Dr. Don Catlin, who constructed the US' first anti-doping laboratory and whose analysis unlocked the chemistry behind beforehand undetectable performance-enhancing medicine and the deluded athletes who cheated with steroids and different banned substances, died on January 16 at his dwelling in Los Angeles. He was 85 years outdated.
His son Oliver mentioned the trigger was a stroke. He mentioned his father had been identified with dementia.
Dr. Catlin, who was generally referred to as the daddy of drug testing in sports activities, was the director of UCLA's Olympic Analytical Laboratory, which started two years earlier than the 1984 Summer season Olympics in Los Angeles. and that he led till 2007.
His laboratory examined as many as 45,000 urine samples a yr, on the lookout for traces of banned substances in the US Olympians, skilled soccer gamers, school and minor league baseball gamers, and rivals in a FIFA World Cup.
“He was a towering legend,” Travis T. Tygart, chief government of the US Anti-Doping Company, mentioned in a phone interview. “His appeal and stature in conferences of scientists and non-scientists allowed him to clarify difficult science to sportsmen, after which placed on his lab coat and work on carbon isotope ratio evaluation” .
Dr. Catlin's quarter of a century within the lab coincided with a interval of drug scandals within the sports activities world, together with one involving Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson, who was stripped of his gold medal within the 100 meters on the 1988 Summer season Olympics in Seoul. after testing optimistic for the anabolic steroid stanozolol.
Such controversies continued via the 2000s, with revelations that the Bay Space Laboratory Cooperative, or Balco, close to San Francisco, distributed unlawful steroids and dietary supplements to athletes, together with baseball famous person Barry Bonds and observe star Marion Jones. Additionally in that period, bike owner Lance Armstrong got here again from most cancers to win a report seven consecutive Excursions de France on a regime of banned substances. He was finally stripped of these titles.
As Dr. Catlin and the technicians in his lab labored to catch cheaters and uncover new strategies of doping, he acknowledged that he was doing a Sisyphean job.
“I'm not saying it's doomed to failure, however we're nonetheless taking part in catch-up,” he informed New Scientist journal in 2007. “I don't see all of the mass spectrometers and all of the chemists on this planet actually having the ability to do it . deal with this. It has turn out to be very costly to develop the means to detect new medicine.”
Donald Hardt Catlin was born on June 4, 1938, in New Haven, Conn. His father, Kenneth, was an insurance coverage government. His mom, Hilda (Hardt) Catlin, ran the home.
After graduating from Yale College in 1960 with a bachelor's diploma in statistics and psychology, he was persuaded by a household buddy, who was a surgeon, to check drugs. 5 years later, he earned an MD from the College of Rochester Faculty of Medication and Dentistry in upstate New York.
From 1965 to 1968, Dr. Catlin interned and served a residency on the College of California, Los Angeles, Faculty of Medication and one other on the College of Vermont Division of Medication earlier than returning to UCLA as and chief resident.
Whereas in the US Military from 1969 to 1972, Dr. Catlin labored in inner drugs on the Walter Reed Military Medical Heart in Washington and, in his final yr, managed a therapy middle for the troopers who have been hooked on heroin whereas preventing within the Vietnam Battle. . He informed USA At the moment in 2007 that he had met with Pentagon generals over his perception that addicts needs to be handled medically and never imprisoned for turning to medicine.
“However they closed it anyway,” he mentioned.
After his launch, he joined the UCLA college as an assistant professor of pharmacology and drugs. A specialist in ache administration, he joined with different researchers in 1977 to publish a examine of 5 sufferers that examined whether or not a morphine-like substance within the human pituitary gland may relieve ache and narcotic withdrawal signs.
In 1982, Dr. Catlin grew to become the primary director of the Olympic anti-doping laboratory, with monetary help of at the least $1.5 million from the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee. Throughout the 1984 Summer season Video games, at the least 11 athletes examined optimistic for steroids.
Dr. Catlin boosted the laboratory's drug testing with analysis that raised international efforts to scrub up doping in sports activities.
Within the late Nineties, he developed the carbon isotopic ratio to find out whether or not an anabolic steroid was produced naturally within the physique or got here from a banned substance, comparable to an artificial steroid. In 2002, he revealed for the primary time in sports activities the usage of a type of EPO, or erythropoietin, which will increase endurance by stimulating the manufacturing of crimson blood cells. Three cross-country snowboarding gold medalists examined optimistic for the substance and have been stripped of their medals.
Additionally in 2002, Dr. Catlin first recognized a designer anabolic steroid, norbolethone, in athlete's urine after it was launched to the athletes at Balco by chemist Patrick Arnold.
“This was the primary proof that there have been these designer medicine on the market,” he mentioned in an interview on the time. “He informed me there might be others coming.”
Then, in 2003, Dr. Catlin detected one other designer steroid, tetrahydrogestrinone, or THG, after a syringe that was introduced anonymously to the US Anti-Doping Company was delivered to his laboratory.
It was a sophisticated discovery because the lively ingredient in “the clear”, a beforehand undetectable steroid that Balco had offered to many athletes. Barry Bonds testified to a federal grand jury that he acquired the “clear” and a testosterone-based cream from his coach, however mentioned he was informed it was linseed oil and a ache reliever balm.
Jeff Novitzky, an Inner Income Service agent who started investigating the unfold of performance-enhancing medicine in 2002, turned to Dr. Catlin after rummaging via Balco's trash and amassing information that had been printed on-line by Victor Conte Jr., the founder and president of the laboratory. .
“I cold-called him very early, and over that yr he guided me via every little thing,” Mr. Novitzky mentioned in an interview. “I had no concept what I discovered. In my trash runs, I discovered discarded drug packaging, e-mail communications from athletes, invoices for epitestosterone, and it mentioned that the one purpose to get epitestosterone is to beat a drug check I may see bells ringing in his head that one thing was occurring.
Dr. Catlin testified in 2003 to the grand jury that investigated Balco and Mr. Conte, who pleaded responsible to steroid distribution and cash laundering. He served 4 months in jail. Mr. Bonds was convicted of obstructing justice, however the conviction was overturned.
Dr. Catlin later found a number of designer steroids, together with methylandrostenol, or madol, the lively ingredient in a subsequent iteration of “the clear” that was additionally present in a raid of the Balco lab.
After retiring from the UCLA lab, he went into enterprise along with his son Oliver to supply providers that included testing and certifying dietary dietary supplements and dietary merchandise for prohibited substances and labels. Dr. Catlin additionally continued associated analysis and oversaw testing for human progress hormone, or HGH, on the 2008 Summer season Olympics in Beijing.
Along with her son Oliver, she is survived by one other son, Bryce, and two grandchildren. His spouse, Bernadette (DeGroote) Catlin, died in 1989.
Dr. Catlin mentioned he felt an pressing have to preserve the Olympics drug-free.
He informed USA At the moment in 2007: “I can't consider something extra thrilling than the Olympic mannequin, the place 220 international locations all over the world take part, and each 4 years they ship their finest to compete in opposition to the most effective of different international locations and the most effective man. or girl wins. It's wonderful. What might be extra stunning? Besides it's medicine, silly.”
