Sheahan Banned

Sundy

A two year ban for sheahan and a big blow for munster rugby.
From IRFU website:

Sheahan To Appeal Suspension


A statement issued by the Irish Rugby Football Union/b> has confirmed that Frank Sheahan will lodge an appeal against the two year suspension handed down by the Independent Judicial Tribunal of the ERC.
The statement issued on Friday evening read,
The Irish Rugby Football Union learned today of the decision by the Independent Judicial Tribunal of European Rugby Cup in the matter relating to Frank Sheahan.

The Union understands that the player is appealing the decision of the Judicial Tribunal in this matter and as such it would be inappropriate to comment on this specific case until the disciplinary process has been completed.

The IRFU fully subscribes to the anti-doping programmes of the Irish Sports Council, the International Rugby Board and European Rugby Cup and the Union is seen to be proactive in this regard with some 103 tests carried out in the past season, from club to international level, taking account of in and out of competition testing.

GreenHell

Its a bit of a farce really, if he needed to use his inhalor during the weeks between the Leicster game and the toulose game then what choice would he have as an asmathic and a professional rugby player.

However if he is quilty of using an anabolic then lets hope the rumours of woody coming to munster are true.

bucks73

The tribunal found that the amount of Salbutamol in his system was 20 times higher after the Toulouse game compared to when he was tested after the Leicester game.

They also said that they could not believe him when he said he took only 8 puffs from his inhaler during the Toulouse game.

Salbutamol is found in the Ventolin inhaler he uses for asthma or excercise induced asthma.

It certainly doesnt look too good for him at the moment. Pity really as he had a very good season last year and now Munster have to find a replacement.

As for Woody, the word in Limerick is that he is going to go back to Garryowen.

jonno

Just read up on it now and it certainly doesn't look very good for him. That's a hell of alot of difference between the two samples so it looks as if he might have a sh1tload of explaining to do.

Sundy

there must be something more than meets the eye alright because a player was already cleared of of a similar offence to the one sheahan claims happened.

Personly i dont think it will affect the irish rugby team too much now that Woody is going to be fit again.

suppafly

there and article up on munsterrugby.ie about him appealing the ban. Heres the bit about why he had so much more salbutamol in his system

Finally, in relation to the divergence in the level of prohibited substance found in the players sample, from the qurter final and semi final, Perry Leary, a Professor of Pharmatology, an acknowledged expert in this area, gave evidence on behalf of Frank Sheahan in which he stated that the humidity differential (a maximum of 57%) between the Leicester and Toulouse games, coupled with the severe dehydration experienced by the player immediately and for some time after the game, had a direct bearing on the levels found in the sample provided. The ERC medical team agreed with this evidence.

lets hope he's cleared of all the charges!

D-Generate

Can't any of you just accept that there is a high chance that he is on drugs. Every one wants to be the best in their field and Sheanan thought the way to be the best was using drugs, just like every other abuser. I bet you thought Michelle Smith was innocent aswell :rolleyes:

Coyler

Of course most people can accept that professional sportmen and women can and will take drugs. Michelle Smith was lynched by the media and the public at large when it was found she had tampered with the sample.There is a good chance she was, However guilt was assumed even if she was clean or taking drugs. The fact that she was never caught taking banned substances even though she was harassed by "random" testing for years, escaped everyone attention.
As for Frankie, I know the man and have played with and against him for many years. I am also an asthma suffer and from time to time require Ventolin (usually during the colder months) to open my bronchial passages to breathe and perform to normal standards. These simple facts enable me to arrive at two well informed conclusions
1. Ventolin (Salbutamol) will only effect the passages in your lungs allowing them to relax and operate at normal capacity. So as a pro rugby player the effect this has once administered is negeligible if it is 10ng or 10,000ng. It sure won't make you muscle bound or superfit. How many asthma suffers do you all know?
2. There may be wild speculation among rugby circles that some players are abusing substances and I'm sure there are. However, Frankie has never even displayed the side effects, never mind prime effects of performence enhancing substances. I'm sure this and many other reasons are why his coach and fellow players are quite vocal in their support for him.
And just to add some balance to this discussion here is an article on a world class player taking banned substances..... and getting off. Hmmm . I'm not naive enough to think that no one take drugs to help them get that edge over the next man. I'm also not so naive to know that a business will protect its prized assets at all costs often to the detriment of its less prized assets. Carl Lewis and Flo Jo and Edgar Davids and Lance Armstrong and Jaap Stam and and and........

Hairy Homer

There was a very interesting article in the Irish Times a few days ago on the subject of sportsmen suffering from asthma. Enclosed are some abridged extracts

Earlier in 2001 the late Prince Alexander de Merode, then chairman of the IOC's [International Olympic Committee] medical commission, said 70 to 80 per cent of the athletes at the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer declared themselves as asthmatic and needing to take medicine that contained steroids.

"In Sydney seven per cent of the athletes had asthma but in the rest of the population, only one per cent suffer from asthma," De Merode said. "It's very bizarre. There is a clear advantage to people taking drugs meant for asthma sufferers. It's a very popular illness."


Jacques Rogge, president of IOC, spoke last year about his difficulty with the medication: "The problem is that too many athletes pretend that they have asthma."

Figures show the incidence of asthma medication use among athletes increased from 3.6 per cent at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996 to 5.6 per cent two years later at the Winter Games in Nagano.

As Neil Francis pointed out in the Tribune on Sunday, Ventolin is not a muscle-enhancing drug but it sure increases the oxygen carrying capacity of the body, and therefore the pace at which one can play at a sustained rate. Blood doping, an illegal activity IF they can catch you at it, I believe performs a similar function.

I don't know whether Frankie Sheahan is a genuine asthma sufferer or not, but I respectfully suggest that this misses the point.

The issue here isn't asthma but the use of Ventolin/Salbutamol. Why not ban it altogether, even for asthma sufferers who are not professional sportsmen?

I am married to a chronic asthma sufferer whose use of Ventolin has dropped from a daily occurence to almost zero as a result of using the Buteyko controlled breathing method. Too complicated for a non medical person like me to understand, but she—a qualified nurse—insists that it all makes good sense and it has certainly transformed her ability to cope with the ailment. The problem with Buteyko is that it requires a great deal of physical discipline and so many people are put off it. But isn't physical self discipline a prerequisite for all professional sportsmen? Apart from darts and snooker players of course.

Another factor is that apart from a one-off fee to attend the Buteyko course the cost of the treatment to the patient is free. No recurring fees to pharmaceutical companies, or chemists, or dare I say it to doctors. Could this be why such alternative treatment is not widely publicised?

I believe that asthma is often a fatal ailment today whereas 100 years ago, before there was ventolin, it was no such thing. Conclusion: the disease doesn't kill you; the drugs do.

Coyler

Never heard of Buteyko before so I did a little google on it. Looks quite interesting as breathing exercises are what I use to help me sleep so would sound useful. However it is a long term solution and one that doesn't repalce Ventolin benefits. Let me explain. Most people out grow there asthma, for example Frankie Sheehan is an asthma suffer from 1977. However, and this might account for the increase in users in the olympics, at the extreme end of phyiscal exercise one can experience exercise enduced asthma. This is a perfectly normal condition recognized by many medical bodies and researches. When you do then have an attack, Ventolin is an easier and legal solution to the problem. But I think we are straying of topic slightly. Salbutamol is allowed for the reasons that Frankie gave. They ignored two laboratory test that stated that he did in all probability inhale the salbutamol and that the high concentration was in all probability caused by dehydration.
Which leads us nicely to Neil Franis article. I found it a little disappointing that a former player relied on half-truths, subjective analysis and anecdotal evidence to make his point. He saw six players useing inhalers. So? 20 times higher than the leicester sample. What does that mean? He was attacked by a player with "roid-rage". And? Frankies performance improved over the last year. Relavent how? The simple fact is that Ventolin has not been proven to have any performence enhancing benifit for a pro sportsman. If it did you be sure that 5.6% of olympic athletes would be asthmatic. I'm open to correction on this but the ERC seem to believe this too. Had he ticked the now famous box would he be in trouble?
Perhaps there should be more stricter regulations in testing i.e. blood-testing, tighter control of allow substances, however until there are, Frankie only crime seems to be that he suffers from poor eye-sight too.

bucks73

I dont know if Frankie has taken anything apart from the Ventolin but talking to other rugby supporters here in Limerick and Cork everyone agrees that the ERC have ignored two vital pieces of evidence and these will come out in the appeal.

Another feeling in rugby circles is that again Irish rugby is being made the scapegoat. When Peter Clohessy was caught stamping in Paris the punishment was too severe. Yet when he was bitten in Castres last season he had to drop the charges becuase the French cites Clohessy for racial abuse.

I cant remember which southern hemisphere player it was but he was also found to be over the limit for salbutomol last year and the charges were dropped on appeal. It will be interesting to see what Frankies appeal decide. If he is found innocent the ERC have tainted his name and could face civil action. Their track record over the last few seasons leaves a lot to be desired from a Munster point of view.

GreenHell

Heard on the radio during the week that the appeal is more or less a retrial. The panel judging won't have any of the information from the orginal tribunal or any contact with the orginal tribunal. Joke bai!

Confident for Frankie and hopefully he'll be back because I'm not so confident of Shane Byrne as number 2 choice hooker for the world cup.

hallelujajordan

Originally posted by Hairy Homer


I believe that asthma is often a fatal ailment today whereas 100 years ago, before there was ventolin, it was no such thing. Conclusion: the disease doesn't kill you; the drugs do.

And your analysis to come to this conclusion is based on what ? the fact that your wife has overcome her asthma with some breathing exercises ? ? ? The truth is that salbutamol is a life saving drug. . . . it opens the bronchioles of patients who without it might be in serious trouble . . . if Frankie Sheahan has a serious asthma condition he should be allowed to take as much salbutamol as is necessary to allow him to function normally....

tHE vAGGABOND

but because it is such an important drug more and more professional sportsmen use it to make themselves last longer in their sports..

Sundy

Originally posted by GreenHell

Confident for Frankie and hopefully he'll be back because I'm not so confident of Shane Byrne as number 2 choice hooker for the world cup.

your right there Byrne should be No 1 choice hooker with Wood second and Frankie suspended or else 3rd choice.

Hairy Homer

Originally posted by hallelujajordan
And your analysis to come to this conclusion is based on what ? the fact that your wife has overcome her asthma with some breathing exercises ? ? ?

OK As I intimated, I am not a medical person (are you?) but I am exposed occasionally because of my family circumstances to discussions involving people with a sound knowledge of asthma and its treatment.

There is no doubt that there have been great increases in the mortality rate from asthma in the 20th century and that inhaled medicines designed to treat it were at least partly responsible. Check out this review of an academic work on asthma, especially what it says about Chapter 7, if you don't believe me.

The following quote is particularly interesting:
‘…determining the causes of the epidemics of asthma mortality-first in the 1960s, then the late 1970s to the 1980s-in countries such as New Zealand, Australia, Great Britain, the United States and Canada…. The main culprit (for those of you who still don't know) was the introduction (and presumed overuse) of inhaled beta-2 agonists such as isoproterenol (the "Forte" preparation) and fenoterol.’

Salbutamol, the ingredient of Ventolin that got Frankie Sheahan into trouble, is also a beta-2 agonist. (Whatever that means.) It’s also a banned substance, unless you have been cleared to use it because of a pre-existing medical condition.

My point is that this grey area has the potential to lead to abuse: either by players who deliberately use it to boost their oxygen intake capabilities; or of players who innocently use a medicine to which they believe they are entitled and who find themselves on the wrong side of an interpretation as to the quantity they ingested.

I’m sure we’d all like to think that Frankie Sheahan falls into the second category. However, given the levels of salbutamol in his sample after the Toulouse game, which was played on a wet rainy day not typical of the scorcher one might expect in the south of France, the suspicion that he may have over indulged is a reasonable one.

If he’s guilty of using a drug for performance enhancement, does he deserve to be banned for two years? Absolutely, in my opinion.

If he’s not, given the amount of performance enhancing substance that was found in his system, what does that say about the tolerance of such drugs by top athletes? Is there not an incentive for them to seek to be diagnosed with an ailment that would give them carte blanche to use such substances at grave risk to their health? Does this not lead quickly from an environment of toleration to a culture of encouragement?

(‘Now look here, Mad Dog. The other crowd are all puffing away, they’ll sprint past you in the first ten minutes. Take some yourself. The doc will certify that you get asthmatic attacks when you over exert yourself so it’s all legal. Oh and it doesn’t do you any harm because after all it’s a live saving drug. And when you suddenly don’t need it any more after you retire, you can say that you outgrew your asthma’)

Now this might describe a perfectly genuine case, but it might also describe an utter charlatan.

While there are alternative treatments available for asthma, I don’t believe genuine asthmatic sufferers should be allowed to use substances banned from use by other athletes.

So my hopes for the outcome of this are:

1) Sheahan gets cleared on appeal of not breaking the current rules

2) That the ban on Salbutamol is extended to all players, even those who genuinely suffer from asthma.

The truth is that salbutamol is a life saving drug. . . . it opens the bronchioles of patients who without it might be in serious trouble

There is a body of opinion, I will put it no stronger than that, not being an expert, which suggests that such drugs exarcebate the very problem they are trying to cure. See the quotation from the website above.

It is not at all unusual for new drugs that are intended to cure a particular ailment to be found to have harmful side effects. eg Thalidomide—your morning sickness is gone but your baby will have no arms.

In the case of beta-2 agonists, my understanding (sorry for all the hedging but I'm a real layman when it comes to medicine) is that they caused an increase in deaths by the very ailment they were intended to cure. Is this a frequent occurence in medicine? Perhaps some medical posters out there can enlighten us.

GreenHell

Originally posted by Sundy
your right there Byrne should be No 1 choice hooker with Wood second and Frankie suspended or else 3rd choice.

Oooh the burn! Byrne lets be honest here, he doesn't cut the mustard at international level where as frankie (lets hope the honest way) has been improving in all areas of his game last season with munster.

Coyler

The points are well made and well researched, Hairy, however I fail to see how the two are related. Asthma may be side effect of drugs but Sportmen didn't invent asthma so they could get away with doping.

Lets deal with the main issue. Does Ventolin (inhaled salbutamol) improve performance for athletes. Salbutamol taken orally (tablet form) does and is well documented in doing so. However when inhaled it does not and has never been shown to. Cafdis themselves have done research on this here .Go to point 4 for the relevant information. In fact read it all its quite interesting.

Now lab results had shown he had inhaled the salbutamol and the panel accepted this fact. So where does this leave us. Frankie Sheehan inhaled to much of what amounts to a placebo. As pointed out in the Tribune (which Franno was notably abscent) members of the IOC are looking at changing the law to apply no upper limit because the effects of the drug are insignificant. This amounts to guilt by association. This is like equating everyone with CD-burners with pirates..... then again that might be bad example but you get my dirft

I will admit that doping law and regulation are confusing at best but I would prefer that the powers that be err on the side of the athtele. Medals and trophys are one thing but a man's reputation and livehood is another more pressing matter. I do also agree when an athlete is found to have broken the rules *ahem* Ben Tune *ahem* and found to have clearly taken illegal substances the book should be thrown at him.

Or am I just stupid to think that a 3rd choice hooker is treated differently to a world-class, try scoring, high profile, seat filling, gotta be at the world cup at all costs or we might lose millions player. Lets hope its the former.

By the by, I would be a ardent Leinster supporter who chuckles at the fact that Munster has this victim complex when the IRFU is controlled by Corkmen but thats for another thread.

Hairy Homer

Originally posted by Coyler
Asthma may be side effect of drugs but Sportmen didn't invent asthma so they could get away with doping.

I didn't for one second suggest that sportsment invented asthma. What I suggested, given the discrepancies between the apparent incidence of asthma sufferers at the olympics (as referred to in the Irish Times) compared with the population as a whole, was that some sportsmen are exploiting the situation to abuse performance enhancing drugs.

Lets deal with the main issue. Does Ventolin (inhaled salbutamol) improve performance for athletes. Salbutamol taken orally (tablet form) does and is well documented in doing so. However when inhaled it does not and has never been shown to. Cafdis themselves have done research on this here .Go to point 4 for the relevant information. In fact read it all its quite interesting.

Gee thanks Coyler, that's some mound of homework you've given me. :-)

What this layman would ask is: does it really matter what the method of ingestion (spray inhalation v taking a tablet) is? Surely it's a case of the amount of the substance that the body has absorbed? Which in the case of Frankie Sheahan was quite a lot. But I'll trawl through as much of this as I can understand and come back to (at) you.

Now lab results had shown he had inhaled the salbutamol and the panel accepted this fact.

That's good enough for me. I accept he inhaled it too. I remain sceptical that this should be the issue. It's the amount, not the method of ingestion that should be important, notwithstanding the points below.

So where does this leave us. Frankie Sheehan inhaled to much of what amounts to a placebo.

As pointed out in the Tribune (which Franno was notably abscent) members of the IOC are looking at changing the law to apply no upper limit because the effects of the drug are insignificant.

Now wait a minute. Salbutamol is not a placebo. And the passage you referred me to did not suggest that it was. It made mention of tests being compared against a placebo, which is a different matter altogether.

And I can't believe that the IOC is considering allowing a situation where athletes may ingest in limitless amounts a drug which has been proven to cause 'an epidemic of mortalities' among asthma sufferers.

If that's the sort of nonsense that the pharmaceutical industry is going to encourage (OK I'm seeing a hidden hand at work here, call me paranoid) then I pray that my kids do not develop this ailment in their teens, as their mother did.

Or am I just stupid to think that a 3rd choice hooker is treated differently to a world-class, try scoring, high profile, seat filling, gotta be at the world cup at all costs or we might lose millions player. Lets hope its the former.

I like Aussies, by and large, but wouldn't it be just great if Argentina and Ireland contrived to eliminate them from the WC at the first round stage? :-)

By the by, I would be a ardent Leinster supporter who chuckles at the fact that Munster has this victim complex when the IRFU is controlled by Corkmen but thats for another thread.

:-)

Coyler

Devil advocates on both sides of an arguement. A little odd don't you think .

Now wait a minute. Salbutamol is not a placebo. And the passage you referred me to did not suggest that it was. It made mention of tests being compared against a placebo, which is a different matter altogether.

Sorry about the placebo comment but you understand what I was getting at. That for all intents and purposes that was the effect for him at that time.

What this layman would ask is: does it really matter what the method of ingestion (spray inhalation v taking a tablet) is? Surely it's a case of the amount of the substance that the body has absorbed? Which in the case of Frankie Sheahan was quite a lot. But I'll trawl through as much of this as I can understand and come back to (at) you.

In an issue as important as this I would hope the layman would inform himself, as you are, as to arrive at an informed opinion. It does, however, seem that there is a difference because of how the body metabolise the substance. I glanced at a medical journal once so I know a thing or two:).

And I can't believe that the IOC is considering allowing a situation where athletes may ingest in limitless amounts a drug which has been proven to cause 'an epidemic of mortalities' among asthma sufferers.

And as far as the IOCs stance on the issue I'm only qouting form the Tribune so that may be completely wrong because they offered no proof. Neither did Franno when he implyed that Ventolin helped performance apart from hearsay and conjecture, which are kinds of evidence (Lionel Hutz attorney at law).

Seriously though, I suppose my main point is the fact that I have known Frankie for quite a while, before he was a pro-rugby player, and I've always known him to be asthmatic. Now he is facing the destruction of his character and career over a very grey issue and one that there doesn't seem to be based rock-solid facts. I just wonder if he was more high profile how this would be played out? Or would it be at all?

And you think you're paranoid

Off Topic.I've nothing against the Aussies, by the by, played with a few in my time but I suspect they could be in trouble come the World Cup. Especially if the ship a few injuries in the pack during the Tri-Nations. Fingers crossed everyone.