MD: All Chael was doing was trying to be normal
Dr. Don Catlin: “So he’s doing what he should do medically, to get his system revised. But the trouble is, what he’s using, is blocked and banned by the sport.”
Dr. Don Catlin, “the father of drug testing in sports” appeared recently on Inside MMA to discuss Chael Sonnen’s recent failure of a drug test administered by the Nevada State Athletic Commission. In 1982 Dr. Catlin founded the first anti-doping lab in the USA, the UCLA Olympic Analytical Laboratory. It is now the world’s largest testing facility of performance enhancing drugs (PEDs). He oversaw the drug testing for the 1984, 1996, and 2002 Olympics.
Kenny Rice asked “As far as you’re concerned, is this really like a Testosterone Replacement Therapy kind of drug?”
Dr, Catlin replied that the two drugs Sonnen tested positive for is not equivalent to a positive test for PEDs.
“It’s really not the same. He has stopped TRT. He stopped everything. And now he needs to wake up his system – it’s suppressed… So he’s doing what he should do medically, to get his system revised. But the trouble is, what he’s using, is blocked and banned by the sport.
“So he gets caught with that, when all he’s trying to do is be normal again.”
Bas Rutten interjected.
“What about a perfectly healthy athlete, if he would take those… would he get elevated testosterone levels?”
Dr. Catlin replied concisely.
“Yes,” he said.
Co-host Kenny Rice then asked why us?
“Why does there seem to be more testosterone-related problems, and suspensions, and testing (positive) in MMA right now that any other sport out there?”
Dr. Catlin offered a theory.
“I don’t have any answer to that,” he replied. “MMA developed their own way of dealing with these things. The Olympics and the NFL have a different way. We don’t use TRT or anything like this in the Olympics.
“In the Olympics there are lots of men that try to get approval to use it. But they have to pass through a committee which I am on, and they never pass. We never let them in. So we never give anybody the approval to use testosterone, because we know it’s fake.”
“I know this field. I’ve been doing it for 25-30 years, and I know that all the men that come in and say that they have Hypogonadism are fibbing. Period.”
Rice then clarified an important point.
“Some fighters have taken umbrage with this show, because… they all want to say TRT is not a steroid. And every doctor we’ve had on said it is a steroid.”
Again, Dr. Catlin replied concisely.
“Right,” he said.
