injuryupdate
24-02-2004, 07:44 PM
It seems that the larger sports have found the task of having a sensible drug policy beyond them to a great extent in recent times. Soccer dithered over Rio Ferdinand skipping a drug test, tennis has been even worse with respect to the Greg Rusedski affair (read more), and now it seems that Australian rugby does not have a streamlined process in place for getting approval for a non-performance-enhancing but medically-necessary drug for one of its players suffering an acute illness. Steve Kefu has contracted Bell's palsy (read more about this at www.bellspalsy.net and www.ninds.nih.gov), a viral illness, which requires prednisolone, a corticosteroid. Read more at foxsports. Unlike anabolic steroids, corticosteroids are catabolic (muscle weakening) so it is a mystery to many as to why they are on the banned list in the first place. ASDA doesn't test for them, so it must have been very tempting for the Queensland Reds to give him the medication and just keep it quiet. The fallout from the Ben Tune affair of two years ago was obviously the reason why the Reds didn't keep it quiet, and they have been 'rewarded' with having the player unavailable because a panel couldn't be organised to approve the drug. It seems like a bit of a farce in a sport in which many presume that local anaesthetic gets used on a semi-regular basis, despite being banned, and the teams and doctors have no trouble keeping this quiet!