The Sports Illustrated version of the history of anabolic steroids in sports is now available online in its entirety with the launch of SI Vault.
Sports Illustrated on March 20 plans to unveil SI Vault, a new section within SI.com that will feature digitized archives of the magazine’s complete collection of content throughout its 54-year history. At launch, the online archive will feature 150,000 articles, 500,000 images and 2,800 covers…
Sports Illustrated has documented the use of performance enhancing drugs in sports for several decades. Now, every steroid article, every growth hormone article, every doping article is available to read for free at the SI Vault.
Charles “Modi” Modiano of Cosellout has begun the process of indexing several anabolic steroid articles that we feel MESO-Rx will find particularly interesting (”SI Vault: Sports Illustrated’s 40 Years of Steroids Coverage,” April 2). Of course, Sports Illustrated, from the beginning and throughout its historic coverage of anabolic steroids, has been instrumental in encouraging a climate of steroid hysteria that made the dispassionate, scientific discussion of anabolic steroids almost impossible.
To our knowledge Bil Gilbert’s extensive three part series in 1969 is SI’s first substantial foray into the subject of PEDS with it’s second part on baseball a must-read for historical context. The next 15 years marked many steroid/PED discoveries in sports like Olympics track & field, cycling, and body-building, but wouldn’t receive major attention or cover treatement (see Brian Bosworth) until the NCAA and NFL football became exposed in the latter 1980s. In the 1998, the Olympics took center stage as Ben Johnson was “busted” on SI’s cover. One year later SI printed another article that contained allegations against Carl Lewis and Florence Griffith-Joyner but few heard of the story. In 1991, former NFL star Lyle Alzado personally blamed his impending death on steroid abuse, but doctors could not corroborate such a claim. However, this SI cover story’s set a tone of “steroids scare” that would make it almost difficult to have reasonable discussions on the health risks of Steroids/PEDs for another 20 years.
But the articles are all here for better or worse: Bil Gilbert’s historic 1969 steroid hysteria series; anabolic steroid and bodybuilding in the 1970s; Terry Todd’s The Steroid Predicament about Dianabol, John Zeigler, Bob Hoffman and York Barbell; Terry Todd’s early history of growth hormone in sports; blood doping by American cyclists at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics; old school steroid dealer Charles Radler; 1985 Clemson University steroid scandal; football player Steve Courson’s steroid revelations; Tommy Chaikin’s bad steroid experience; Brian Bosworth and NCAA steroid crackdown; 1989 Senate hearing on anabolic steroids and the NFL; Ben Johnson, Charlies Francis, Jamie Astaphan and Winstrol; accusations of steroid use by Carl Lewis and Florence Griffith-Joyner; Lyle Alzado’s steroids made me sick and scared article; and of course Barry Bonds and steroids; and much more.
It’s all here, the good, the bad, the ugly. Enjoy!
(A special thanks to Cosellout!)
I was prepared to read another commentary about the dangers of anabolic steroids when I started reading “The Truth About Steroids And Sports, How Performance-Enhancing Drugs Went Mainstream;” the article was written by CNN’s chief medical correspondent, Sanjay Gupta. It started off poorly:
So we all agree that steroids are bad, right? They’ve brought suspicion and shame.
Then it got a little better. Dr. Gupta starts talking about the therapeutic use of anabolic steroids in HIV patients. He talks about the therapeutic uses of steroids.
He seems impressed that steroids can be good but then discusses how the therapeutic uses for steroids were “hijacked” by athletes and especially bodybuilders. Blame the bodybuilders. Parties responsible for the hijacking include the “Arnoldistas” or followers of Arnold Schwarzenegger who, according to Shaun Assael, created a steroid “religion.”
He blamed talked about the “Underground Steroid Handbook” but didn’t even mention the author, Dan Duchaine!
Then Dr. Gupta’s credibility takes a major hit when he talks about growth hormone.
Then there’s human growth hormone (HGH), derived from the pituitary gland.
HGH derived from pituitary glands has not been used in medicine in decades. It is all recombinant human growth hormone nowadays.
I hoped that he could save the article he interviewed Christopher Bell, director and producer of the steroid documentary “Bigger Stronger Faster.”
But that hope was dashed when I learned that when taking anabolic steroids, “there’s always the risk of, you know, heart weakening and liver tumors.” And then I [again] learned Lyle Alzado blamed his brain cancer on steroid abuse.
Gupta asks what can be done about a good drug gone bad? The first thing we should stop doing is stop associating Lyle Alzado’s brain cancer with his steroid abuse. Why do we persist in repeating this again and again with the standard disclaimer that there is no medical evidence to support it?
