Dr. Richard Rydze is a vocal advocate of the use of recombinant human growth hormone (rHGH) for the treatment of tendon and ligament injuries. Dr. Rydze found HGH to be highly effective for this purpose based on the clinical results from his human growth hormone research project involving over 200 patients over the course of 5 years. Unfortunately, Dr. Rydze, as a 22-year member of the Pittsburgh Steelers medical staff and an internal medicine specialist at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) was not in the best position to conduct such controversial HGH research in his private practice.
The societal stigma associated with performance-enhancing drugs and the legal restrictions on legitimate medical research by anti-steroid crusaders and the anti-doping movement quickly resulted in Dr. Rydze resignation from both the Pittsburgh Steelers organization and the UPMC after it was publicly disclosed that Rydze had purchased $150,000 worth of HGH and anabolic steroids from Signature Pharmacy with his credit card (”Former Steelers doctor embraced HGH,” January 15).
“I know it has caused me a lot of grief, simply because I believe in it and I know what it does,” Rydze said. “And to deny people the effect to heal better — that is the art of medicine, to make people heal. And using something off-label, which we use for many, many drugs … I don’t see how someone can single out one thing and say you can’t use it for off-label use. And you show me there is one side effect, and I’d be a believer. But I have never seen a side effect. And I just think it is just ignorance of people who don’t know. They just hear about it, and they assume it is bad.”
The use of human growth hormone was approved by the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) for a limited number of conditions**; the use of HGH for tendon and ligament injuries was not one of the FDA-approved indications. Any use of HGH for this purpose was considered “off-label.” An “off-label prescription” for a drug refers to its use by medical professionals to treat additional medical conditions and/or indications that were not originally approved by the FDA.
It is legal for physicians to use all FDA-approved pharmaceutical drugs for off-label purposes EXCEPT for HGH. The off-label use of human growth hormone (HGH) to accelerate healing in the treatment of tendon and ligament injuries remains illegal. Read more
