"Doping" is pejorative and misleading

doi:10.1136/bmj.a910

Published 22 July 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a910
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a910

Letters

Anti-doping

"Doping" is pejorative and misleading

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

I am a signatory to the article by Kayser and Smith¹ and wishto add to their critique of current policies restricting accessto performance enhancing drugs and punitive sanctions for users.

The use of the word "doping" to refer to a wide array of performanceenhancing technologies (drugs, genetic modifications, sleepingin a hypobaric chamber, etc) contributes to the demonisationand mass hysteria that have dominated this topic for over twodecades. It is derived from a word ("dop") that referred toopium and other very dangerous drugs, and a person who usedsuch drugs was referred to as a "dope." It is intentionallypejorative and misleading, and rational discourse would be facilitatedif a more neutral term were used—for example, "globalisationof policies opposing performance enhancing technologies."

Editors should insist on value neutral terms. "Doping" is nomore appropriate to a dispassionate discussion of performanceenhancement than "whoring" . . . [Full text of this article]

Norman Fost, professor

¹ University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, Madison, WI 53705, USA

ncfost@wisc.edu