Drugs in sport: IOC considers taking insulin off banned list

Insulin and human growth hormone (hGH) could be dropped from the list of banned substances within Olympic sports next year, purely because they have not been shown to boost performance illegally.

Dr Harm Kuipers, a member of the International Olympic Committee's medical commission, told a conference in Madrid yesterday that these two substances were likely to be dropped from the list when the World Anti Doping Agency revised it next March in time for the 2004 Games. He added that others such as caffeine, heroin, morphine, pseudoephedrine and cannabis should also go.

"Rule makers forget that everything on the list, especially the new list which will be based on scientific evidence, must be performance-enhancing," Kuipers, a former world speed skating champion, said.

"In the case of insulin there are serious side effects but no performance enhancement. Insulin should not be on the list. The motivation for adding insulin to the list of banned substances was the assumption that insulin injections could act as recovery enhancing means. However, there is no scientific basis for this assumption." He added that further study was needed on hGH, for which there is no reliable test yet in place, although he stressed it should stay on the list for the time being. "Although hGH appears to be used by some athletes, no study has shown any enhancing effect in any sport in healthy persons."