The NFL Players Association "tentatively agreed" to let the league take
40 blood samples for HGH tests each week during the season, with a
positive result drawing a four-game suspension, according to a memo the
union sent players.
A copy of the NFLPA's email, written in a question-and-answer format, was obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press.
The memo says "a computer program will randomly select" five players apiece from eight teams each week to take the blood tests.
First,
though, every player participating in NFL training camps this year will
provide a blood sample and information about "height, weight, age, and
race/ethnicity" for a "population study" to determine what level of HGH
will result in penalties, the union wrote.
The NFLPA's letter
says that if more than 5 percent of all training camp samples are above
that threshold, players who fail will have "reasonable cause" testing
during the next two seasons -- meaning they'll be subject to additional
testing. A player testing positive again during the 2013-14 or 2014-15
seasons will get an eight-game suspension. A player without another
positive result in that time will be removed from the extra testing
program.
Tuesday's email to players indicates the union has
signed off on various aspects of the HGH program and says owners and
players "will likely finalize soon" the in-season weekly testing. But
the memo does not make clear what exactly the NFL has agreed to at this
point or give specifics about what stands in the way of a final accord.
No
date has been set for the start of testing, because there are still
issues that need to be negotiated between the NFL and union, including
whether the commissioner or a neutral arbitrator will handle certain
types of appeals of discipline.
League spokesman Brian McCarthy
declined to comment on any specifics in the NFLPA memo, writing in an
email to the AP: "We do not have yet a comprehensive agreement for HGH
testing."
The league and the union originally paved the way for
testing in the 10-year collective bargaining agreement they signed in
August 2011, but two complete NFL seasons have come and gone -- and a
third is right around the corner -- without a single HGH test being
administered on a player.
During the two years since, the sides
have haggled over various elements, including details of the appeals
process and the union's insistence on a population study to determine
what is a naturally occurring amount of HGH in NFL players.
HGH
is a banned performance-enhancing drug that is hard to detect and has
been linked to health problems such as diabetes, cardiac dysfunction and
arthritis.
In January, shortly before the Super Bowl, House
Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman Darrell Issa, a
California Republican, and ranking Democrat Elijah Cummings of Maryland
wrote NFLPA head DeMaurice Smith to chastise the union for standing in
the way of HGH testing and to warn that lawmakers could ask players to
testify on Capitol Hill.
Late last year, that House committee
held a hearing at which medical experts testified that HGH testing is
reliable and that the union's request for a population study was
unnecessary. But in March, a ruling by the Court of Arbitration for
Sport in a case involving a cross-country skier raised questions about
the reliability of thresholds for HGH tests.
