[mckerney]

Expert says delay would not have altered Braun drug test - JSOnline

It would be unheard of for a urine sample such as the one given by Ryan Braun to have degraded into abnormally high levels of testosterone or into synthetic testosterone during the 44 hours that it sat in a refrigerator waiting to be shipped to a testing lab, according to an international expert on drug testing of athletes.

That leaves only a few other possibilities, said Gary Wadler, a physician and former official with the World Anti-Doping Agency.

One is that someone deliberately smeared a testosterone gel onto Braun's skin without his knowledge. Another is that someone tampered with Braun's urine sample.

"The (other possibility) is that he really doped," said Wadler, a professor of medicine at Hofstra North Shore-LIJ School of Medicine in New York.

Wadler noted that the testosterone level in Braun's urine sample was exceedingly high.

In a normal sample the ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone is roughly one-to-one. Anything more than 4-1 is considered abnormal and triggers a second test. Braun's sample came in at 20-1 for the ratio between the two hormones. In addition, a separate test showed the presence of synthetic testosterone.

"Twenty-to-one is off the radar screen," Wadler said. "There is no way that sitting around for 44 hours would have resulted in elevated testosterone (or synthetic testosterone)."

Testosterone is the male hormone that helps build muscle.

Wadler said Braun won his appeal on a "procedural technicality," that his sample was kept for 44 hours in the refrigerator of the person who collected it before it was shipped to the testing lab, creating a chain of command question.

That raises the question of tampering.

Is it possible to tamper with the urine sample of a player during the major league baseball drug testing process?

That question was bandied about with great vigor after Braun suggested during a news conference last week that tampering was a possibility with his positive drug test that he had overturned with a successful appeal to a three-man arbitration panel.

The Office of Commissioner Bud Selig quickly responded to Braun's allegation, with executive vice president Rob Manfred saying, "Neither Mr. Braun nor the Major League Baseball Players Association contended in the grievance that his sample had been tampered with or produced any evidence of tampering."

The MLB drug program, which is jointly administered by the Commissioner's Office and the players union, is designed to prevent the possibility of tampering, by the collector or anyone else involved in the program. The process begins with the collector witnessing the player urinating in a cup, then dividing it into two separate samples marked "A" and "B."

Lids are placed on both cups with chain-of-custody tape used to seal both, which the player witnesses. The collector then must show the player that leakage is not possible with the samples.

Past cases

Wadler noted that Braun has been adamant in denying that he has ever used performance-enhancing drugs.

But so too have other athletes who eventually were found to have cheated, he said.

"We are all too familiar with impassioned statements whether it was (Olympic Games track star) Marion Jones or (baseball player) Rafael Palmeiro," Wadler noted.

In 2007, Jones pleaded guilty to lying to federal investigators about taking banned substances and was subsequently stripped of her Olympic medals by the International Olympic Committee.

In 2005, Baltimore Orioles player Palmeiro waved his finger in front of a congressional committee and insisted that he never used steroids, only to test positive a few months later.

Wadler added that Braun's case had similarities to that of cyclist Floyd Landis.

Landis was stripped of his 2006 Tour de France title after testing positive for high levels of testosterone - an 11-1 ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone - and synthetic testosterone.

For years he denied the allegation and spent $2 million in legal fees fighting it before finally admitting to it.

"He looked square into the camera and said, 'I did nothing wrong,' " Wadler said. "Of course, a period of time goes by and he says, 'You got me.' "