Raglan - positive swabs

[triplev123]

Its banned drug that helps a horse with soreness you dont have a case full stop

[VVV] Thankfully at a National and International level, not everyone wishes to similarly bury their head in the sand Zipzap.
A re-think of the whole approach to therapeautics is already in the wings. It is going to happen. Not tomorrow, not next month and maybe not next year but be well assured that it will come to pass.
As I've asked previously when this very subject raised its head, isn't it better...doesn't it make more sense to be part of the process by which those changes are made and different rules are adopted...than it is to scream about the outcome after all is said and done?

[teecee]

Attached is an excerpt from an article referred to me by my niece.
She is an equine veterinary surgeon based in Kentucky USA.

I find the list Table 1 in the article interesting as it is a whose who of drugs returning more than 95% of positives in Austalasian racing jurisdictions. As you can see we are very much behind the 8 ball with developing thresholds for these drugs.

Equine Drugs, Medications, and Performance Altering Substances: Their Performance Effects, Detection, and Regulation

Dr. Thomas Tobin, Dr. Julio Gutierrez, Emily Schwartz,
Dr. Fernanda Camargo, and Charlie Hughes
Equine Pharmacology, Therapeutics and Toxicology Laboratory
The Maxwell H. Gluck Equine Research Center
University of Kentucky
Lexington, KY 40546-0099

Dr. Rodney Eisenberg
Frontier Biopharm
6013 Atwood Drive, Suite 300
Richmond, KY 40475
e-mail: rod@frontierbiopharm.com

Dr.Andreas Lehner
Diagnostic Center for Population and Animal Health
College of Veterinary Medicine
Michigan State University
4125 Beaumont Road
Lansing, MI 48910

Mr. Kent Stirling
Florida Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association
P.O Box 1808
Opa Loca, FL 33055-0808


Based on a presentation to the Equine Law section
of the Kentucky Bar Association at Keeneland,
Lexington, Kentucky, Oct 21, 2005
(webpage updated Dec 2010)

Table of Contents

1 Summary
2 Background and Definitions
3 History
4 Can Drugs or Medications Influence the Outcome of a Race?
5 The Introduction of ELISA Testing (1988)
6 Mass Spectral Confirmation
7 Liquid Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry/Mass Spectrometry
(LC/MS/MS)
8 "Zero Tolerance" Testing
9 Numbers of Medication Molecules: Medication Dosing and Elimination
10 Thresholds, Including "No Effect Thresholds" (NETs)
11 Withdrawal Time Guidelines
12 Reference Standards
13 Medication Rules
14 The Current Racing Medication Testing Consortium (RMTC) &
Association of Racing Commissioners International (ARCI) Rule
15 Further Reading
16 Appendices



1. Summary

Thoroughbred Racing has been testing for drugs and medications since about 1903. Today, racehorse testing is by far the longest established, broadest in scope and most sensitive drug testing performed on earth. Racehorse testing is also performed within an extremely stringent regulatory context, and my understanding is that many of our constitutional protections as US citizens are inoperative in the racing environment. Racehorse testing is also remarkably “clean,” as the incidence of deliberate use of performance affecting substances seems to be very small.

There are good reasons for all of the above. It is empirically clear that medications are highly likely to influence the performance of racing horses, although the scientific evidence for actual improved performance is much less than overwhelming.

In the mid-nineteen eighties, however, the use of high potency drugs with clear potential to affect performance was not particularly well controlled. Following a directive from the Kentucky State Racing Commission, an interdisciplinary team at the University of Kentucky worked on adapting ELISA testing to racing chemistry; this proprietary technology was at that time a major step towards solving the problem of the abuse of high potency drugs in racing horses, and these tests are now marketed worldwide out of Lexington (www.neogen.com/forensickits.htm)

One of the lessons that came out of ELISA testing is that advances in drug detection/testing are research driven. Once a medication is “called positive”, that is the first “positive” is called and prosecuted, the rate of use of the substance drops dramatically, to close to zero, but not quite zero; it appears that there are always people ready to try a medication that worked for them, or for a colleague, or a rival, in the past.

Overall, the rate at which performance altering medication violations are reported in racing is extremely small. For example, from 1995–1999 there were about 3 positives for every 100,000 samples for Association of Racing Commissioners International [ARCI] Class 1 violations after trace level identifications of dietary and environmental substances are eliminated. By far, the most common identifications reported in racing are residual “traces” of well recognized and widely used therapeutic medications, so called “tail-ends” of therapeutic medications , and traces of dietary and environmental substances that also happen to be ARCI substances, for example trace level identifications of caffeine and other substances widely used by humans.

The ease with which such “traces” of therapeutic medications, dietary and environmental substances can be detected using current testing technology has now clearly led scientists and regulators away from the old “zero tolerance” approach, which many authorities now see as outdated, to defined regulatory limits or “thresholds” for therapeutic medications, endogenous, dietary and environmental substances.

This situation was driven in large part by ELISA testing, which allows highly sensitive detection of trace amounts (tail ends) of therapeutic medications, environmental and dietary substances. In the nineteen nineties, following another Kentucky Racing Commission directive, the University of Kentucky program at The Maxwell H. Gluck Equine Research Center pioneered the basic research that underpins the evolving and now in principle very well established concept concerning the use of regulatory “thresholds” in racing regulation.

More recent challenges include developing effective regulatory methods for the newer recombinant hormonal products such as the various human recombinant erythropoietin products and variants thereof and growth hormones. More recently, a high quality ELISA test has been made available for human recombinant erythropoietin and racing chemistry has scored a major scientific breakthrough by developing the first mass spectral confirmation method to detect use of recombinant human erythropoietin (rhEPO) in horses or, indeed, in any species.


2. Background and Definitions

There are at least 30 million known chemical substances and 4,000 or more prescription medications. Racing regulators in the United States , therefore, divide drugs and medications into two major groups:

The largest group of concern to regulators is the "performance-enhancing substances", whose identification in a horse is viewed with great regulatory concern. Testing for these substances usually proceeds at the highest level of sensitivity possible; so-called "zero-tolerance" testing. About 900 or so substances are classified by the Association of Racing Commissioners International (ARCI) Uniform Classification System for Foreign Substances as potentially performance enhancing in a five class system, the most complete listing of such substances available anywhere in the world (http://www.arci.com/druglisting.pdf).

The second and smaller group comprises the "therapeutic medications", recognized by the American Association of Equine Practitioners [AAEP] and the Racing Medication and Testing Consortium [RMTC]. There are approximately 50 plus of these medications used therapeutically in horses in training (Table 1). Since about the year 2000, it has come to be much more generally accepted that we must set “limitations” on the sensitivity of testing for therapeutic medications. These limitations are variously called thresholds or reporting levels, or decision levels ( California ) apparently depending on the semantic preference of the individual jurisdiction.

Table 1. Therapeutic Medications Routinely Used and Identified as Necessary by the Veterinary Advisory Committee — (Racing Medication and Testing Consortium [RMTC] draft list of therapeutic medications, 2005)


1. Acepromazine17. Dipyrone 33. Omeprazole 2. Albuterol18. Flunixin 34. Pentoxifylline3. Aminocaproic Acid19. Fluprednisolone35. Phenylbutazone4. Atropine20. Fluphenazine36. Phenytoin5. Beclomethasone21. Furosemide37. Prednisolone6. Betamethasone22. Glycopyrrolate 38. Prednisone7. Boldenone23. Guaifenesin39. Procaine Penicillin8. Butorphanol 24. Hydroxyzine40. Pyrilamine9. Cimetidine25. Isoflupredone41. Ranitidine10. Clenbuterol26. Isoxsuprine42. Reserpine11. Cromolyn27. Ketoprofen43. Stanozolol12. Dantrolene28. Lidocaine 44. Testosterone13. Detomidine 29. Mepivacaine 45. Triamcinolone14. Dexamethasone30. Methocarbamol 46. Trichlomethiazide15. Diazepam31. Methylprednisolone16. DMSO32. Nandrolone

The full article is available at.....
http://thomastobin.com/drugsmeds/drugsmeds.htm

[triplev123]

Cheers Tony, plenty of interesting reading there. Most appreciated.

Jaimie

[zipzap]

Yes but this is not America(thank god i was born here in the lucky country) so until the rules are changed people cant bitch when they hear of a banning for its use.

[Greg Hando]

G,day Tony was wondering what the number after each substance was is it day's,hour's or something else ?
Don't matter just found it .

[Greg Hando]

I particularly pricked my ear's when i read this :

And as an aside, where the metabolized drug goes after urination can be a matter of some regulatory significance. If the dose of drug administration to horses large, and the drug/metabolite is excreted at high concentrations in the horse's urine, the horse will contaminate his stall environment. It has been shown that a "clean" horse put into the environmentally contaminated stall can immediately go "positive" for the medication in question, creating an interesting regulatory circumstance, and demonstrating another compelling argument in favor of regulatory thresholds for therapeutic medications.

[murray green]

Thats right Greg . A horse can actually absorb DMSO , excreted through urine , through its feet or body if it lies down . It is very possible that Smoken Up was a victim of circumstance .

[Greg Hando]

Yes maybe