Sunday, May 02, 2004
More on MLB's Drug Testing Process
I'm not persuaded by Jon Heyman's latest Newsday article about the government's seizure of MLB's drug testing records. Heyman says:
"The baseball players' union blew it by not handing over the results of the 10 players who testified at the BALCO hearing, as it was supposed to. Now, as Newsday reported Saturday, the feds got all 1,400 MLB steroid- test results from 2003 with their search warrant - not just the 10. That means about 60 to 90 players could be exposed.
"Serves them right, both the overzealous union and the players who cheated.
"Now the union is frantically filing papers to recover the results of all but the 10 testifiers. If Gene Orza and Co. had simply played ball in the first place, that's all the feds would have. That was the deal, the 10 players (including Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi and Gary Sheffield), to see who perjured themselves in the BALCO hearing."
Here's how the tests worked. (The collection procedures are set forth in Addendum A to the drug testing agreement, p. 172 of the CBA. A .PDF of the CBA is downloadable here.) The collector received a master list of all players to be tested, along with an identifying number assigned to each player. At the time of the test, the player affixed the assigned identifying number to the specimen vial, then filled it. The collector then poured 45 ml of urine into one specimen bottle, 15 ml into a second. The player then verified the ID number on the bottle custody seals, initialed and dated the seals.
The samples, now identifiable only by ID number, were then sent to the lab for processing. They never left the lab, Quest Diagnostics, until they were seized by the Feds. The Collection Procedures further specify:
"At the conclusion of any Survey Test, and after the results of all tests have been calculated, all test results, including any identifying characteristics, will be destroyed in a process jointly supervised by the Office of the Commissioner and the [MLBPA]."
Most of the samples were destroyed, but apparently about 500 remained when the Feds swooped down on Quest Diagnostics.
In all, 1,438 tests were administered: 1,198 tests of players on the 40-man major league roster, and 240 re-tests of randomly selected players. After the season, MLB revealed that between 5% and 7% of these tests were positive -- over the 5% threshold needed to trigger program testing in 2004. (Heyman's May 1 article cites a union memo which says that 5.77% of the samples tested positive. That would be 83 samples, though because of the random retesting, the number of individual players who tested positive is probably around 70.)
Since 2003's testing was for survey purposes only, with no adverse consequences for a player who tested positive, there was no need to match names with ID numbers. The sheets containing this information presumably remained locked away in the files of the joint labor-management Health Policy Advisory Committee which administers the testing program. This, in turn, means that both MLB and the MLBPA had the list -- so even if, as Heyman says, the MLBPA reneged on a commitment to turn over the results for the 10 "BALCO players," the Feds could have gotten the same information simply by asking MLB.
Thus there was still no justification for seizing a list that includes confidential test results for 1,188 players with no known connection to BALCO. And even if there had been, once the Feds had the list of test results they had no legitimate reason to seize the remaining samples themselves, let alone to retest those samples for THG, as yesterday's New York Times indicated they plan to do. Even if Player X's sample tests positive for THG, that fact is utterly irrelevant to the BALCO investigation unless the government can prove he got the THG from BALCO rather than any other source -- and since the Feds already have BALCO's records, they already know which small percentage of the players could fall under suspicion on that basis.
Instead the Feds have deliberately chosen to trample on the privacy concerns that both MLB and the MLBPA took all possible steps to protect when implementing their confidential drug testing program. Their heavy-handed confirmation of both sides' worst fears virtually assures that the players will never consent to the broader testing program demanded by Congress, and that MLB and the MLBPA will jointly agree to destroy all physical evidence, and all identifying information, five seconds after it is processed to prevent an abuse of this magnitude from ever happening again.
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I'm not persuaded by Jon Heyman's latest Newsday article about the government's seizure of MLB's drug testing records. Heyman says:
"The baseball players' union blew it by not handing over the results of the 10 players who testified at the BALCO hearing, as it was supposed to. Now, as Newsday reported Saturday, the feds got all 1,400 MLB steroid- test results from 2003 with their search warrant - not just the 10. That means about 60 to 90 players could be exposed.
"Serves them right, both the overzealous union and the players who cheated.
"Now the union is frantically filing papers to recover the results of all but the 10 testifiers. If Gene Orza and Co. had simply played ball in the first place, that's all the feds would have. That was the deal, the 10 players (including Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi and Gary Sheffield), to see who perjured themselves in the BALCO hearing."
Here's how the tests worked. (The collection procedures are set forth in Addendum A to the drug testing agreement, p. 172 of the CBA. A .PDF of the CBA is downloadable here.) The collector received a master list of all players to be tested, along with an identifying number assigned to each player. At the time of the test, the player affixed the assigned identifying number to the specimen vial, then filled it. The collector then poured 45 ml of urine into one specimen bottle, 15 ml into a second. The player then verified the ID number on the bottle custody seals, initialed and dated the seals.
The samples, now identifiable only by ID number, were then sent to the lab for processing. They never left the lab, Quest Diagnostics, until they were seized by the Feds. The Collection Procedures further specify:
"At the conclusion of any Survey Test, and after the results of all tests have been calculated, all test results, including any identifying characteristics, will be destroyed in a process jointly supervised by the Office of the Commissioner and the [MLBPA]."
Most of the samples were destroyed, but apparently about 500 remained when the Feds swooped down on Quest Diagnostics.
In all, 1,438 tests were administered: 1,198 tests of players on the 40-man major league roster, and 240 re-tests of randomly selected players. After the season, MLB revealed that between 5% and 7% of these tests were positive -- over the 5% threshold needed to trigger program testing in 2004. (Heyman's May 1 article cites a union memo which says that 5.77% of the samples tested positive. That would be 83 samples, though because of the random retesting, the number of individual players who tested positive is probably around 70.)
Since 2003's testing was for survey purposes only, with no adverse consequences for a player who tested positive, there was no need to match names with ID numbers. The sheets containing this information presumably remained locked away in the files of the joint labor-management Health Policy Advisory Committee which administers the testing program. This, in turn, means that both MLB and the MLBPA had the list -- so even if, as Heyman says, the MLBPA reneged on a commitment to turn over the results for the 10 "BALCO players," the Feds could have gotten the same information simply by asking MLB.
Thus there was still no justification for seizing a list that includes confidential test results for 1,188 players with no known connection to BALCO. And even if there had been, once the Feds had the list of test results they had no legitimate reason to seize the remaining samples themselves, let alone to retest those samples for THG, as yesterday's New York Times indicated they plan to do. Even if Player X's sample tests positive for THG, that fact is utterly irrelevant to the BALCO investigation unless the government can prove he got the THG from BALCO rather than any other source -- and since the Feds already have BALCO's records, they already know which small percentage of the players could fall under suspicion on that basis.
Instead the Feds have deliberately chosen to trample on the privacy concerns that both MLB and the MLBPA took all possible steps to protect when implementing their confidential drug testing program. Their heavy-handed confirmation of both sides' worst fears virtually assures that the players will never consent to the broader testing program demanded by Congress, and that MLB and the MLBPA will jointly agree to destroy all physical evidence, and all identifying information, five seconds after it is processed to prevent an abuse of this magnitude from ever happening again.
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