![](http://www.mesomorphosis.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/mickey-rourke-in-the-wrestler.jpg "Mickey Rourke character uses anabolic steroids in \")
The steroid witch-hunt has expanded beyond athletes in professional sports to include performers in the entertainment industry. The recent government investigation into the pervasive use of anabolic steroids in the scripted entertainment of professional wrestling marks a departure from their focus on steroids in sports. The results of the investigation into steroid use in professional wrestling were conveniently released immediately prior to the nationwide theatrical release of “The Wrestler” promising to capitalize on the heightened media attention given to steroids in wrestling.
A movie about a professional wrestler who uses anabolic steroids that is played by an actor (Mickey Rourke) suspected of steroid use (with a history, marked by multiple physical altercations along with arrests for spousal abuse and resisting arrest, that lends itself to a roid rage interpretation) provides the perfect opportunity for anti-steroid crusaders to target the use of steroids in the entertainment industry.
There will certainly be much discussion about the parallels between Mickey Rourke and his character, Randy “The Ram” Robinson especially when it comes to steroid use. The discussion about Rourke’s physical transformation will remain in the news with every accolade awarded to “The Wrestler” from the recent Golden Globe awards to possible Oscar awards.
Everyone suspects that Mickey Rourke used steroids to obtain the physique seen in “The Wrestler.” The New York Daily News and Men’s Journal does Read more
United States government investigators targeted World Wrestling Entertainment Chairman Vince McMahon in a contentious and adversarial meeting that appeared to be nothing more than a steroid witch-hunt; investigators asked very few factual questions during the three-hour interrogation at the Rayburn building. David J. Leviss, Senior Investigative Counsel for the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, repeatedly asked McMahon for his lay opinion on the medical and pharmacological aspects of anabolic steroids.
After over two hours of dubious questioning failed to bear fruit, the House Government Reform Committee investigators attempted to salvage the interview with a last-ditch effort to implicate Vince McMahon as a user of anabolic steroids perhaps hoping they could trick him into perjuring himself. (Perjury has been a popular weapon used by federal investigators to pursue steroid users.)
The government investigators reconvened after a short break to ask McMahon about his own use of anabolic steroids and human growth hormone. In what appear to be hastily arranged questions, Leviss inaccurately referenced events in the 1993 case of USA v. Vincent K. McMahon in which McMahon was acquitted of conspiracy to distribute anabolic steroids to wrestlers. David J. Leviss, Senior Investigative Counsel, was promptly put in his place by Vince McMahon’s counsel Jerry S. McDevitt, Esq. Read more
Steroid hysteria is presented at its finest in ESPN Columnist Howard Bryant’s book on the anabolic steroids in baseball scandal entitled “Juicing the Game
Howard Bryant’s attempt to weave a narrative out of his passion for baseball and the obviously foreign world of steroids could have benefitted from considerable more steroid research. But only an exceptional writer like Howard Bryant could create such masterfully written steroid hysteria with such disturbingly false information as follows.
Despite the disagreement, virtually all doctors, Crusaders or not, could agree that anabolic steroids were lethal to the human system. They were certain that some of the more powerful steroids, such as Deca-durabolin, Winstrol, and stanozolol, were major threats to the heart, the liver, and the kidneys. Deca-durabolin, for example, was a particularly nasty steroid that had been in use among weightlifters since the 1960s. Users of the powerful yet lethal drug were highly susceptible to kidney malfunction and liver and pituitary tumors. To Robert Cantu, the noted Boston neurosurgeon who specialized in catastrophic sports injury, athletes were involved in a high-stakes poker game, in which the odds were against them and the risks were chilling. While most people knew that steroids could cause sterility, Cantu believed it to be less known that the drugs could affect the reproductive systems of a user’s children and grandchildren. That athletes were now willing to risk the future health of their unborn children for a big payday raised the stakes even further. (emphasis added)
