A program for HGH testing in the NFL, which the league "promoted last month as a done deal, appears highly unlikely for this season," according to Juliet Macur of the N.Y. TIMES. The issue has become "bogged down in a technical dispute among the league, the players union and the international testing agency advising both groups." NFL Senior VP/Law & Labor Policy Adolpho Birch said, "We're ready to go, and we're satisfied with the validity of the test." He added, "The only thing standing between us and the testing is the NFL Players Association. I can't make them do it." The league is "waiting for the union to make the next move," and Birch said that he "had not heard from the union recently, even to set up the next meeting on the issue." The NFLPA believes that negotiations "have come to a standstill because WADA will not give it certain scientific information." NFLPA Assistant Dir for External Affairs George Atallah said, "We've hit a wall. We're not saying something is wrong with the test. The problem is that we're not being allowed to analyze and can't assess the test ourselves." The documents, requested by the union "at least four times in letters to WADA, include all of the validation, reference and population studies for the HGH test and all of the validation studies for the test that were conducted by each WADA-accredited laboratory." WADA officials have indicated that the "request for those documents and dozens of others was the union's way of avoiding testing." But the NFLPA said that its requests "were reasonable and that it was simply protecting its players because those players who test positive would not be able to challenge the science of the test" (N.Y. TIMES, 9/29).
