Would The World Anti-Doping Agency Kindly Shut The Hell Up?

The World Anti-Doping Agency, i.e., the people who once banned caffeine, now demands that baseball violate federal labor law and unilaterally impose a testing regime of dubious efficacy for a substance of uncertain benefits. Why does anyone take WADA seriously anymore?

John Fahey, who is my favorite World Anti-Doping Agency president not named Dick Pound, said some intemperate bullshit into a tape recorder today, which is all anyone associated with WADA ever does. It's an organization of professional hysterics. These are not serious people. These are lunatics and hucksters, and it's not the job of sportswriters to give credulous coverage to their medicine shows whenever they roll into town.

The HGH blood test so beloved by WADA, for instance, has returned a single positive out of thousands of extractions, and that one was a targeted test administered after someone tipped off UK Anti-Doping. Baseball has nonetheless gone out of its way to appease the drug warriors, installing a blood-testing program in the minor leagues, whose players are not members of the MLBPA and thus not subject to collective bargaining. And WADA is still not satisfied with things, mostly because WADA is in the lucrative business of being loudly not satisfied with things. At some point this will just cease to be news, and journalists will realize that quoting a WADA official on anything is like quoting the town crazy on the fluoride content of his water. John Fahey, Dick Pound, et al, are just a gang of moralizing cranks running around with needles and piss cups, and it is beyond me why an organization that wants to ban caffeine hasn't yet gotten laughed out of polite conversation.

WADA rips MLB's drug policy [ESPN]