grant and Will Smith of the New Orleans Saints.

From Espnstar.com:

Attorneys for Pat and Kevin Williams, both Pro Bowl defensive tackles, won a temporary reprieve in Hennepin County District Court on Wednesday, arguing that league officials were aware that StarCaps contained the banned substance but failed to share that information with players.

The Players Association’s lawsuit alleges the same argument, claiming that the NFL violated its duty to the players.

The NFL will challenge the ruling of the Vikings’ players, said spokesman Greg Aiello, noting that the league policy on steroids and related substances was collectively bargained between the league and the Players Association.

David Cornwell, a Washington-based attorney who represented the Saints players during their appeals, argued that Dr John Lombardo, the administrator of the NFL’s policy regarding anabolic steroids and related substances, was aware that StarCaps contained Bumetanide but did not share the information with NFL players.

The suit was filed recently in a United States District Court and the players were handed over suspensions after found positive for a banned diuretic (Bumetanide) that is used for masking the presence of steroids and other substances.

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Two of the six players suspended by the National Football League (NFL) after testing positive to drugs have decided to challenge the verdict.

The NFL suspended defensive tackles Pat Williams and Kevin Williams of the Minnesota Vikings, a trio of players with the New Orleans Saints – running back Deuce McAllister and defensive ends Will Smith and Charles Grant – and centre Bryan Pittman of the Houston Texans after they were found violating policy of the league on anabolic steroids and related substances.

From Espnstar.com:

Attorneys for the Williamses are expected to argue that league officials were aware that StarCaps, a product used by the players, contained bumetanide but failed to share that information with players.

The league, however, seemed to leave little room for such an argument in spelling out its policy to the players in the statement which announced the players’ suspensions.

“You and you alone are responsible for what goes into your body,” the policy read. “Claiming that you used only legally available nutritional supplements will not help you in an appeal. Even if they are bought over-the-counter from a known establishment, there is currently no way to be sure that they contain the ingredients listed on the packaging or have not been tainted with prohibited substances.

“If you take these products, you do so at your own risk.”

Defensive tackle Grady Jackson of the Atlanta Falcons also faces a four-game suspension but the Falcons said his appeal has been deferred pending additional information requisition by NFL Chief Counsel Jeff Pash.

“The players specifically violated a long-standing provision of the policy relating to the use of diuretics and water pills, which serve as masking agents for steroids and are potentially dangerous to the health of players,” the NFL statement read.

The drug in question is Bumetanide (diuretic) that has the ability to mask the presence of other substances, including steroids.

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Professor Charles Rodeck, Britain’s leading foetal medicine expert and founder and head of the unit for foetal medicine at University College Hospital London, recently appeared public to say that he has deep concerns over some of the IVF drugs and tests being offered to infertile couples.

Private clinics are exploiting women desperate to get pregnant by offering them unproven and expensive treatments, Rodeck said.

From Guardian.co.uk:

Rodeck transformed the use of foetal medicine in Britain by initiating the use of ultrasound for foetal therapy and diagnosis of malformations in the late Seventies. He went on to set up the first foetal medicine unit in the early Eighties, as well as setting up clinics specialising in the care of young women.

‘Even though I have no evidence that the mothers or babies are being harmed by the extra hormones and steroids they are increasingly being given by these clinics, you can’t be sure what happens to a baby when you put unnecessary and unproven medicines into its mother’s body,’ he said.

His work has left him open to attacks from the anti-abortion lobby but he is defiant. ‘The truth is that not all human life is totally sacrosanct,’ he said. ‘Nature has a mechanism called “miscarriage” which eliminates many of its early errors but it is not always totally efficient and so some of these errors survive. What we are trying to do simply use technology to assist Nature.’

Rodeck agreed with the concerns voiced earlier this year by Lord Winston, professor of fertility studies at Imperial College London, that the IVF industry has been left corrupted by money.

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Researchers from Japan have remarked that a daily dose of pirfenidone could prove to be a beneficial option to offer relief to individuals suffering from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF).

Daily doses of pirfenidone can prove good for slowing down progression of the health complication, as per the Phase III, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial.

From News-Medical.Net:

“The most common treatment for IPF is anti-inflammatory agents such as steroids,” said lead researcher Takashi Ogura, M.D., of Kanagawa Cardiovascular and Respiratory Center in Yokohama, Japan. “However our study confirmed that pirfenidone, the main action of which is thought to be antifibrotic, achieved a therapeutic effect on IPF. I expect that our study will serve as a guide to develop a new therapy for IPF in the future.”

The researchers recruited a total of 275 Japanese patients with mild to moderate IPF and randomized them to a high dose pirfenidone (1,800 mg/day) group, a low dose pirfenidone group (1,200 mg/day) and a placebo group. They measured lung capacity (vital capacity or VC) and progression-free survival, defined as a period without death or a greater than 10 percent decrease in VC, to determine the effectiveness of the regimens.

At the end of one year, they found that patients who had been randomized to the high dose regimen had significantly lower loss of VC than the placebo group. Furthermore, pirfenidone slowed the overall deterioration of IPF compared to the placebo.

“Taken altogether, our study demonstrated positive clinical effects of pirfenidone that suppresses the progress of IPF and potentially contributes to improving the outcomes of patients with IPF,” said Dr. Ogura.

The research results were presented at the American Thoracic Society’s International Conference in Toronto.

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Bulgarian athlete Iva Prandjeva has tested positive for nandrolone, the banned drug, on the eve of the Olympic Games.

The athlete from Bulgaria was set to compete in Sydney in the long and triple jumps.

From News.bbc.co.uk:

Prandjeva is the latest in a line of athletes to test positive for the substance, including the English 400m runner Mark Richardson and now-retired 1992 Olympic 100m champion Linford Christie.

But there remains controversy as to what extent – if at all – it can be produced naturally as its presence in the body is sometimes put down as a result of using certain food supplements.

Prandjeva’s positive test is her second. She also showed traces of anabolic steroids at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996.

On that occasion she placed fourth in the triple jump and seventh in the long. Her results were scratched from the records and she served a two-year ban afterwards.

Prandjeva could now face a life ban for a second doping offence.

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Troy Glaus of the Cardinals said he was wrong to make use of anabolic steroids and will not repeat the mistake in the future. This was after Glaus had a meeting with Cardinals general manager John Mozeliak.

The meeting between the two was to discuss a newspaper report suggesting that the third baseman made use of steroids to recover from shoulder injuries in 2003 and 2004.

From Mlb.mlb.com:

Glaus, who hit 27 homers and had 99 RBIs last season, his first with the Cardinals, injured the shoulder again and underwent arthroscopic debridement in January. He is rehabbing with a private trainer in Phoenix, where the Cardinals opened a three-game series against the Diamondbacks on Monday.

Glaus declined to comment on specifics of the Times’ report, according to the Post-Dispatch.

“At this point, there is no reason [to go over the past]. I’m not going to comment,” Glaus said. “I’m in there [the gym]. I’m doing my exercises, and I’m going to do everything I can to get back as soon as I possibly can. From the exercises I’m doing now or working out — whatever it is I have to do so that when I come back, I’m ready to play.”

Mozeliak said he was satisfied that there would be no parallels between Glaus’ 2003 rehab and his current one.

The Cardinals general manager said the mistake by Glaus will not be repeated and he will make a return to St. Louis quickly.

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Liza Hunter-Galvan, the double Olympian, would not make an effort for the London Olympics despite an international court ruling clearing the way for those who have served doping bans.

“I’m not sure if I have good or bad feelings about the ruling, because I don’t care any more,” the marathon runner said.

From Nzherald.co.nz:

The 42-year-old won the Christchurch Marathon in June after a two-year ban for taking the blood-booster erythropoietin (EPO) in 2009 but suspects she would not be welcome if she did qualify.

“In a nutshell how do you chase a spot that isn’t there?” Hunter-Galvan said. “Whether the ban was lifted or not I realise that the biggest hurdle I face is not my age, desire, commitment, injuries, qualifying standard, financial burden, or [the] poor choice I made. Rather it lies in being accepted.

“I have no interest in going through another legal battle, they take a toll on your soul,” the runner said, a reference to the Beijing Olympics where she placed 35th after appealing her earlier non-selection to the Sports Tribunal.

The double Olympian is the only New Zealander to have tested positive to EPO that is abused in sport for stimulating the production of red blood cells that boosts the amount of oxygen delivered to the muscles.

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