Joe Rogan | Jeff Novitzky Explains the Jon Jones Situation

I've been the easiest week in in my life for my careers last week But hanging in there to make this stand alone so that people don't have to go Figuring this out on their own and I'm sure many many fans are tuning in already know that the gist of the details Let's lay this out from the beginning John Jones initial failed test Yeah, so that was July of 2017. He tested positive for approximately 20 anywhere from 20 to 60 picograms of a long-term metabolite known as the m3 Metabolite of a substance called di hydrochloro methyl testosterone DHC MT also known as oral turinibal and this was over a year ago What was determined to be the source of this stuff never determined what the source was? So John went through a full arbitration hearing Was never able to determine where it came from Tested all the supplements he was using, you know went through many Interviews with you Sada had a full-on arbitration hearing the source was never determined where it came from Why was his suspension so low or so short? Well, I mean it wasn't determined So I mean there's many factors that go into what that suspension was I would argue in the totality of the evidence that was presented in that arbitration that it wasn't a short suspension Because really one key thing came out at arbitration So John went to arbitration before an individual by name of Richard McLaren Richard McLaren has an arbitration group up in Canada and McLaren is Probably worldwide known as one of the most credible guys in anti doping I know you had the Icarus producer director on the McLaren report was the report that came from all that He basically investigated the Russian state being involved in doping and Sochi games and put out actually a series of reports on it Detailing it up to 1,000 Russian athletes You know, we're breaking the rules and the Russian laboratory was helping them get around it. So right? He's a very very respected guy He's independent of obviously the UFC. He's independent of you Sada He acts on his own and his determination was his determination And I'll read you kind of what he said He said I find that all evidence available to me leads me to conclude that the violation was not intended Nor could it have enhanced the athletes performance? So a non intentional so non intentional ingestion I mean, there's no argument that it was in his system, but he found the evidence to show Non intentional use and then he went further saying that based on the numbers of what he saw in the evidence There was not even a performance enhancing benefit Afforded to John for having this long-term metabolite in his system And I think that's significant when you talk about hey 15 months was that that's you know Kind of light being that this is a second time through I would argue that if there was an argument That maybe it's on the higher end and certainly, you know, we'll talk about the California Commission Andy Foster took that position In John's recent, California hearing he was a little bit critical of you Sada He thought you know He's intimately familiar with his evidence both in the previous case and this occurrence that and he also saw that there was no evidence That an independent arbitrator, you know made this statement and decision of John intentionally cheating So if anything, you know I'd say that potentially there could be an argument that that it was you know on the higher end versus the lower end because of the Fact that it was an unintentional ingestion. Exactly. Now, what is John's excuse? What is what is John said how he got this into his system? Yeah Well, look, you know and it's detailed in the arbitration hearing at all John John fully admits that you know Some of the lifetime lifestyle decisions he was making, you know, the partying and things You know probably did not lead to to making smart decisions and making smart choices in terms of what was being ingested in the body But certainly his testimony was under oath that I have never intentionally cheated and it did not Intentionally put this substance in my body and not only this case but as we talk about the subsequent case here I think you'll see that based on the numbers, you know coming out of his tests and based on some Studies that have been done on some of these substances. It would tend to support that. Okay, correct me if I'm wrong But didn't John test negative then test positive for extremely low numbers This is the initial test before we get into the most recent failed. He did so test negative Then test positive very shortly after with a very small trace amount. Correct So he had two negative tests on July 7th and July 8th I believe of 2017 and then way in day, I think it was July 28th he was positive for a very low level of the m3 metabolite and And we might as well start here. So Again going back to Icarus remember remember the doctor. I mean, he's the main character in that Rachinkov in In 2011 he put out a study on oral turinobol he actually my understanding is dosed himself and then studied the excretion of his urine and what was coming out of it over the weeks and months after and Determined that there were multiple maybe up to 50 Metabolites that once this DHC MT was ingested into the body the body converted into other substances And these metabolites stayed around he identified some short-term metabolites Some medium-term metabolites and some long-term metabolites specifically the m3 that John's tested positive for it So these long-term metabolites would indicate that it was taken a long time ago. They would stay around for the longest Why why was he testing negative and then testing positive for these extremely? So yeah that numbers That's a good question. And that's that's basically the question at point But what was not occurring and what has never occurred in any of John's samples is Any presence of the short and medium term metabolites? And if you look at Rachinkov study He identifies a couple of these medium term metabolites Roman numeral one and Roman numeral two and he says these Metabolites based on his study will stay in the body at least 22 days We well, let's look back to the July 7th and 8th, you know positive test He's negative on July 7th and 8th for everything for the parent compound for the short-term Medium term metabolites and the long term metabolites go 20 21 days later So within that 22 day window which his study shows the short and medium term metabolites would still be showing up And there's no presence whatsoever of the short or medium term metabolites now again We'll get into this a little bit more But I think the science what it's showing is a pulsing effect for this long-term metabolite meaning once you ingest whether intentionally or non intentionally oral Turiniball into the body the body breaks it down produces short term and medium term, which is you know Visible for a short and medium amount of time and then this M3 which is produced for a long period of time I think with the issue appears to be and we'll get into this the UFC program is not the only program that's seen this There's another professional sports league that has seen it very frequently Usada has also seen this on the Olympic side But we're seeing this strange action with the long-term M3 metabolite and the theory is it may be hiding in the fat tissues Surrounding organs and maybe have a pulsing effect where it's released at certain times and other times You can't detect it and this is not the actual substance itself But some metabolite correct which indicates a reaction to this substance and so it's the body breaking down the parent compound The oral turiniball and turning it into these other things which are stored in the body These metabolites are not performance enhancing drugs They're the result of the breakdown of the parent drug in the body now what how much time is it detectable the actual drug itself? So pretty quick, it's a pretty quick clearance time I think Rachinkov study says, you know, maybe a week so it's not around for very long and that's why he conducted the study Ironically enough and I was gonna go watch Icarus here last night and I just I've had too much going on the last week to kind of refresh my mind, but Apparently he knew this was part of his protocol for Russian athletes He knew a coach that was still giving the oral turiniball to Russian athletes and he had a falling out with a coach So he goes off on the side and studies. Hey, the parent compound is gonna get in and out of the body pretty quick It's gonna be difficult to detect that let's try to figure out what stays around and leaves markers in the body for a long time And so he developed these short and long term metabolite tests and was able to catch some of this coaches Athletes for using the oral turiniball interesting. So the actual drug itself has gone from the system But the metabolite remains now, what is the window that this metabolite is supposed to be detectable in the body? Cuz we're talking now what do we at like 18 months? Yeah, so here's your initial Here's the problem. Was it initial ingestion? Yeah, because my question is these same long-term metabolites these existed a Year plus ago. It was more than a year. How long ago that that's the thing. So July 2017 was your initial test So what all the experts and we'll get through this what all the experts are telling us is there is no evidence of reingestion and Most likely this is still remnants from the July 2017 tests however, it was to enter into a system And we'll go through some of these testing numbers that have shown negatives followed by very low level Peca grant pica grant my question though was that the the ingestion that happened that he tested positive for in July of 2017 indicated a long term of fat rate was a long term long term metabolite correct So meaning it had already been in his system for a year So it absolutely could have predated, you know The theory the first time through was something had to have entered a system between July 7th and July 8th those Negatives and this low pica gram reading on July 28th Over this last year. There's been a lot of study into this long-term metabolite as I mentioned. This isn't just a UFC issue There's another major professional sports league that for the time being wants to keep their their testing confidential But they've shared that information with scientists with you saw to with myself. Okay, they saw it on multiple occasions This pulsing effect over a year where you'd see but this is well over a year We're talking two and a half years now, right if it's a year if it's a if in July he would you lie 2017 you're talking a year and a half right July 2017 but it could have been in a system a year prior. I don't know. Yeah, it could have been a couple months a year I don't know. He had never showed up for that m3 metabolite for you'd been tested, you know for it You've been tested multiple times in the program me from wrong. He's in the same level Isn't it approximately the same pica grams that exist today in? 2018 that were there in 2017 generally if you look and we can go over these numbers it it fluctuates You know from single digits and never gets into triple digits to to mid double digits So there's some as low as nine pica grams over that time There was some at 60 pica grams However a pica gram to someone who's a preposterous is it's insane And you know the the analogy that I heard early on was and I think John uses throw a pinch of salt an Olympic swimming Pool and I'm like, okay. Well, that's Kind of wrap your head around now. Let's go the other side Let's talk about something really small that we know of and how many times you have to break down that small particle To get to a pica gram So one grain of salt and we all know what that looks like, right? You put that in front of you and you split that and I'd mentioned this week 50 million It's actually 58 million if you split that 58 million times a grain of salt each one is a pica gram I mean, it's incomprehensible The detection level and how small that is it really is it's crazy And how many pica grams did they find in his system? So he's gone from and I'll read through it here So here's here's since the initial appearance of the m3 metabolite. Here's what John's Tests look like in those pica gram readings. So the first one was collection date was July 28th 2017 he had a concentration of 80 pica grams However, let me caution and I'll read something from an expert when you get down to these pica gram levels The science is somewhat in exact because it's such a small amount So the variable the plus or minus, you know can be anywhere from 20 30 I've seen in some instances 50 or 60. So what this scientist name is his name is Larry Bowers He was formerly the you saw the science director. He's currently retired and independently consults before that he ran an Olympic Olympic committee Accredited laboratory at the University of Indiana. The guy's got 20 to 25 years of Anti-doping experience. Here's what he he told me about You know when you're when you're analyzing small pica gram levels Although the two lab respective laboratories Report a concentration. I would caution against becoming too fixated on the numbers first The numbers are really estimates of concentration and probably should be considered a range of about plus or minus 20 pica grams per ml And he said the December 9th result would be in the range of John's. I will get to that between 60 and 100 Second while the adjustment of concentration by specific gravity attempts to deal with the variability of urinary excretion rates It is an exact it is inexact and adds variability to the estimates Finally and most importantly science has no clear understanding of the variance of urinary excretion of drugs at ultra trace Concentration so basically saying look, I mean we have a general idea how this works in science But and I think if this instance comes to play be real careful If you're gonna be the guy with the pseudoscience out there saying wait a second John jump from 20 to 60 From September to December and that means he reingested it what he's saying here is slow your role on that that it's such a small incomprehensible level that we don't really know what those variances are gonna look like Now I think if we saw jumps and John from single digit eight or nine pica gram to multiple hundred Digit pica grams there would be a concern and maybe some Readministration but the experts I've speaking to when you're talking variability of 10 20 30 40 It's not that significant at the pica gram level. What is the window where this long-term? Metabolites starts to express itself like what you said there's short term and there's medium term. This is the long term How long does it take for the long? Yeah, that's a good question I don't have the answer to that and maybe in Rachanka report here and I would encourage those that are home You know playing playing scientists at their computer The Journal of steroid biochemistry and molecular biology Rajinkov writes report detection and mass Spectrometric characterization of novel long-term Dehydrochloro-methyl testosterone metabolites and human urine. I'm not sure when that long-term metabolite how long it takes to show up Here's the problem though with this substance. He did a real brief study My understanding is administer it to himself. That's the only study that exists. Hmm world's are in a ball DHC MT to my understanding is not approved for use for human consumption anywhere Anywhere in any country so you can't have clinical trials ethically in the medical world because it's just not legal to give this to human beings So, you know, we're we're already kind of behind the eight ball here and that you know It's compared to other substances where you can do clinical trials because they're readily available be a prescription or whatever This substance is not the substance was created by the East Germans in the 70s and 80s and was part of their state-sponsored Doping program or they were doping their athletes and can you correct me if I'm wrong? But I believe what I've read is that this is particularly effective when people are cutting weight Yeah, I mean is that true or is this just more I don't know about that I think some may be confusing to rent a ball with oral to rent a ball to completely different That's actually very important. Yeah, there's there's very different effects on the body. There's very different windows in terms of detection time Explain that. Yeah, you got to be really careful in this world of performance enhancing drugs. There's names that are interchangeable There's different, you know Chemical names where you change a little bit of that chemical name. It could mean a completely different substance There's instances where the chemical name is different, but the substance is actually the same So when trying to compare two substances, you know Make sure if you're at home doing that analysis you're comparing the right one straight. Turin a ball is different than oral Turin a ball. What is the difference? Yeah, I can't tell you I'm not as familiar with Turin a ball other than it's not oral to rent a ball. So but there is a difference in terms of the detection window Yeah, there would be I mean different substances create and throw out different metabolites And different substances have different detection windows So I haven't done my study and research on straight to rent a ball other than knowing it's different than the substance here. So Grigory Rachinkoff, that's how you say his last name, right? He was the only guy to do an actual verified study. Correct. Now is this study been is it been peer-reviewed? Yeah, I mean it well, it's it's published in The Journal of steroid biochemistry and molecular biology so in order to get something published it needs to be peer-reviewed Right. So it's has it been replicated anywhere not that I'm aware of no, so it's just so we have one study Which is really fascinating. Correct. So we know that first of all, we know this is an effective steroid. We know it works Yeah, these Germans I think show that they wouldn't be a have been using it It's not a difficult. It's not a easy easy substance to get a hold of look when it's not approved for use anywhere in the world It's only available on the black market. So you'd probably have to go to China to get it manufactured or you know Research chemical supply company. It's not supposed to be provided to humans now I'm certainly not attributing this to you, but there were rumors This was one discussion was that One of the possible ways you could have ingested this And let's be very kind John likes to party Okay One of the things about partying is people do cocaine and one of the things about cocaine is sometimes cocaine is cut with creatine One of the things about creatine is oftentimes you're buying cheap creatine I spent one of the things that we've had with on it on its our Products are all third-party verified. But in the initial goings when we try different Manufacturers especially for alpha brain we found there were other trace elements that were in alpha brain that weren't supposed to be in there and it's because of the vats that they mix these things up with and One of the things that we had heard was that creatine Oftentimes is made in the same place where they might be making oral terenibol. They might be making anabolic they might make a bunch of different things and Trace amounts of this stuff can get into the creatine they use creatine to cut cocaine with is this is this possible? Or am I just yeah, it's it's absolutely a theory I don't you know, I I can't sit here and say that happened, but I will have heard similar things I have heard some more things. I know for a fact based on my previous career. I worked closely with the DEA I was with the FDA. I worked cases involving street distribution of recreational drugs including cocaine I know for a fact that creatine is one of the most common substances that cocaine is cut with because Yeah, some more color some more feel so getting back to McLaren's arbitration decision I mean this is publicly available record. So I'm not saying anything new but McLaren addresses at least John's lifestyle around this time and he says the athlete openly admitted to you Sada that prior to and For a period of time after the reporting of his second adverse analytical finding on July 28 2017 The athlete used illicit so-called street drugs including cocaine Now for me to sit here and say that's where it came from. I don't know that what's the time pretty talking about the the athlete admitted That prior to and for a period of time after the reporting of a second adverse analytical finding on July 27 2017 admitted so before that test and sometime after Okay. So does that make sense though? If it's cut if that's what where the the source of it is Does it make sense that that would show up as a long-term? Metabolite doesn't it need a long time in the body to digest or do we not know enough about the window of time? Yeah, I don't know if we know enough about the window of time you know my theory and looking at it is even if there's a small amount of The oral terenibal in that it's going to for a period of time Show that parent compound at a small picogram amount and the short and midterm Metabolites in the small picogram amount we have never seen those in the history of John's testing It's only this long-term metabolite. So that may be indication that it occurred maybe even prior to what we're talking about here Is it something that? Could be accentuated in some way by the weight cutting process. I absolutely think that could be a factor There are studies not necessarily with this but another substance Chloemaphene and look I want that while I'm cautioning people to be careful about comparing different substances the commonality between clomaphene which there are multiple clinical studies on because it is approved for use to be distributed to humans and Oral terenibal is are both chlorinated. So they both contain a chlorine atom on the molecule and there is a recently published study on clomaphene and its excretion rates Again for those at home that want to look it up. The study was published in the endocrine society Publication it's peer-reviewed the name of it is HPT access effects and urinary detection following clomaphene administration and males So what they did is they basically, you know got a group of males Gave them a one month Cycle of clomaphene, you know I think 25 milligrams a day and then had them get off and then continue to look at their urine up to 261 days after and what you saw and what you see in this study is that pulsing effect? So, you know, I'm looking at some of the study subjects here Subject one on day 121 still showed 147 picograms of clomaphene day 128 showed 174 picograms day 135 shows nothing he's below the minimum recording Reporting limit and then day 149 he's back up to 236 There are one two three four five Six out of I think 12 subjects in that study that showed this pulsing effect of this chlorinated substance coming and going Again, you know, it's it's different than oral terenovol, but it has that common factor of being chlorinated in this study They do talk about a fat tissue called the let me look this up and make sure I got this right adipose tissue This is fat that surrounds the internal organs It's one of the last things that the body burns when it's going, you know starving itself and going to fat It protects those organs. But yeah, you look at these, you know Extreme weight gains and cuts that the UFC athlete goes through I don't think you're gonna find possibly another human subject anywhere that goes through putting weight on Maybe that I don't think Olympic wrestling matches with an MMA fighter Goes through at least you know in my experience over these three or four years talking to those in the Olympic world I think we're at the extreme and it's it's something obviously we've talked about before we're trying to curtail But you know, there's there's clearly never been a study for anybody who? dehydrates and Rehydrates themselves to the extent that some of our athletes do you could never find There would never be anybody with any ethics that would support a study because some of that dehydration exceeds World Health Organization Standard so there's no studies out there, you know on this stuff But clearly, you know looking from afar I'd say that it likely has some impact over what's being released by this adipose tissue We should certainly talk about that in the future about the weight cutting aspect of it So but this adipose tissue loss at extreme weight cuts could potentially be the reason why this stuff is excreting itself It's it's definitely a theory out there. What about micro dosing? So here's the thing with micro dosing micro dosing is done with endogenous Substances so only test it well, I mean someone could try it with something else But it the reason you micro dose with endogenous substances is they're already produced in the body, right? So the theory of okay, I'm gonna micro dose oral terenibol Well oral terenibol still producing these short-term and long-term metabolites in theory Whether you're taking a hundred milligrams or one milligram of oral terenibol Those excretion rates of those metabolites are still going to be consistent They're gonna be in a much smaller level a way to bypass those excretion rates. Is there a way to mask that in some way? I'm not aware of any I'm sorry. The only study we have is Gregory. Correct. That's it. Correct But you know just taking it from a common-sense approach It's certainly you know those that know about micro grossing know that you micro dose with endogenous Substances things that are already appearing in the body So your body knows what to do with them knows what to do and you're fooling, you know Not only are these metabolizing and there's no metabolites of them, but you could also be fooling the biological passport That's the concern I think and why people micro dose so you saw it is looking not only testing for specific substances But our testosterone to epi testosterone ratios going up They're looking at at blood values how many young red blood cells how many mature red blood cells? So micro dosing in those two areas wouldn't set off alarms in the biological passport world I've never heard personally of micro dosing of exogenous substances that are not found in the body Microdosing in my understanding is done with things that are endogenous For people that are not familiar with this terminology. We're just talking about micro dosing performance enhancing drugs because microdosing in today's world is a very common thing with mushrooms and LSD and a lot of right I mean I saw a ton of micro dosing in the cycling world that right was testosterone testosterone EPO HGH all those natural occurring in the body and so they don't produce any really Red flag metabolites if you do them at very very small levels They'll the parent will clear quickly not produce any metabolites and will not throw off the biological passport analysis Is there a what you mean when Victor Conte came out with? Clear and all that stuff with ballco and they were they were fooling people is it is it I mean one of the things We've talked about before is that it's a constant race to try to keep up with more advanced cheaters It is and you know what's interesting in this I mean what if I were to talk to you and maybe the first time we did talk a couple years ago It's come a long way from them But clearly if I were to talk to you 15 16 17 years ago when I got my start in the anti doping world I would have told you definitively the testing is way behind you know, what's being used out there They were testing able to test to multiple nanogram Limits that's as far down as we can go now they can go down to Single-digit picogram. There's another professional sports league out there that recently had a one Picogram m3 metabolite case I mean do the math coming down from you know, four or five nanograms which used to be the lower limit now to one picogram 10,000 20,000 times I am almost under the theory that the pendulum has swung Maybe a little bit too far in the other direction and that that certainly is part of my job to the UFC Look, I want to catch every intentional cheater that's out there. I want to make sure we have a rock-solid program Use all the latest and greatest, you know Techniques to do it But I also want to keep an eye on it to make sure it's being Administrated fairly and when you're getting down to detection of one, you know single-digit picograms I have a concern that what kind of level of sensitivity we're talking about. Are we going to talk about? Environmental contamination where you walk, you know through a room and somebody has just opened a container of something and there's you know Minuscule powders in the air. There are documented cases that some of the regularly prescribed prescription drugs specifically Diuretics are getting in water supplies in some areas, you know, you get a lot of old people on them that flush their old Pills down the toilet. There's documented cases of it getting into the water supply and being detectable at that pico gram level So you've got to be really really careful about that and I think you know This case exemplifies that you saw it and and really the world anti doping agency world and community are aware of that You know with greater sensitivity and testing in my opinion because you know makes greater Responsibility to be objective and look fairly at what really we're doing here when we're detecting in that small amount