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Green Chairs Landmark Conference on Doping
Gary Green, team physician for Waves athletics and the Pepperdine Student Health Center, will serve as chair for a summit of the world's leading anti-doping experts and scholars on Monday, Nov. 10, in Beverly Hills, California. The summit is sponsored by Major League Baseball (MLB), the law firm Foley & Lardner LLP, and the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.
Green, who is also a clinical professor in the division of Sports Medicine at UCLA and MLB’s consultant on performance-enhancing drugs, will host the summit titled “Human Growth Hormone (hGH): Barriers to Implementation of hGH Testing in Sports.” The goal is to identify the scientific, medical, legal, and ethical issues that must be addressed before human growth hormone testing can be considered a routine part of sports drug testing.
“The effective regulation of hGH remains one of the foremost challenges for anti-doping efforts in all sports," says Allan H. (Bud) Selig, baseball commissioner, who initiated the summit after the release of the Mitchell Report, which identified 89 MLB players who are alleged to have used steroids or drugs. "This summit is a significant step forward, and Major League Baseball is pleased that Dr. Green, one of the foremost experts in the field, will head this initiative.”
The comprehensive program will explore the current methods for identifying use of hGH and understanding the viability of urine testing for hGH in the future; building a consensus on the most effective methods of implementing widespread blood testing for abuse of hGH; identifying future strategies for hGH testing; and understanding the United States Laws regarding the regulation and distribution of hGH.
In addition to Green, the summit will feature presentations from other leaders in the field including Anthony W. Butch, director of the UCLA Olympic Analytical Laboratory; Don H. Catlin, director, Anti-Doping Research; Alan Goldhammer, vice president, Scientific and Regulatory Affairs, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America; Travis T. Tygart, CEO of the United States Anti-Doping Agency; Frank D. Uryasz, President of The National Center for Drug Free Sport; and Moutian Wu, PhD, of the National Anti-Doping Laboratory and the China Anti-Doping Agency.
"I am very excited that world-wide experts in analytical chemistry, medicine, law, and ethics have agreed to participate in this meeting," Green says. "The abuse of human growth hormone is a problem that goes beyond professional sports; an Internet search to buy human growth hormone provides almost five million sites. This conference will address the regulation of hGH as well methods to deter its use. Bringing together experts from multiple specialties is a positive step in addressing this very significant problem."
Click here for more information on the Human Growth Hormone Summit
