Not only are children harming themselves with
AAS, they're committing suicide and murdering others as a result of
AAS...
(emphasis added by admin)
Think steroid scandal does not matter? Think again
Posted Friday, March 11, 2005
http://www.dailyherald.com/sports/co...intid=38422215 
By Barry Rozner
So you want to know why the U.S. Congress is asking baseball players questions, and why this is relevant to the lives of average Americans? Kids are dying. That simple enough for you? Kids are dying because they see gigantic players hitting baseballs 500 feet and making $18 million a year, and they want some of it.
So why should the government get involved?
Baseball not only failed for years to address the use of growth hormones, steroids and amphetamines, it also promoted the use of them by holding up this generation of sluggers as the greatest players in history, even proclaiming them saviors of an entire sport.
They might as well have said, "Every child in middle school and high school, and every college kid, should risk their lives by using drugs because you might become very famous and rich beyond your wildest dreams.''
Why is Congress investigating?
Children are committing suicide, killing others or destroying their bodies as a result of steroid use, and baseball has made drugs a very cool thing for everyone to do.
"The thread of what I heard today definitely has to do with kids,'' said Dr. Charles Yesalis, a Penn State University epidemiologist and an expert on drugs in sports. "I also heard some very angry politicians because people who were supposed to show up here didn't show up.''
Yesalis was phoning from Washington, where he testified before a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee Thursday, separate from the House Government Reform Committee that issued subpoenas for next week's more publicized hearing.
Among others, baseball Commissioner Bud Selig and NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue, NCAA boss Miles Brand and USOC bigwigs were invited, but none showed, sending underlings and infuriating members of the subcommittee.
"They're playing with fire here and they're clearly at risk if they think they can disrespect Congress like this,'' Yesalis said. "On other occasions, they've let it slide, but listening to (Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Rep.) Joe Barton today, he's had enough of this.
"He basically said we've been watching you fiddle with this long enough and something needs to be done now. They're not going to sit back and let baseball dictate terms to them.
"I understand what baseball's doing because their guys have a choice between embarrassing themselves or perjuring themselves.
"But this is just the beginning. They want to get into the NCAA, into the high schools, into all the pro sports. The days of pretending there's no steroids in sports are over.''
Except in Selig's mind, where "Buddy Ball" is alive and well.
"Yeah, his statement that steroids would be out of baseball in a year lands somewhere between silly and embarrassing,'' Yesalis said. "Only an idiot would believe that.
"If someone offered me all that money to say something that ridiculous, I think I'd have the integrity to turn it down.''
Barton said Thursday's session could be the first of a series of hearings, and if necessary subpoenas might be issued for commissioners of every major sport.
Lawmakers are just beginning to understand what we've been telling you for years, that leagues like the NFL and MLB are not serious about ridding sports of drugs, and even if they were, testing is many years - and many hundreds of millions of dollars - behind the times and falling farther behind every day.
Let's face it, if not for the "Balseco" scandal - Balco/Jose Canseco - baseball wouldn't have moved an inch on this, but lawmakers don't believe the tests are tough enough and the penalties stiff enough.
Meanwhile, kids are desperate to get big, and dying to get the results.
Remember this from Dr. Linn Goldberg, head of Oregon Health & Science University's Division of Health Promotion and Sports Medicine:
"The psychological and emotional effects of taking steroids, and of being addicted to steroids, are devastating. ... Getting off them is tough, but once you stop, you find ... you're weaker than you ever were before. You lose weight and you can't perform physically, including sexually. You're depressed because you're screwed up emotionally beyond belief.''
If you keep taking them?
"Then it'll probably kill you,'' Goldberg said. "Jose Canseco is a nobody. He doesn't worry me. I worry about the Jason Giambis and the Barry Bonds. They're here now. That's who the kids see.''
That's who the kids see.
Now do you get why they're asking questions in Washington?
"Balseco" has forced baseball to Congress, and it should be forced to explain why it looked the other way and let this happen, along with what MLB intends to do about it beyond the sham of a testing program they're running today.
Baseball thinks you have no right to ask questions, that you should just keep paying to see the games and mind your own business.
Stanley Brand, a lawyer for the commissioner's office, said the House Government Reform Committee has no jurisdiction and no authority to demand testimony from baseball players and execs.
A Committee spokesman, David Marin, replied, "Mr. Brand has his facts wrong. He failed to recognize that House rules give this Committee the authority to investigate any matter at any time, and we are authorized to request or compel testimony and document production related to any investigation.''
They ask questions. For you. They try to get answers. For you. They hope that as a result, fewer children will kill themselves or others because of steroids. Yes, that's for you, too.
I'm becoming nauseated, give me a bucket!!! 
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