@MacMadame Maria Sharapova said she had no idea that the rule change was happening. I would imagine the athletes themselves couldn't have all known. In Bobrova's case at least it sounds like she was in the loop, but I wonder how common this was. Maybe the Russian Skating Federation was on their stuff, but their Tennis authority and some others weren't? The track and field competitors I'd bet were almost entirely clean - they have to be under a microscope, and any further misstep would ruin their careers further.
I'm playing a bit of devil's advocate here, but why not? First, lots of drugs are prescribed for conditions other than the specific, written indications of the drug. What makes vitamins -- most of which in supplements are in chemical forms different from their natural, food-derived forms -- different from drugs? Vitamins also promote health, thereby leading to faster recovery, more strength, endurance, etc. Like drugs, the majority of people, including athletes, in Western society do not need to take vitamin supplements for medical reasons, as they can derive everything they need from their diet. In fact, vitamins also have the potential to hurt "long-term health," as over-supplementation can lead to neurological, kidney, liver, etc. problems.
If your argument is that 'vitamins are a natural substance and drugs are not,' then would you make an exception for those drugs that are derived from natural products (say, aspirin or digoxin)? And what about substances like Coenzyme Q10 -- not a "vitamin", per se, but might be considered "performance-enhancing" (or ineffective... but let's not get into that..); this is not banned by WADA, and as I know many of my guy friends use it for improving their energy at the gym (and I've heard doctors recommend patients to take it for other reasons), I wouldn't be surprised if athletes also took it for the supposed benefit of increasing energy.
My point is that I don't think it's so black and white.
@Yazmeen Should be able to answer this better than me, but I can provide some insight based on my knowledge of human biology and extremely limited knowledge of medical ethics.
-Drugs are prescribed for conditions other than the written indications of the drug, but even then they are only prescribed because there's good evidence that the drug a) works to treat the condition and b) will not harm the patient more than any similar drug or the untreated condition
-Vitamins are different than drugs because you
can get them naturally. Drugs are for the most part specifically formulated and dosed out, and therefore cannot be found in food. Now, over-the-counter vitamins are unregulated for the most part, but they do not cause any harm unless you take far too many.
-Most vitamins are hard to get too much of on a regular basis unless you're trying or have already unhealthy dietary patterns. Drugs usually have some adverse side effects, even if taken by otherwise healthy people. Sometimes the effects of the drugs will cause problems for people without the condition the drug was made for. (I.e. giving a beta blocker to someone with normal blood pressure may lead to low blood pressure in that patient.) Presumably, it can have long-term impacts as well if taken for a long period of time.
-Just because something isn't banned by WADA now doesn't mean it won't be. Perhaps your specific example isn't even on WADA's radar. If it is, perhaps WADA prefers to judge the impact a drug is having before banning it. There's not much of a point to banning drugs no athletes are currently using, or that only a few competitors who never finish near a podium use. Sure, it improves performance, but the impact on results the press care about is negligible.
There's also the issue of medical necessity and ethics. I can't say this for all countries, but those who prescribe medicines in the US are supposed to use their best judgement in giving medication out. This means that you should only give a drug to someone if it is medically necessary and will not harm more than help to the patient. Certainly giving a healthy patient a PED causes more harm than health to them, so most profs I have consider it unethical to do so.
I think this is terrible either way. If Bobrova was knowingly cheating, it's terrible; if a doctor betrayed her trust and injected her with a banned substance, it's terrible. I'll reserve judgement on the individuals involved until more details come out.
