Expert Calls Anti-Doping Agency Test Flawed
A member of skier Andrus Veerpalu's defense team, Krista Fischer, who is a senior researcher for the Estonian Genome Center, says the currently accepted World Anti-Doping Agency growth hormone test is unreliable.
On Tuesday, the Court of Arbitration for Sport handed Veerpalu a bittersweet not-guilty verdict, which was accompanied with a shadow of doubt. "[T]here were many factors in this case which tend to indicate that Andrus Veerpalu did in fact himself administer exogenous [human growth hormone]," the court wrote.
But doubts or no doubts, the ruling implies that the test was flawed, said Fischer, who, along with other Estonian researchers released an appeal in Veerpalu's favor earlier this month.
"The limits of the test were incorrectly calculated, which essentially means that the test is not reliable. Growth hormone is in everyone's blood and the test gives a different result for every person," Fischer told ERR radio.
"Therefore, it is difficult to find the point at which higher results can only be achieved by doping. We are not dealing with nuances, but with basically with a big job that has been left unfinished," Fischer said.