Probably not. Really good analysis of the Sherk appeal situation by Leland Roling at the MMA Analyst.
Some highlights:
Let's get one thing straight about Dana White's quotes with ESPN, they are completely false.
I've known Sean Sherk for a long time. He's a really good man. He trains hard and has worked hard to get where he's at. You and me probably have six nanograms [of the steroid Nandrolone] in our system; he had 12. Other guys who've been busted for the same steroid have had over 50 nanograms in their system. What my experts tell me is, there's no way that he would only have 12 in his system. I'm not his father. If he did it, he'll have to face the consequences. People make mistakes. If your life was over every time you make a mistake, that's pretty f---ing harsh. How many times do I have to tell people not to use steroids? It's to the point where it's just stupid.
Really? We all walk around with 6ng/mL? Here's the rebuttal:
Olympic laboratories, tasked with ensuring that their tests are fair as well as effective, have researched natural nandrolone production regularly over the past quarter-century, the most recent study being conducted at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan. There, of 621 competitors tested after competition, only five produced results where their nandrolone levels exceeded 0.1 nanograms per millilitre of urine (ng/ml).All five were women. The levels in women are marginally higher, as a result of a different hormonal make-up and use of the contraceptive pill. But the levels are still minimal. Nobody in the Nagano tests exceeded 0.4ng/ml.
This has been posted on numerous sites.11 So... only 5 people tested over .1ng/mL, all athletes and all women. NOBODY exceeded .4ng/mL. These aren't even average run of the mill people either. These are Olympic athletes who work out, work hard, and sweat everyday. Come on Dana White, do some research before you blab to the mainstream media.
But there is a window of hope for Dana and the Muscle Shark's fans.
A good number of athletes have been cleared by various athletic commissions due to contaminated supplements. Now, the NSAC and CSAC state that this is a non-excuse, and that the fighter is responsible for testing the supplements. But if we look historically at overturned rulings, we will find that most rulings that are overturned in fact are because supplements were found to be contaminated. Interesting quote...
Athletes have once again been warned about the use of nutritional supplements after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) found that 15% of the 634 supplements it tested contained banned substances, including nandrolone.
This was around 2000 when the study was done.6 I've read reports where the number is around 20% now. But in this particular study, 240 supplements were tested from the U.S. and 45 were found to contain chemicals or steroids that would lead to a positive doping test. So, almost 20% in that study, average for the world was 15%. The Netherlands had over 25% of their supplements containing a chemical that would cause a positive test. It is clear that there is a problem with supplement companies adding chemicals that either react with your bodies natural process that produces a positive or they actually add steroids into their product.
With that research to indicate that there is an upward trend of bad supplements out there, the International Olympic Committee, various Athletic Commissions, and the World Anti-Doping Agency want athletes to be aware of their supplements. You don't want to come into an event and end up like U.S. Olympic Shot Putter C.J. Hunter and test over 1000 times the legal threshold.7 If Sean Sherk has any chance at beating this wrap, he will have to hope he can find a tainted supplement and hope the CSAC has flexibility in its language of the rule in place. Two very hard things to prove.
And in conclusion:
Either way, Sherk will serve a suspension. If he does prove it was a supplement, I will not be surpised at all. As I went through a lot of this research, I found that the number of positives due to supplement contamination has risen dramatically. Positives have also risen due to unstable urine as previously mentioned at the beginning of this article. There have been studies that attributed over 70% of the positives before circa 2000 to unstable urine and most of those athletes may have been falsely accused. In this case, testing has grown and is better, but that doesn't stop the fact that FDA still does not require every single nanogram of ingredient on supplement bottles. If Sherk didn't know about the supplement, my advice would be to sue the pants off the company for causing you a reputation stab to the heart. Seeing someone go down because a company was careless is not something I want to see. If Sherk cannot prove it and is found guilty, then he deserves what he has coming. Theoretically, we can add this up. Let's say Sherk's base is a 2ng - 3ng/mL and that's very good considering the research above from the Nagano Olympics had guys UNDER .1 ng/mL. But none of them had to cut weight or dehydrate themselves, so we'll give Sherk a 2-3ng/mL limit. He'd have to somehow gain 4 times that limit to hit 12ng/mL with some type of injection or tainted supplement. Even Kizer of the NSAC has stated that it may be just that Sherk should have stopped juicing two days earlier and he may have beat the wrap. You can easily look at the charts and see that nandrolone can go from a 12ng/mL limit to below 5ng/mL is just over 2 days. Kizer could be right. Or will Sherk prove to us that a supplement was tainted? It's a very interesting story.
