Enhanced Games respond to White House “Deep Concern”; Invite Collaboration with IOC
- The Enhanced Games respond to “deep concern” comments
from the White House with a pledge to unwavering commitment to fairness in sports competition, supported by rigorous science. - Invites IOC/Olympics to join a science-based partnership with the Enhanced Games.
- Fully support President Biden’s goal of a natural Olympics – which the Enhanced Games make more achievable.
March 18, 2024 – In response to the recent statement by the White House expressing “deep concern” about the Enhanced Games and President Biden’s aspirations for a natural and honest Olympic Games, the Enhanced Games affirm its essential role in creating a fair environment for Olympic athletes in any competition they might choose to participate.
Of crucial note are recent scientific findings, including research commissioned and funded by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) itself, which underscore the existing prevalence of performance enhancements among elite athletes. This data, originally published in the Journal of Sports Medicine in 2018, uncovered that a staggering 44% of elite athletes had utilized banned performance enhancements within the past year.
Dr Michael Sagner, MD, scientific advisor to the Enhanced Games, emphasized, “Whilst the aim of an enhancement-free Olympics is a noble one, it is not and has never been true. Olympic drug testing is ineffective and full of loopholes. This is also partly because they do not have baseline clinical data on elite athletes using performance enhancements. The Enhanced Games, with our medical oversight and screening apparatus, will create this unique data which will benefit not only the tested sports community but also Longevity Science in general as many compounds can be repurposed to combat illnesses such as frailty which are endemic in modern society.”
The Enhanced Games pledge to share all data created on an anonymised basis with the Olympics, so that the IOC can finally develop effective tests, thereby making their competition truly fair and natural.
It is furthermore notable that research conducted by Professor David Nutt at Imperial College London and published in The Lancet confirms that performance enhancements pose significantly less health risk than commonly accepted substances like alcohol, tobacco, and cannabis.
In a bid to foster informed discourse, the Enhanced Games extend an invitation to the IOC and the White House to engage in collaborative dialogue, just as the British Parliament did by convening the First Conference on Human Enhancement in collaboration with the Enhanced Games last month.
Dr Aron D’Souza, President of the Enhanced Games, said, “President Biden, please trust the science and recognize that the Olympics will never be clean until there is an Enhanced Games. This is why we are offering to cooperate with the IOC and the White House in order to make the Olympics truly clean, natural and fair. The Enhanced Games are no competition to the Olympics, but an entirely new event which is very complementary and has an important place in a science-based society.”
Dr D’Souza adds: “We urge President Biden to engage with the Enhanced Games on what is an inevitable evolution in sports. As a champion of science, President Biden has the opportunity to help the 44% of athletes who have used performance enhancements to come out and safely compete. Only with a formal partnership between the IOC and Enhanced Games, can Olympics drug testing finally be effective and ensure the integrity of their games.”
For more on the topic of human enhancement, please read the opinion piece of Enhanced Games Co-Founder and lead investor Christian Angermayer: https://christianangermayer.substack.com/p/the-future-is-enhanced