Covering the doping beat can get tricky

[steroidbot]

Roughly 100 people attended the “Growth Hormone Summit,” which was hosted by the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and counted for continuing medical education credits for the doctors who attended.

Attending the conference for their own edification were top baseball officials, lawyers, sportswriters, doping sample collection officers, strength coaches and union officials.

The starkest example of the audience’s diversity, however, were the representatives of the booming anti-aging industry, which has been a source of performance-enhancing drugs for numerous players. These attendees were evidently displeased by the presentation of Dr. Thomas Perls, a medical doctor and ardent critic of the anti-aging industry, who testified Waxman a day before Clemens did.

In a question-and-answer session following his presentation, Perls was confronted by Edmund Chein, a controversial pioneer of hormone replacement therapy and director of the Palm Springs Life Extension and Skin Rejuvenation Institute.

Chein didn’t appreciate Perls’ characterization of the anti-aging industry as full of “quacks” and a potential threat to public health. Chein stood and insisted on “correcting” Perls on the question of whether prescribing HGH for non-approved uses was against the law.

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