MLB Players Union Willing To Consider HGH Testing

Michael Weiner, head of the Major League Baseball Players Association, said that the union is willing to consider player blood testing for the banned substance human growth hormone (HGH), if a scientifically reliable test is available.

The comments came in response to news this week that a British rugby player had tested positive for HGH and accepted a two-year ban without contesting the HGH blood test results

In making the statement, the MLBPA may be betting on the fact that scientifically validating a blood test for HGH will not come soon. In fact, the scientific community associated with the HGH testing are split on the belief that HGH drug testing will be scientifically validated.

"People associated with that test believe it's scientifically valid; other scientists in the testing community dispute that," Weiner said after visiting the Angels at their spring-training facility in Tempe, Ariz.

"The fact that there has been a positive [result] that an athlete has chosen not to challenge is a factor that raises the profile" of possible HGH testing in baseball, he said. "But that doesn't make it scientifically valid."

Weiner said the rugby case "does mean that it's time for everybody -- us, the [MLB] commissioner's office -- to assess the science behind it. But the short answer is, I don't equate a single, unchallenged positive with scientific validity, and I don't think anybody would."

If a test is found by the MLBPA and MLB to be valid, it could become part of the MLB joint drug program before the two sides reach their next labor contracts.

I would expect that over the course of this year we’ll be discussing this and if improvements are called for, if changes are called for, we’ll make them; it doesn’t have to wait" for a new collective-bargaining agreement, Weiner said.

Based on the recent fallout regarding steroids in major league baseball, the Players union is making sure to say all the right things about possible HGH testing in major league baseball. But will the union change it's tune and resist HGH testing for its players if a scientifically valid blood test for HGH is found?

We'll just have to wait and see.