President Barrack Obama commented on anabolic steroids during his first presidential press conference in response to a question by Washington Post reporter Michael A. Fletcher. Fletcher surprisingly asked President Obama about Alex Rodriguez’ admission of anabolic steroid use during his Major League Baseball career, “What is your reaction to Alex Rodriguez’s admission that he used steroids as a member of the Texas Rangers?” (”Obama’s First News Conference Covers A Range Of Issues,” February 9)
“I think it’s depressing news on top of what’s been a flurry of depressing items when it comes to Major League Baseball. And if you’re a fan of Major League Baseball, I think it tarnishes an entire era to some degree. And it’s unfortunate, because I think there are a lot of ball players who played it straight.
“And the thing I’m probably most concerned about is the message that it sends to our kids. What I’m pleased about is Major League Baseball seems to finally be taking this seriously, to recognize how big of a problem this is for the sport, and that our kids, hopefully, are watching and saying ‘You know what? There are no short cuts.’ That when you try to take short cuts, you may end up tarnishing your entire career. And your integrity’s not worth it. That’s the message I hope is communicated.”
The Washington Post asked the only question that did not involve domestic or foreign policy and was widely criticized as being inappropriate given the importance of other issues discussed during the prime-time presidential press conference. Read more
Academic researchers and policy experts advocated the acceptance of pharmacological performance-enhancement by mentally-competent, healthy individuals in a thought-provoking commentary in the journal Nature. The authors of the commentary restricted their argument to cognitive-enhancing drugs such as Adderall, Ritalin and Provigil, but every facet of their argument, point by point, holds relevance for a “presumption” that healthy individuals, not competing in drug-tested sports, should be able to engage in physical enhancement using anabolic steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs. They call for policy on performance-enhancing drugs to be based on a rational, evidence-based approach.
The authors, which include Nature editor-in-chief Philip Campbell, point out that the acceptance of elective, enhancements for healthy individuals has been widely accepted in certain medical specialties (”Towards responsible use of cognitive-enhancing drugs by the healthy,” December 7).
Physicians who view medicine as devoted to healing will view such prescribing as inappropriate, whereas those who view medicine more broadly as helping patients live better or achieve their goals would be open to considering such a request. There is certainly a precedent for this broader view in certain branches of medicine, including plastic surgery, dermatology, sports medicine and fertility medicine.
The authors do attempt to distinguish pharmacological physical enhancement as a form of cheating, as contrasted with cognitive enhancement, but ONLY in the context of sport. Read more
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) reached an agreement with INTERPOL to faciliate international police cooperation in its politicized and moralistic campaign against the use of anabolic steroids for non-medical purposes (e.g. motivated by increased muscle size, improved strength, enhanced athletic performance and greater physical attractiveness). WADA has spearheaded the internationalization of steroid law with UNESCO International Convention against Doping in Sport with a stated objective of criminalizing personal non-medical steroid use by apply the force of international law behind the anti-doping WADA code.
Now, WADA has garnered the support of INTERPOL, the world’s largest police force, to act as a sort of international moral police upholding the steroids-are-evil morality, stamping out cheaters and protecting the children (”WADA strengthens ties with law enforcement agencies,” November 24).
“We’ve got to the point of the implementations of the arrangements with Interpol to help in the international fight we are endeavouring to undertake,” WADA president John Fahey told reporters. “This is a significant step forward.
“As demonstrated by the recent high profile doping cases and investigations, government action and the sharing of information between law enforcement agencies and anti-doping organisations can be crucial in exposing anti-doping rule violations that would not have been detected through testing.
“Law enforcement and government agencies possess investigative powers to attack the source and supply of illegal substances which sport does not have.”
One of the biggest problems caused by using the WADA code as the basis for international law is the fact that the overwhelming majority of non-medical steroid users are NOT athletes. So, instead of addressing the problem of doping in sports, it targets consenting adult non-athletes who have no relation to competitive sports.
President-elect Barack Obama has selected Phil Schiliro as the Assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs. Schiliro will play an important role in the Obama-Biden administration as Obama’s top White House Congressional liason. Phil Schiliro was Chief of Staff to Representative Henry Waxman, the chairman for the House Oversight Committee (”Philip Schiliro, Veteran Congressional Aide, Named To Obama’s Staff,” November ).
Phil Schiliro, as Waxman’s Chief of Staff, is given most of the credit for initiating the Congressional hearings on anabolic steroid use in baseball after reading Jose Canseco’s book Juiced. The Congressional grandstanding at the steroid witch-hunt was also known as “Restoring Faith in America’s Pastime: Evaluating Major League Baseball’s Efforts to Eradicate Steroid Use” Read more
The International Olympic Committe (IOC) is pressuring the United Kingdom (UK) to criminalize the personal use of anabolic steroids prior to the 2012 London Olympics. The mere possession of anabolic steroids and/or the importation of steroids for personal use is not an offense under UK law. Consequently, athletes (and bodybuilders) in the United Kingdom can technically use anabolic steroids and performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) without violating UK law. But this may soon change in the next few years if the IOC has their way (”IOC pressure Great Britain to change doping laws ahead of London Olympics 2012,” November 8).
The IOC are growing increasingly frustrated at Britain’s refusal to introduce legislation to outlaw the possession, supply and distribution of performance-enhancing drugs.
Their stance leaves them out of step with other European countries such as Sweden, France, Italy, Greece and Germany where anti-doping laws mean athletes and their suppliers can go to jail.
Great Britain’s refusal to blindly follow the trend towards the internationalization of steroid law taking hold in the rest of the European Union presents a significant threat to the moral authority of the IOC. The IOC has promoted the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) code as the guide for certain moral offenses that should be criminalized. Read more
This week, the New York Daily News ran a series of articles “exposing” the use of Viagra (sildenafil) as a performance enhancing drugs in sports (”Source: Roger Clemens, host of athletes pop Viagra to help onfield performance,” June 10).
Roger Clemens, whose claims he never took steroids are under federal investigation, has apparently discovered the benefits of another performance-enhancing drug sweeping the sports world – Viagra.
[...]
Clemens wasn’t alone. The pitcher, who is believed to have scored the drug from a teammate, joined the burgeoning number of athletes who have turned Vitamin V and its over-the-counter substitutes into one of the hottest drugs in locker rooms.
Of course, the performance enhancing benefits of Viagra have been discussed practically ever since Viagra was commercially introduced as a prescription pharmaceutical drug over a decade ago.
Patrick Arnold, of Ergopharm and yes, the innovative chemist who created THG for BALCO, wrote an article about Viagra as a phamaceutical ergogen for MESO-Rx about EIGHT YEARS AGO. Read more
Attempts to eliminate anabolic steroid from sports in an effort to preserve athletes as role models for our children is a failed strategy. The real problem lies with a society that worships athletes as role models. Manufacturing a moral issue out of steroid use in professional sports is hypocritical when other “immoral” behavior by athletes is not subject to the same media scrutiny, Congressional hearings, and multi-million dollar federal investigations.
It is certainly not Roger Clemens’ extramarital affair with country singer, Mindy McCready, that will keep him out of the Hall of Fame. It is his use of anabolic steroids and growth hormone that represent his moral unworthiness of being inducted in the Hall of Fame. Kobe Bryant’s extramarital affair (and rape accusations) were certainly an inconvenience for him, but won’t keep him out of his respective sport’s Hall of Fame. Neither will Michael Jordan’s extramarital affair. Or Magic Johnson’s affair. Or Jerry Rice’s affair. Or David Beckham’s affair. Or Maradona’s affair. Or even Renaldo’s solicitation of transvestite prostitutes.
The “culture of adultery” and “fast food sex mentality” in professional sports is an accepted, and even celebrated, part of professional sports.
Yet performance-enhancing drugs and the “culture of steroids” is seen as evil and immoral. The demonization of steroids in sports is absurd in the face of such hypocrisy.
Following the revelation of an international doping scandal centered in Austria, the Austrian government has announced legislation that will criminalize mere possession of anabolic steroid and/or other performance enhancing drugs. Previously, there was no punishment for possession of steroids (”Austria to tighten anti-doping law,” April 18).
Legislation to tighten Austria’s anti-doping laws by criminalising possession of performance-enhancing substances are to be unveiled this summer, the government announced on Friday.
According to proposals to be unveiled in early July, it will be a criminal offence to be found in possession of doping substances above a certain quantity, said Roland Achatz, spokesperson for sports secretary Reinhold Lopatka.
It also appears that Greece is prepared to criminalize steroid possession as well as a major steroid scandal involving the Greek Weightlifting Team unfolds (”Greece to target doping cheats,” April 19).
Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis pledged yesterday to tighten the country’s anti-doping laws in a bid to stamp out illegal substance abuse among athletes.
”A special committee was formed… to consider more stringent administrative and criminal sanctions against those who use, provide and market banned substances,” Karamanlis told Parliament.
The “internationalization of steroid law” predicted by Philip Sweitzer is becoming a reality.
The internationalized, fascistic nature of current steroid law enforcement policy thus emerges. Hegemony is its stated goal, that U.S. policy must be tantamount to international policy: all nations must conform to the legal standard of the United States. We must all think alike… The “internationalization” of steroid law, however, is also troubling for its politicization and heavy-handed reliance on dishonest notions of morality, cheating, and “protecting our children,” rather than science…
A full analysis of the internationalization of steroid law by Sweitzer can be found in “AAS Across the Atlantic: The “Americanization” and Politicization of International Steroid Law“.
Patrick Arnold of Ergopharm tells me that he is angered by the conviction of cyclist Tammy Thomas today. She was convicted of three counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice. In his email, Pat tells MESO-Rx:
I feel saddened and disgusted by Tammy’s conviction. Its been almost FIVE YEARS since Balco. Why are we still going after athletes? How can a wound ever heal if we keep sticking our fingers in it? They say its for the kids. Well how does keeping steroids in the news over and over again do anything except arouse their curiousity? This is not about the kids. Its about the careers and egos of federal politicians, prosecutors, and law enforcement agents.
When the jury read the conviction in court today, Tammy Thomas addressed the prosecution and jury that convicted her (”Cyclist Tammy Thomas convicted in steroids case,” April 4). Read more
The Wall Street Journal reports today that the muscle gains from anabolic steroid use may be permanent according to an unnamed and unpublished research study from Umeå University in Sweden (”Cheaters Do Prosper: Scientists in Sweden Make a Stunning Claim: The Benefits of Steroids May Never Go Away — Even When Athletes Quit Taking Them,” April 4).
When the researchers looked at the subjects’ muscles through a microscope, they made a surprising discovery: Rather than returning to their original proportions, the muscles of the steroid users who’d stopped taking the drug looked remarkably similar to those of the subjects who were still using. They also had larger muscle fibers and more growth-inducing “myonuclei” in their muscle cells than the nonsteroid users.
MESO-Rx has identified the research as belonging to Anders Ericsson in the Department of Integrative Medical Biology at Sweden’s Umea University. Ericsson’s doctoral thesis was entitled “Strength training and anabolic steroids: a comparative study of the trapezius, a shoulder muscle and the vastus lateralis, a thigh muscle, of strength trained athletes” and was submitted on October 6, 2006. The full text PDF is available online. Read more
Steroid chemist Patrick Arnold of Ergopharm testified in San Francisco federal court today in the perjury case against cyclist Tammy Thomas. Pat Arnold said under oath that THG was explicitly created to avoid detection by athletes subject to doping controls. He admitted to selling tetrahydrogestrinone (THG) to Victor Conte of BALCO and directly by mail to Tammy Thomas. (”Chemist testifies he created steroid at the heart of BALCO scandal,” March 25)
THG was also known as “the clear” because it was not detectable at the time Arnold developed it in about 2001.
Under questioning by prosecutor Jeff Nedrow, Arnold said, “That’s the primary reason why THG was developed.”
Arnold also said, “I believe that Miss Thomas understood full well it was undetectable and that that was its purpose.”
He said he believed the cyclist understood the drug had “steroid-like qualities.”
Tammy Thomas denied ever receiving any products from Pat Arnold other than Ergopharm 1-AD; she denied receiving anabolic steroids or other performance-enhancing drugs from Pat Arnold or anyone else; she denied using anabolic steroids.
The New York Times reports that IRS Special Agent Jeff Novitsky is making inquiries about several fitness professionals in the Houston area in an effort to substantiate the use of anabolic steroids and growth hormone by Roger Clemens in a possible federal perjury case. They have asked a former employee about Houston fitness guru Shaun K. Kelley, the owner of Shaun Kelley Weight Control.
Novitzky, who has spent the past five and a half years investigating the distribution of performance-enhancing drugs in professional sports, maintains a lead role in the perjury investigation, the lawyers said, and is interested in questioning a number of people in Houston, including Kelley.
As a result of the New York Times story and Kelley’s implied association with Clemens and performance enhancing drugs, the blogosphere has already started digging up dirt on Shaun Kelley.
Kelley told the New York Post last night on the phone that he never sold performancing enhancing drugs.
“Roger Clemens has never been in my store,” Kelley told The Post in a phone interview last night. “I’ve never sold steroids or growth hormone.” [...]
“That’s all the information these clowns from The Times have,” he said. “That is the weakest report I’ve ever seen printed. If all that they can come up with, they need to find new reporters.
“I will give the FBI a polygraph. I do not deal drugs. I’ve never done anything with Roger Clemens except shake his hand.”
Recently, Kelly Blair, another Houston fitness professional, made national headlines due to his association with MLB baseball player Andy Pettitte and alleged distribution of growth hormone and steroids; the media tried unsuccessfully to find links between Blair and Clemens but settled on trying to link him with a former pro bodybuilder awaiting trial on murder charges.
Obviously, the unwanted attention, unsubstantiated allegations, and government leaks by lawyers close to the investigation are bad for business in Houston fitness industry.
Tercica announced that they just started a Phase II clinical trial examining the efficacy of IGF-1 stacked with human growth hormone (GH). Unfortunately for bodybuilders and athletes, the outcome measure in this study is not performance enhancement, increases in lean muscle mass, or loss in body fat.
The objective is to measure “height velocity” and safety in the treatment of short stature in children. The trial will examing the efficacy of three different stacks of GH + IFG-1 and compare them with GH alone (GH monotherapy).
Potential of GH/IGF-1 Combination Product: The combination product will be studied in children with short stature not associated with growth hormone deficiency, who also have low IGF-1 levels. A potential cause of short stature in this group of patients could be a suboptimal IGF-1 secretion in response to growth hormone stimulation alone. Pre-clinical studies suggest that co-administration of GH and IGF-1 may increase specific growth responses greater than growth hormone alone. Therefore, Tercica believes that treatment with a combination of both GH and IGF-1 may be superior to monotherapy of growth hormone alone in a subpopulation of children with low IGF-1 and short stature not associated with growth hormone deficiency.
Tercica is the biotechnology company that is the first to bring FDA-approved recombinant insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) to the marketplace. The brand name for IGF-1 is Increlex and the generic name is mecasermin.
Tercica reached an agreement in July 2007 with Genentech to use Genentech recombinant human growth hormone Nutropin AQ (somatropin) in a stack with IGF-1. Genentech bought 708,591 shares of Tercica stock for about $4 million as part of agreement.
It is interesting that discussion of the use of growth hormone and IGF-1 in athletes for performance enhancing purposes revolves around the extremely dangerous side effects of these drugs; efforts to prevent GH use in sports is often based on the dangers of the drugs and potential public health crisis they may cause.
Yet a news story about the therapeutic use of growth hormone and IGF-1 in children gets buried in the news.
The video of the debate is available at Steroid Report. The unedited audio of the debate over anabolic steroid use by athletes that we reported earlier is now available from NPR. The steroid debate was hosted by Intelligence
Squared and featured
Radley Balko,
Norman Fost, and
Julian
Savulescu arguing for the motion “We should accept performance-enhancing
drugs in competitive sports.” There is also an
edited download available but I recommend the
unedited audio for the completed steroid debate.
This is the best and most convincing argument that I’ve ever seen as to why “we should accept performance-enhancing drugs in competitive sports.” Those advocating the position that anabolic steroids, growth hormone, etc. should be permitted in sports were:
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Radley Balko - senior editor and investigative journalist for Reason magazine,
-
Norman Fost, M.D., M.P.H. – professor of pediatrics and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin, and director of the Bioethics Program which he founded in 1973;
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Julian Savulescu - Uehiro Professor of Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford, Director of the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics and of the Program on Ethics and Biosciences in the James Martin 21st Century School.
I highly recommend that you download and read the transcript of the entire debate. Here are some excerpts with compelling arguments from Norm Fost why we should change the “rules of the game” to permit anabolic steroids and other performance enhancing substances:
1. Steroids Give an Unfair Advantage to Athletes
…advantages are only unfair if they’re unequally distributed. The usual solution is to expand access. When Bob Seagren showed up at the ’72 Olympics in-, with a fiberglass pole, it was not banned, but, a-, uh, there was a time to allow others to practice with it, and it was incorporated. When Kenyan runners were found to enhance their performance by raising their hemoglobin by training at altitude, the reaction was not to ban abnormally high hemoglobins, or to prohibit others from training at altitude, but to encourage everyone to do it.
2. Steroids are Harmful to Athletes
Two, critics say these drugs are harmful, but they rely on information that’s wiley-, wildly exaggerated or just fabricated. We are told repeatedly that these drugs use heart disease, cancer, and stroke, while human growth hormone has been given to almost a million children for fifty years, and there’s still no real serious side effects that have been discovered… I ask you in the audience to quickly name, in your own minds, a single elite athlete who’s had a stroke or a heart attack while playing sports… But sport itself is far more dangerous, and we don’t prohibit it. The number of deaths from playing professional football and college football are fifty to a hundred times higher than even the wild exaggerations about steroids. More people have died playing baseball than have died of steroid use.
3. Athletes are Coerced into Using Steroids
Three critics say that allowing their use is coercive, that you’re forced to use them… Coercion is the use or threat of force that’s never occurred in this country to the best of my knowledge. There is no entitlement to play professional sports; it’s a privilege requiring an enormous sacrifice and taking on enormous risks, with or without steroids. Many walk away from it and choose not to do it, and no one is forced to take it on.
4. Steroids Undermine Fan Interest
Four, critics claim that steroids undermine fan interest, and this is simply empirically false, baseball attendance has ridden steadily in the steroid era, professional football is even more popular, and Barry Bonds, widely assumed to be a steroid user, is the biggest draw in sports, adding ten thousand fannies in the seats everywhere he goes. Chicks love the long ball, guys love the long ball, they don’t care what they’re using.
5. Steroids Undermine Integrity of Records
This is naïve, the records are not comparable with or without steroids or growth hormone. Baseball fences are shorter, the mound is lower, the ball is livelier, and Coors Field is a mile above sea level. By one estimate, Babe Ruth playing in today’s ball parks would hit a thousand home runs, not the mere seven hundred and fifty that Hank Aaron and Bonds have hit. The only valid comparison is with peers playing in the same arenas with the same equipment against the same opponents, and Ruth hit more home runs in one season than any other team. He is in a league of his own, and no one has come close.
6. Steroid Use by Athletes Bad for Children
Finally, critics claim that steroids present bad role modeling for children – Everyone agrees these drugs should be banned for children. The adverse effects are different, they stunt growth, they are not competent to make informed choices. I support testing in schools, not to punish the kids, but to catch the peddlers. Anyone caught selling drugs to children should be hung, followed by a fair trial. In closing, when you go out to dinner tonight, enjoy the wine that relaxes you, or start your day tomorrow with a double mocha latte that gets you going, but please be less critical of others who, like you, try to enhance their performance in a variety of ways. Thank you.
http://www.intelligencesquaredus.org/TranscriptContainer/PerformanceEnhancingDrugs%20011508.pdf
