By: Rick Collins
Question: What fallout do you expect from the media frenzy over steroids in major league baseball?
Answer: As in many other elite sports, steroid testing will become routine in MLB. The main fallout, however, may have less to do with testing the players for illegal anabolic steroids than with trying to take androstenedione off your health food store shelves! Surprised? Check out recent developments on Capitol Hill. Whenever politicians perceive that the media have agitated enough voters or constituents, they'll hold hearings. So, a Senate subcommittee recently invited sports officials to testify on whether Congress should stick its two cents into MLB drug testing. Somehow, things went afoul. Attention was diverted from testing players for steroids to ending the sale of prohormones as dietary supplements for the general public.
Don Fehr of the MLB Players Association started the shenanigans by suggesting that "it may well be time for the federal government to revisit whether [prohormones] should also be covered by Schedule III." Then Robert Manfred, Executive VP of Labor and Human Resources for MLB, followed by urging "legislation that would regulate androstenedione and related substances such as DHEA." Next at bat was Frank Shorter, marathoner and U.S. Anti-Doping Chairman, whose entire testimony focused on the "international doping pollution" of "steroid precursors like 19-norandrostenedione" at the Olympic level.
A pediatrician from Missouri testified about steroid health dangers to young athletes by lumping them together with prohormones and claiming that "pediatricians do not distinguish between anabolic steroids and steroid precursors that are in dietary supplements." A high school coach from Vancouver also urged regulation over "[steroid] precursors sold as dietary supplements." Huh? Wasn't this supposed to be about baseball? The whole shift in focus feels like conspiratorial sleight of hand, and the consistent use of the term "steroid precursors," rather than the more common "prohormones," seems more coached than coincidental.
As far back as 1999, Barry McCaffrey, President Clinton's anti-drug chief, announced that he was trying to finance a study that could lead to the classification of andro under the Anabolic Steroids Control Act. A medical advisor to the government subsequently urged for regulation of andro as a prescription drug. After continued threats of governmental meddling, I was retained by a coalition of nutritional supplement companies last year to spearhead a presentation to the DEA as to why andro can't be legally declared an anabolic steroid because there's no evidence it meets one of the defining criteria: Promotion of muscle growth. Although the efforts to ban andro have been thwarted thus far, the anti-andro crusaders haven't given up.
Whatever your personal views on the safety and efficacy (or lack thereof) of andro, the whole hoopla should have nothing to do with steroid testing in MLB. Like other sports organizations, MLB can easily ban the use of both steroids and prohormones. Pardon me, but the problems within MLB in no way justify legislation to control the rest of us, thank you very much. The same overbroad approach was foisted upon us back in 1990, when Congress passed the Anabolic Steroids Control Act after remarkably similar hearings. Sparked by the media frenzy over the 1988 Olympic doping scandal and concerns about juice in pro football, numerous sports officials lamented to Congress.
The overbroad "solution" to elite level drug use, Congress was told, was the criminalization of steroids for everyone, not just the athletes. Ironically, of the thousands of individuals prosecuted for anabolic steroid crimes over the last decade, virtually none have been Olympic or professional athletes. Well, maybe that's because elite sports are now free of steroids? Obviously not, because we find ourselves once again facing the same problem of widespread performance drug use in high-level sports. This time it's baseball, but once again, sports officials are whining to Capitol Hill. Yogi Berra said it right: "This is like deja vu all over again."
Question: What fallout do you expect from the media frenzy over steroids in major league baseball?
Answer: As in many other elite sports, steroid testing will become routine in MLB. The main fallout, however, may have less to do with testing the players for illegal anabolic steroids than with trying to take androstenedione off your health food store shelves! Surprised? Check out recent developments on Capitol Hill. Whenever politicians perceive that the media have agitated enough voters or constituents, they'll hold hearings. So, a Senate subcommittee recently invited sports officials to testify on whether Congress should stick its two cents into MLB drug testing. Somehow, things went afoul. Attention was diverted from testing players for steroids to ending the sale of prohormones as dietary supplements for the general public.
Don Fehr of the MLB Players Association started the shenanigans by suggesting that "it may well be time for the federal government to revisit whether [prohormones] should also be covered by Schedule III." Then Robert Manfred, Executive VP of Labor and Human Resources for MLB, followed by urging "legislation that would regulate androstenedione and related substances such as DHEA." Next at bat was Frank Shorter, marathoner and U.S. Anti-Doping Chairman, whose entire testimony focused on the "international doping pollution" of "steroid precursors like 19-norandrostenedione" at the Olympic level.
A pediatrician from Missouri testified about steroid health dangers to young athletes by lumping them together with prohormones and claiming that "pediatricians do not distinguish between anabolic steroids and steroid precursors that are in dietary supplements." A high school coach from Vancouver also urged regulation over "[steroid] precursors sold as dietary supplements." Huh? Wasn't this supposed to be about baseball? The whole shift in focus feels like conspiratorial sleight of hand, and the consistent use of the term "steroid precursors," rather than the more common "prohormones," seems more coached than coincidental.
As far back as 1999, Barry McCaffrey, President Clinton's anti-drug chief, announced that he was trying to finance a study that could lead to the classification of andro under the Anabolic Steroids Control Act. A medical advisor to the government subsequently urged for regulation of andro as a prescription drug. After continued threats of governmental meddling, I was retained by a coalition of nutritional supplement companies last year to spearhead a presentation to the DEA as to why andro can't be legally declared an anabolic steroid because there's no evidence it meets one of the defining criteria: Promotion of muscle growth. Although the efforts to ban andro have been thwarted thus far, the anti-andro crusaders haven't given up.
Whatever your personal views on the safety and efficacy (or lack thereof) of andro, the whole hoopla should have nothing to do with steroid testing in MLB. Like other sports organizations, MLB can easily ban the use of both steroids and prohormones. Pardon me, but the problems within MLB in no way justify legislation to control the rest of us, thank you very much. The same overbroad approach was foisted upon us back in 1990, when Congress passed the Anabolic Steroids Control Act after remarkably similar hearings. Sparked by the media frenzy over the 1988 Olympic doping scandal and concerns about juice in pro football, numerous sports officials lamented to Congress.
The overbroad "solution" to elite level drug use, Congress was told, was the criminalization of steroids for everyone, not just the athletes. Ironically, of the thousands of individuals prosecuted for anabolic steroid crimes over the last decade, virtually none have been Olympic or professional athletes. Well, maybe that's because elite sports are now free of steroids? Obviously not, because we find ourselves once again facing the same problem of widespread performance drug use in high-level sports. This time it's baseball, but once again, sports officials are whining to Capitol Hill. Yogi Berra said it right: "This is like deja vu all over again."