Chem-Bio athletes will be medical guinea pigs. The article devoted an entire paragraph to side effects – known side effects. It left out some for which there is lots of anecdotal evidence, episodes of steroid rage (‘roid rage), for example, and injuries due to muscle strength being out of balance with tendons, etc. Some medical enhancements will inevitably fail, others will produce results in young athletes who will suffer the consequences later. Talk about young athletes, who will sign the consent forms? Parents used to have sons with beautiful voices castrated when castrati were Divas so there should be no shortage of very young Chem-Bio athletes. Does that make anyone queasy? Peer pressure should produce a huge group of Chem-Bio athletes in their teens and twenties.

Yes, it would be very interesting but it puts the ethics of human experimentation front and center – or it should. We have a long, awful history of medical experimentation. It was clearly wrong in Auschwitz when the enemy did it but US doctors tested the effects of untreated syphilis on African Americans (the Tuskeegee syphilis experiment). The Chem-Bio Olympics would add fame and money to the incentives – that should make anyone queasy.