Congressional Steroid Hearings

[injuryexpert]

Hi guys - great, informative forum. I just finished a book on performance-enhancing drugs in baseball and I'm still learning. Unfortunately, Congress isn't listening. Their next hearings will be a "save the children" sham, using emotion rather than fact to further ban steroids.

I'll be writing a piece for the New York Sun, running the day before the hearings. I'd love any appeals or facts that you think make a substantive case, such as actual usage statistics, how to combat the emotional appeals of the parents, and experience dealing with the actual side effects of steroid usage.

Thanks for any help.

- Will Carroll

[Millard Baker]

Originally Posted by injuryexpert

Hi guys - great, informative forum. I just finished a book on performance-enhancing drugs in baseball and I'm still learning. Unfortunately, Congress isn't listening. Their next hearings will be a "save the children" sham, using emotion rather than fact to further ban steroids.

I'll be writing a piece for the New York Sun, running the day before the hearings. I'd love any appeals or facts that you think make a substantive case, such as actual usage statistics, how to combat the emotional appeals of the parents, and experience dealing with the actual side effects of steroid usage.

Thanks for any help.

- Will Carroll

Will has been in contact with me for several months. He is staying clear of the 'steroid hysteria' typical of media coverage. I feel he is genuinely interested in hearing "our" perspective on the steroid issue.

I always thought that a good journalist would find the real story, which IMO is found at places like MESO-Rx where members don't agree with the mainstream coverage, the federal AAS laws or the congressional AAS witchhunt. But most journalists seem to think the only ride in town is the "steroid hysteria" showboat.

So, enjoy this opportunity...

[w_llewellyn]

Originally Posted by injuryexpert

Hi guys - great, informative forum. I just finished a book on performance-enhancing drugs in baseball and I'm still learning. Unfortunately, Congress isn't listening. Their next hearings will be a "save the children" sham, using emotion rather than fact to further ban steroids.

I'll be writing a piece for the New York Sun, running the day before the hearings. I'd love any appeals or facts that you think make a substantive case, such as actual usage statistics, how to combat the emotional appeals of the parents, and experience dealing with the actual side effects of steroid usage.

Thanks for any help.

- Will Carroll

Will,

If you are seriously interested in having all sides be heard, and not just passing along the typical steroid misinformation, please drop me a line at bill@@@bodyofscience.com, and we can talk.

[Bob Smith]

A real live journalist that wants the other side of the story? Awesome!

IMO, one of the best summaries of the history of AAS is in the book Legal Muscle. Rick goes into pretty good detail about the truth behind why AAS were classified as Schedule III drugs.

Sports shouldnt dictate national law, but unfortunately that is exactly what has happened with this topic. I dont know of a single person that would advocate the use of AAS by high school kids. Adults should have the choice as to whether to use or not, and if so, it should be under a doctors supervision. As we've discussed in other threads, rather than taking responsibility for their (likely) bad parenting, they are pointing the finger at steroids.

Instead of banning steroids, I think the government should make stupidity and bad parenting a felony.

[Deacon]

I'll post a couple of stories I have seen that say it better than I could bro;


Let them eat 'roids

http://washingtontimes.com/sports/2...21259-1694r.htm

By Patrick Hruby
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published December 21, 2004



Purists hissed. The chattering class cried foul. Dissenters howled, claiming the game never would be the same.

Reaction to baseball's latest steroid revelations? Not quite.

Roughly three decades ago, the American League adopted that most egregious of competitive affronts: the designated hitter. And ever since, the game's devotees have lamented the introduction of a tipping element designed to boost scoring and interest in a sagging sport.

All of which sounds vaguely familiar.

Of course, none of the above is meant to suggest moral equivalence between Rafael Palmeiro hitting for a pitcher and performance-enhancing drugs in sports. Nor does it hint at a pending Viagra joke.

Rather, the comparison is intended to raise a serious, if sacrilegious, question: What if the knee-jerk outrage over "flaxseed oil" is just that? What if the steroid sanctimony is utterly misplaced?

What if athletes were free to juice?

"It comes back to death," said Dr. Robert Ruhling, director of the Human Performance Research Laboratory at George Mason University. "You can't pussyfoot around it. People are going to die. And who's going to be responsible? The athlete, the doctor or the organizing body?"

Ruhling probably is right. Maybe allowing steroids in sports would be irresponsible and immoral, akin to repealing seatbelt laws. Perhaps a national pastime rippling with chemically addled sluggers would signal the end of the Republic as we know it.

On the other hand, an end to drug bans could be much ado about very little, a seminal moment to match the invention of the Segway.

With federal prosecutors knee-deep in the BALCO mess and politicians like President Bush and Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, weighing in, one thing seems obvious: There's another side to consider, the possibility that steroid prohibition makes as much sense as, well, Prohibition.

After all, if you can't play devil's advocate, you don't understand your own convictions. Which is just how the devil -- or in this case, Victor Conte -- likes it.

Should a drug-filled Olympics ever come to pass, the rationale would look something like this:

Testing doesn't work

American shot putter Adam Nelson formerly worked for Merrill Lynch. Once, while meeting with a client, he was interrupted by drug testers.

We need your urine. Right now.

"I'm like, 'Well, I'm an Olympian,' " Nelson told his client. " 'This is part of it.' "

Is it ever. The NFL spends $10 million annually on drug screening; the World Anti-Doping Agency performed 3,500 tests at the Athens Games alone.
So what do sports organizations get for expending millions? For trampling on the dignity of every athlete who would rather not urinate on command into a plastic cup?

"If you have an IQ above room temperature, you shouldn't be very confident in the ability of drug testing to catch anybody," said Dr. Charles Yesalis, a Penn State University epidemiologist and an expert on drugs in sports. "The Tour de France riders are tested up the wazoo, and guess who caught them [using EPO in 1998]? French border police. Chemists had nothing to do with it."

Consider BALCO. The steroid THG was designed to be undetectable. Testers only caught on because a disgruntled track coach slipped them a used syringe. Chemists didn't break the case. Nor did police. It took a whistle-blower. A rat.

Doping can be masked. Screening for testosterone, human growth hormone and other banned substances isn't foolproof. Sprinter Kelli White and a handful of Oakland Raiders are among those who passed tests while using THG. How many other unknown, unrecognizable drugs are out there?

Better question: how many rats are out there?

"With every chemical loophole that closes up, another one opens," Yesalis said. "And with advances in medical science, it's growing geometrically. What would work? Aggressive, undercover police sting operations. I'm talking handcuffs. Put it on 'Cops.' But are you willing to do that against Penn State, USC, the Baltimore Ravens, the L.A. Lakers?"

America put a man on the moon. Drug screening can work. However, a truly effective system would be akin to having 30 referees work courtside at every NBA game: costly, invasive and probably not worth the trouble.
In the meantime, why fight a losing battle?

Integrity is relative

This is the asterisk era. Or so everyone says. Yesteryear's sluggers were honest home run kings; today's players are fraudulent, puffed-up 'roid mongers.

Drugs, the argument goes, destroy competitive integrity. They provide users with an unfair and unnatural advantage, tilting an otherwise level playing field.

Asked about Barry Bonds' reported admission to a grand jury that he unknowingly took steroids, Hank Aaron intimated as much.

"Can [drugs] make you recuperate consistently enough to hit the kind of home runs these guys have been hitting?" Aaron told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "Let me say this. Any way you look at it, it's wrong."

Maybe so. But open your eyes: The playing fields are hardly level to begin with.

Bonds wears a padded protector on his right arm, giving him a plate-hugging elbow up on hitters who bat au naturel. The second-ranked Oklahoma football team has a reported operating budget of $29.8 million, dwarfing opponent Bowling Green.

Babe Ruth hit 714 home runs without facing a single black pitcher. No asterisk for him. From Lance Armstrong's powerful race team to better boat design in sailing's America's Cup, competitive imbalances are accepted all the time.

So why not doping?

"Talent is an advantage," said Jacob Sullum, a syndicated columnist and author of "Saying Yes: In Defense of Drug Use." "If anything, steroids could compensate for someone's natural disadvantage."

Go ahead. Draw a line between steroids and, say, high-altitude training. Call the former a distasteful shortcut; the latter, a way for athletes to maximize their talents naturally through hard work.

In reality, the distinction may be dubious. Drugs function by allowing athletes to train harder and more effectively than otherwise possible. Good coaches do the same thing. Should Joe Gibbs be placed on WADA's banned substance list?

"What is doping? That's been a huge problem," Yesalis said. "Tiger Woods, a bunch of NFL quarterbacks and NASCAR drivers have had laser eye surgery. How is that not cheating? What about sodium bicarbonate? That's been used in horse racing for years."

Take creatine, a chemical compound that aids muscle recovery. Like testosterone, creatine occurs naturally in the body and has performance-enhancing effects; unlike testosterone, the FDA considers creatine a food product.

Semantics aside, should one be forbidden while the other can be purchased at any GNC?

The banned substance EPO and altitude training both boost endurance the same way, by stimulating the production of oxygen-carrying red blood cells. Seeking a similar edge, U.S. speedskaters reportedly sleep in high-tech, oxygen-deprived rooms.

To review: jamming a needle in one's arm? Bad, very bad. But snoozing in a Michael Jackson-esque reverse hyperbaric chamber, sans the company of Bubbles the chimp?

Meh. No big deal.

"That's just ridiculous," Sullum said. "I don't see what is different in principle between steroids and anything else artificial we do to change our abilities, be it working out, diet, the various medicines people take to recover from injuries. There's an idea that sports ought to be pristine and unsullied by artificial things. Clearly, that's not the case."

Safety first?

Former NFL star Lyle Alzado died of brain lymphoma, a rare form of cancer. He blamed his condition on years of juicing. On both counts, he should have known better.

Fact is, medical scientists simply don't understand the long-term side effects of steroid use.

"There has never been an epidemiological study of the long-term effects of using these drugs," Yesalis said. "We're talking five, 10, 15 years. We just don't know."

In the short term, steroids can cause acne. They have been linked to mood swings and liver damage. They also can shrink the testicles. Not good.

Still, most side effects can be managed under proper medical supervision. Oft dismissed as a devil's bargain, steroids are first and foremost medical drugs, used to treat conditions like body wasting in AIDS patients.
As such, they're no more Faustian than, say, Cialis.

"We've used steroids in medicine going on 70 years," Yesalis said. "There does not exist an over-the-counter or prescription medication for which there is not adverse side effects. How about Vioxx? Having said that, there's no doubt in my mind that if these drugs are taken at high enough doses for long periods of time, you will be putting yourself in harm's way."

Probably so. And all the more reason to remove steroids from the drug underground. Athletes think like everyone else: If one pill is good, 10 must be better. They push the envelope. A case can be made that horror stories like Alzado's come not from drug use but abuse.

Perhaps athletes would be better off juicing legally under the strict watch of team doctors and trainers, as opposed to the shady likes of Greg Anderson, Bonds' personal trainer.

"Go back to before Roe v. Wade," Ruhling said. "Women were having abortions. Ninety percent weren't medically supervised. People were dying. If you could regulate and control steroid use, maybe that would be an answer to some of the problems."

In some ways, the sports world's drug ban seems paternalistic, hypocritical. Baseball allows the use of chewing tobacco, a known carcinogen. Football linemen are encouraged to tip the scales at 300-plus pounds, never mind future health problems. Across the athletic spectrum, invasive surgeries and addictive painkillers are the norm.

EPO is risky. So is skiing downhill at 80 mph.

"Athletes are not in safe jobs," Sullum said. "They make their living by getting the [stuff] knocked out of them. And now you're worried about steroids?"

Fans don't care

Lost in the torrent of steroid wailing? Only this: Clean athletes don't seem too concerned.

In theory, nonusers should be furious with their juiced-up peers. The cheaters are getting over. Yet track athletes aren't banding together to out their dirty counterparts; given a chance to institute steroid testing, baseball players chose a lax, toothless system.

What gives? Two possibilities:

1) The majority of athletes are cheating and would rather not get caught.

2) The clean majority would prefer to remain silent, give up a few dingers and collect ever-expanding paychecks. Fans dig the long ball.

"If a huge number of fans turned off their TVs and didn't go to the ballpark, it would get drugs out of sport," Yesalis said. "You'd have people squealing on each other. It would hit everybody's pockets. But arguably, doping has filled everybody's pockets."

Indeed. Drug rumors didn't dull the excitement surrounding Bonds' 73-home run season. Nor did they prevent Marion Jones from becoming the darling of the Sydney Games.

Asked whether players who fail steroid tests should be banned from baseball, 42 percent of the respondents in a recent poll said no. Fifty-seven percent said records set by steroid users should stand.

Sullum likens the situation to that of an actress with breast implants. Are implants natural? Nope. Are they medically dubious? A bit.

Are they a reason to turn off the movie? Ask Pam Anderson.

"Obviously it doesn't ruin your enjoyment," Sullum said. "It probably increases it. Pro sports are not hurting for money or fans."

In his State of the Union Address last January, President Bush argued that athletes are role models. Sports need to clean up their act, if only for the sake of our children.

Doug Abrams, a panelist at the University of Rhode Island's Center for Sports Parenting, thinks teen steroid abuse may have less to do with idol worship than with hyper-competitive youth sports.

"Kids tend to imitate what the pros do, but I'm not so sure that's a real problem with steroids," said Abrams, a law professor at the University of Missouri. "They want the same performance-enhancing effect, a chance to get a college athletic scholarship."

Besides, children aren't allowed to drive. Should NASCAR be disbanded? Hollywood actors aren't subject to random drug tests. Why are athletes any different?

"Why not test Joe Paterno?" Yesalis said. "What abut politicians? Bill Clinton wouldn't even release his medical records. What's in there? When I was growing up in the '50s and '60s, we referred to baseball in religious terms. But if you're under 40, you see this all as entertainment. And if that's all it is, you can argue drugs help entertainment."

Resistance is futile

The ancient Greeks considered the Olympic Games sacred. They didn't have million-dollar endorsement deals on the line. They cheated anyway, bribing judges and downing performance-enhancing elixirs.

Gaming the system always has been around, at least since the Roman emperor Nero, a self-styled bard, added poetry reading to the Olympic program in 67 A.D.

Guess who won the contest.

"None of this is new," Yesalis said. "Sports and athletes aren't some oddity. We live in a highly competitive environment. People push the edge of the envelope. If there was a pill to make journalists win a Pulitzer or make scientists win a Nobel, don't you think they would use it?"

This is a performance-enhanced age, an era of Viagra-popping, Botox-shooting bliss. Wellness is the standard; better than well is the goal. Genetic therapy promises a brave new world of medical breakthroughs. New doping techniques, too.

Drugs are easily banned. Human nature? Not so much.

"I don't say this easily, but I'm getting to the point where as long as we don't legalize these drugs in society, let the athletes do what they want," Yesalis said. "At least it would be a more honest portrayal of what is already happening."

[Deacon]

Whats wrong with drugs in sports? Nothing!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinio...1-mehlman_x.htm

What's wrong with using drugs in sports? Nothing

By Maxwell J. Mehlman

The controversy over drug use is convulsing sports. Officials at the Olympics, which officially open in Athens on Friday, are scrambling to keep their testing program one step ahead of rogue athletes and renegade chemists. Athletic careers, both professional and amateur, are being destroyed. People are going to jail.
Does this make sense?

Drugs can give competitors decisive advantages, such as athletes pole-vaulting 3 feet higher, or returning a tennis shot that used to be out of reach, or hitting a slow-pitch baseball an extra 20 yards.

But what's wrong with that? These changes took place more or less overnight when fiberglass poles, supersized tennis racquets and TechZilla bats were produced. So why do we object when the improvement is caused by a drug?

Let's review the arguments often voiced by drug critics:

Some drugs used in sports are dangerous. But many sports themselves, and the training regimens required to excel, also are dangerous. Athletes may be pressured by coaches and trainers to use dangerous drugs, but these same instructors pressure athletes to go out for the sport in the first place and to train hard, both of which risk injury.

More important, organized sports don't just embargo dangerous drugs: Romanian gymnast Andreea Raducan lost her gold medal at the 2000 Summer Olympics because she took an over-the-counter cold medicine so safe that even a child can buy it at the drugstore.

Adult use of performance-enhancing drugs could influence impressionable youngsters. Clearly we must protect children from purchasing the drugs, and athletes from advertising them. And we need to explain to youngsters that there is a difference, as with alcohol, between use by an adult and a child.

But this doesn't mean that we have to ban adult use. Children can hurt themselves just by trying their hand at a sport.

As a ski patroller, I deal with lots of injured kids who "just wanted to see if they could do that flip like the guy on TV." This doesn't mean we have to eliminate freestyle skiing from the Olympics.

Drug use is unfair if only some athletes can get them. Yet most of the drugs athletes use seem to be readily available. Besides, what about the fact that only a fortunate few athletes can obtain access to the best coaches and training resources?

Those advocating drug bans argue that the benefit from drugs is unearned, the accomplishments undeserved. But winning still takes a lot of work. No one "deserves" to be born wealthy or with tremendous natural talent, yet we confer medals on athletes who have had every unearned advantage. Why not when the advantage is conferred by drugs?

If one athlete uses drugs, then other competitors will be forced to do the same. But excellence in sports comes at the price of many freedoms, from being able to sleep late in the morning to maintaining bodily integrity. If one athlete trains hard, they all must.

Sports philosophers assert that a competition that allows drugs is simply not a sport. Many forms of physical competitions permit drugs (by not testing for them) — from strongman events to pick-up basketball. These activities may not make their participants rich or capture a large share of the television audience, but they are clearly sports.

Drug use is against the rules. Breaking the rules is a serious offense, and an athlete who deliberately cheats should be punished. But we've come back to where we started: We know that drugs are against the rules. What we're trying to find out is why.

This leads to an unavoidable conclusion: There is nothing inherently wrong with athletes using relatively safe drugs. People simply find it distasteful. It offends their aesthetic sensibilities.

Make no mistake: Aesthetics are important. Our sense of aesthetics is what allows us to distinguish what is beautiful from what is ugly. It drove XFL football out of existence. But people's tastes differ. Some fans don't seem to mind steroid use by professional baseball players, for example, as long as it lets the stars hit more home runs.

Tastes change, as perhaps they will when people realize that the ultimate justification for the policy against all drugs in sports is the same reason that we get upset when the neighbors paint their house purple.

Maxwell J. Mehlman is a professor of law and bioethics at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.

[mxim]

please note that contrary to what the media says,steroids are not as easy to get as candy. in fact,procuring anabolics are pretty darn hard. also,99% of high school student athletes DO NOT USE steroids. Also,Lyle Aziato(spelling) did not die from steroid use,steroids do not cause brain cancer,in fact,liver cancer was documented in only 2 or 3 cases where a steroid user was taking high doses of oral steroids for years non-stop.also,it was not known what their livers were like before taking steroids.as for Lyle Aziato,i talked to a doctor regarding his cancer. he informed me that his type of brain cancer is very common with those that have HIV. I'm not saying Lyle had HIV,but if he did,he sure would'nt of contracted it by using a dirty needle. any medical expert who specializes in hormones/steroids,will tell you they are not nearly as dangerous as the media portrays them to be.most individuals that use steroids are regular people just looking for cosmetic benefits;actors,models,and your average beach goer. Alcohol is one hundred times fore destructive than any steroid,why is congress discussing alcohol being marketed at baseball games with young children attending?what hypocrocy!

[WMUHymen]

Adderall! I go to College and everyone I know takes adderall all the time to get through class, or do HW, or study for exams. Everyone takes this shit and it is looked upon as the norm, yet the first mention of steroids or anything like that and people dont know what to do.

Adderall is just like a steroid for your brain.

and what about prozac and shit like that, making it easier for people to get through there life. WTF quite being pussies and putting you kids on adderall and popping prozac. be a better fucking parent, whip that kids ass into shape and teach him some discipline, dont take the easy way out by giving them adderall and solving all your problems with an emotion suppressing drug.

America is a Pill-Popping Nation, but Needles are the Devil, what gives with that shit.

WMUHymen

[Bob Smith]

Good articles, Deacon.

[cynic]

I don't think there is any way to combat the emotional ravings of grieving parents. The average mom and dad are going to relate to those people alot better than they will relate to the freakishly huge yet tiny subsection of society that eats and breathes iron. I wouldn't be too hard on these parents though. They suffer from a healthy dose of ignorance just like the vast majority. The gov't says steroids are bad for you, so they must be. After all, who can you trust if you can't trust your own gov't?? LOL.

I blame the media. ahem. Present company excluded. Primarily the "If it bleeds it reads. Hysteria sells." crowd. And the sports organizations that are promoting their own agendas at the expense of truth. Speculation and "news" go hand in hand nowadays. Most people in the news media have traded in their responsibility to the public for their desire for ratings. The truth just doesn't sell like the sensational.

[Millard Baker]

Originally Posted by cynic

I don't think there is any way to combat the emotional ravings of grieving parents.

I can't imagine how one would cope with such a tragic event as a parent. I suspect the majority have maladaptive and/or dysfunctional coping responses. And I really have sympathy for the parents who struggle to find an answer no matter how irrational or misguided it may be.

But I have utter contempt for a media, and Congress that promotes and legitimizes such dysfunction.

The allegation that AAS cause suicide has weak empirical support.

But the media et al, in part due to their ignorance of AAS and steroid hysteria and in part due to the sensationalistic impetus that motivates many journalists, readily accept it as fact.

Shame.

[cynic]

Agreed. I think those who want to call themselves "responsible" users have a responsibility to (when given the opportunity) discourage irresponsible use. Which would of course include teenage use. That's one thing I love about this site. The bros here are quick to say "you may not be ready yet".

In our society no one wants to take responsibility for their own actions. Kid blows his head off. Mom says, "It MUST have been the steroids. My Johnny would never have done that on his own. He just wanted to be like Giambi. Damn, baseball druggies." This does two things for mom. Gives her a way out. It's not her fault. It's not Johnny's fault. and gives her someone to sue.

[Millard Baker]

Originally Posted by injuryexpert

I just finished a book on performance-enhancing drugs in baseball and I'm still learning.

I had the opportunity to read a chapter from the book. It was great! I look forward to reading it in its entirety.

Do you mind if I asked who else from my recommended list that you had an opportunity to speak with? I had hoped you'd be able to interview Bill Llewellyn and Sidney Gendin as well.

But even if you didn't, how can I complain? You gave 27 pages of your book to Rick Collins and Author L Rea - that is awesome!

[J DUB]

If you want some pretty good discussions from people on this site, I would reccommend that you do a search and look for posts by administrator, Bob Smith, Grizzly, and maybe even myself. There are others who have started very good threads, but it seems the 4 of us are starting discussions like this on a daily basis.