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Record numbers being busted for doping in Danish fitness centres

TheCopenhagenPost
May 18th, 2015


This article is more than 9 years old.

Nearly one out of two use steroids

Steroids: A deadly shortcut (photo: Wikiduderman)

Last year, 152 out of 343 people tested at gyms across the country either tested positive for anabolic steroid use – known as ‘doping’ – or refused to be tested. That’s compared with 104 in 2012 and 101 in 2013.

“Our targeted efforts have resulted in the highest number of cases to date,” Christina Friis Johansen, the acting head of Anti Doping Danmark, told Metroxpress.

“We have  been working closely with the industry and checking with individual centres on where and when to come – drug-users switch centres frequently, so we have to follow them.”

Two year ban
Some 650,000 trainers at fitness centres throughout the country have voluntarily agreed to participate in anti-doping efforts, according to figures from fitness group Dansk Fitness & Helse Organisation (DFHO).

Any member testing positive is banned from training at a centre for two years.

“Our message is very clear: people who dope are not welcome at our gyms,” said DFHO head Morten Brustad.

“There are a number of centres that have chosen not to participate and where there is unfortunately no control over doping.”

READ MORE: Councils to fight fitness-related doping abuse among youths

Tax authority Skat has also been cracking down on anabolic steroids, confiscating over 46,000 pills and vials of the drugs in 2014 compared with just under 37,000 in 2013.


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A survey carried out by Megafon for TV2 has found that 71 percent of parents have handed over children to daycare in spite of them being sick.

Moreover, 21 percent of those surveyed admitted to medicating their kids with paracetamol, such as Panodil, before sending them to school.

The FOLA parents’ organisation is shocked by the findings.

“I think it is absolutely crazy. It simply cannot be that a child goes to school sick and plays with lots of other children. Then we are faced with the fact that they will infect the whole institution,” said FOLA chair Signe Nielsen.

Pill pushers
At the Børnehuset daycare institution in Silkeborg a meeting was called where parents were implored not to bring their sick children to school.

At Børnehuset there are fears that parents prefer to pack their kids off with a pill without informing teachers.

“We occasionally have children who that they have had a pill for breakfast,” said headteacher Susanne Bødker. “You might think that it is a Panodil more than a vitamin pill, if it is a child who has just been sick, for example.”

Parents sick and tired
Parents, when confronted, often cite pressure at work as a reason for not being able to stay at home with their children.

Many declare that they simply cannot take another day off, as they are afraid of being fired.

Allan Randrup Thomsen, a professor of virology at KU, has heavily criticised the parents’ actions, describing the current situation as a “vicious circle”.

“It promotes the spread of viruses, and it adds momentum to a cycle where parents are pressured by high levels of sick-leave. If they then choose to send the children to daycare while they are still recovering, they keep the epidemic going in daycares, and this in turn puts a greater burden on the parents.”