IHRC's Medication Withdrawal Guidance Updated

With the anticipated "expiration" of medication withdrawal guidance as of April 30th, the Indiana Horse Racing Commission (IHRC) has posted two new sets of withdrawal guidelines. The first is withdrawal guidance from May 1st through May 14th with a revision date of April 30th. The second set offers guidance for May 15th and beyond which is supposed to coincide with the new regulatory thresholds for 24 therapeutic medications the IHRC established at their April 30th meeting.

http://www.in.gov/hrc/files/Medication_2014_Withdrawal_Times_1_May.pdf

http://www.in.gov/hrc/files/Medication_2014_Withdrawal_Times_15_May.pdf

One potential problem that we see is that the IHRC has a recommended withdrawal time for two therapeutic medications that were not approved for use with a regulatory threshold. Both albuterol and isoflupredone have no regulatory threshold in Indiana today, nor will they have regulatory thresholds as of May 15th. Per the IHRC, these two drugs will be considered for a threshold at their next meeting. Yet, the IHRC is advocating a withdrawal time as if there was a regulatory threshold in place already.

Albuterol and isoflupredone were added to the 'ARCI Controlled Therapeutic Medication Schedule - Version 2.1' this past month. According to that document, the suggested withdrawal guidance for albuterol is 72 hours where a regulatory threshold of 1 nanogram per milliliter of urine exists. So, why would the IHRC publish the same 72 hour withdrawal guidance when a zero tolerance level exists for albuterol under the IHRC's administrative rules? Any positive test for albuterol, even if the specific gravity is 1 nanogram per milliliter of urine or less, is a medication violation under current IHRC administrative rules. The same question can be asked of isoflupredone which has a withdrawal time of 7 days in the ARCI document, but with a regulatory testing threshold of 100 picograms per milliliter of plasma or serum. Per current IHRC administrative rules even 1 picogram, which is one-trillionth of a gram, would be considered a positive medication violation, but has the same 7 day withdrawal guidance. At this point, these two therapeutic medications would be considered a positive test at their limits of detection, which is the least amount a test can detect.

http://arcicom.businesscatalyst.com/assets/arci-controlled-therapeutic-medication-schedule---version-2.1.pdf

The IHRC's exact same withdrawal guidance as the ARCI's seems inconsistent without an established regulatory threshold. So, our plan is to ask these question to the IHRC's Medical Director and we'll post her response.

For more detail on this subject, review our article from March 28, 2014: http://www.ibopindy.blogspot.com/2014/03/ihrc-2014-medication-withdrawal-times.html