Young athletes X-rayed to determine age!? for real!!

Source: www.samachar.com...

BANGALORE: Medical tests to determine the age of young athletes (between 8 and 21 years) have been scaled down ever since one critical aspect of the process — examination of secondary sexual characteristics — was considered too sensitive for the Union sports ministry to implement.

Physical exam during the age-determination test, introduced in April 2010, is now reduced to collating basic data about the athlete, including his height and weight. The accent is more on X-rays of the wrist, elbow, shoulder and hip joints after a recommendation from the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences to examine the secondary sexual characteristics in every athlete was rejected.

Um.. is it just me or does this seem extremely unsafe and unnecessary?! Xrays to determine age? I guess some kids (or their parents) will lie to get their kids into a higer level of sport..? is that why?
Check out this next part:

Some of the tests suggested by AIIMS included assessing the growth of pubic hair, breast development, auxiliary hair, moustache and beard, acne, Adam's apple and development of genitals

WTF? seriously? wow.. would you subect your child to that sort of examination to ensure their age?! I mean seriously...

Thoughts?

I don't know if I believe this has to do with age. I believe it has more to do with their gender. There has been many situations lately where a woman was competing and she turned out to be a he. X-rays are cheaper than DNA tests.
I might be wrong though. Maybe the X-rays will answer the age and sex questions at the same time.

Probably unsafe like you mentioned but i'm wondering if it works on older than 21.
I want Lebron James to pass the test i'm sure he's way older than he says lol.

reply to post by Afterthought


You're correct... it has to do with gender and with age. I guess it just seems dangerous?! espcially for young children... i mean we arent talking professional sports, are we?

Well, they could just cut them open and count their rings...or ask for their birth certificate...oh wait...probably not...

Yeah, unnecessary x-rays are a bad idea. Have enough radiation exposure to go around already.

Extremely unsafe? What's the difference between Xrays to determine age and Xrays to determine a bone fracture? Are Xrays for bone fractures extremely unsafe? Probably not or else they wouldn't use them.

Uh...yeah I would subject a child to that. Why? Because it's called a physical and docs do it routinely.

reply to post by Turq1


I guess it's more abou the unnecessary radiation.. i dunno. seems excessive to me. If you think you broke your bone(s), its worth the radiation to check... this though, i dunno

Originally posted by Nspekta
reply to post by Afterthought

 

You're correct... it has to do with gender and with age. I guess it just seems dangerous?! espcially for young children... i mean we arent talking professional sports, are we?

It doesn't matter if it's professional sports. Most societies will always consider sports as more than just a game. Everyone really needs to get their priorities straight. There's so much more to be passionate about!

If you're worried about radiation, take kelp. Frequent flyers should do this, too. It's very inexpensive.

Originally posted by Afterthought
If you're worried about radiation, take kelp. Frequent flyers should do this, too. It's very inexpensive.

Who told you kelp would help with radiation from frequent flying or X-rays? Source?

I think you're confused, it only helps with radioactive iodine as far as I know. That's different from electromagnetic radiation.

Regarding gender determination, yes it could be unfair if little boys competed as little girls, they might have an unfair advantage against the girls. 99+% of the time you can tell the gender without an X-ray. But I was surprised to learn that in up to 1% of cases, external gender identification isn't so straightforward and an X-ray may actually be needed.