Luis Torres at The Hardball Times explains everything there is to know about EPO, the substance that landed Wellington Castillo an 80 game suspension. This is the most telling paragraphs of the report, on the effectiveness of the hormone:
Let’s go back to the study examining the effects of EPO on cycling. Scientists designed a study that was as close to a clinical trial as they could. Ideally, you would want a few hundred experienced, professional cyclists. The problem is that there obviously is not a huge pool of these kind candidates to choose from, and of course, those that do qualify are prohibited from taking EPO at all. The best the scientists could do was “48 well-trained male amateur cyclists.”
The limitations of the study mean the results need to be taken with a grain of salt. That being said, the findings were striking. It appeared EPO was completely useless as a performance enhancer for cycling.
So if there is even the possibility EPO is ineffective for cyclists, how could it possibly help baseball players? And why would MLB ban it?
The ban has as much to do with the dangers of the drug as anything else. Castillo may have taken the drug for nothing more than tainting his career.
from baseballmusings.com https://ift.tt/2ITqUFa
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