More websites are covering Eric Walker’s Steroids and Baseball website that we discussed last week, including the New York Times. Walker suggests there is “no evidence” that anabolic steroids have increased home run hitting. He points to the power factor statistics to support his claims. Most baseball fans have never heard of Eric Walker; fortunately the NY Times gives us some insight:
Walker was a National Public Radio correspondent in the early 1980s when he began filling the San Francisco airwaves with his theories regarding baseball — specifically, that on-base percentage was undervalued, fielding was misunderstood and power ruled all. One increasingly intrigued listener was Sandy Alderson, then a young Athletics executive, who soon hired Walker as a team consultant and with him devised the Oakland philosophy now called Moneyball.
Matt Welch of the Reason blog tells us about a new steroids in baseball website that critically examines assumptions, particularly those in the Mitchell Report, about steroids and performance-enhancing drugs as they related to Major League Baseball. Eric Walker’s stated goal behind the website:
The purpose of these pages is to methodically dissect those claims and assumptions and compare each with what is actually known about it.
He analyzes several steroid assertions and supports each analysis with several scholarly and scientific citations. Some of his conclusions:
Wow! This is the most impressive panel of intellectuals arguing that performance enhancing drugs, such as anabolic steroids and growth hormone, should be accepted in professional sports. An Oxford-style debate presented by Intelligence Squared US and sponsored by the Rosenkranz Foundation debated the motion, “We should accept performance-enhancing drugs in competitive sports.”
Panelists for the debate were Radley Balko of Reason magazine, Norman Fost, director of the Bioethics Program at the University of Wisconsin, and Julian Savulescu, director of the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics and of the Program on Ethics and Biosciences in the James Martin 21st Century School, speaking for the motion. Sportcaster George Michael, former Major League Baseball all-star and founder of the iWon’t Cheat Foundation Dale Murphy and Richard Pound, former chairman of the World Anti-Doping Agency, spoke against the motion. Sports and broadcast host Bob Costas served as moderator.
I’ve written a lot about the loophole of therapeutic use exemptions (TUEs) that allows athletes to use performance-enhancing drugs such as anabolic steroids, growth hormone, amphetamines, etc. for a competitive advantage. I used the 2006 Tour de France as a prime example, where 60% of drug-tested riders had a TUE for some banned substance. The congressional hearings on the Mitchell Report included testimony that over 8% of Major League Baseball players had TUEs for ADD/ADHD drugs such as Adderall or Ritalin.
Major League Baseball has allowed some baseball players to use anabolic steroids as “androgen deficiency medication” treatment according to testimony at the congressional hearing entitled “The Mitchell Report: The Illegal Use of Steroids in Major League Baseball.” In 2006, three players were permitted to use “androgen deficiency medications” under the therapeutic use exemption. In 2007, only two players were permitted to use anabolic steroids to treat this condition. Therapeutic use exemptions for amphetamines and related “ADD/ADHD medications” jumped from 28 in 2006 to 103 in 2007.
The parents of Efran Marrero, a high school baseball player who committed suicide after the use of anabolic steroids, provided testimony at the congressional hearing entitled “The Mitchell Report: The Illegal Use of Steroids in Major League Baseball.”
Three and half weeks after he quit using steroids “cold turkey” my son took his own life - a victim of the deep depression that accompanies withdrawal from these drugs.
This type of emotional testimony really has a strong effect on me as I’m sure it does on many others. Unfortunately, such emotional testimony is useless when it comes to scientifically, logically and rationally informed public policy. Read the rest of this entry
The congressional hearing entitled “The Mitchell Report: The Illegal Use of Steroids in Major League Baseball” is underway right now. I have previously discussed the loophole offered by therapeutic use exemptions that allow professional athletes to use performance enhancing drugs, including steroids, growth hormone and/or testosterone. The number of therapeutic use exemptions or TUEs were not revealed in the Mitchell Report.
Congressman John Tierney (D-MA) revealed that Major League Baseball has granted over 100 therapeutic use exemptions to athletes for amphetamines and related stimulant drugs to treat ADHD. Of course, since the focus of the Mitchell report and the Congressional hearings are on the evils of steroids, the continuing problem of amphetamines in baseball will likely not be seriously investigated at this point.
I regularly read the coverage of the Signature Pharmacy steroid distribution investigation by journalist Brendan Lyons of the Albany Times Union. This is primarily because he seems to have the best access to information related to the investigation since it is an Albany-based investigation initiated by District Attorney David Soares. However, articles are not very well-balanced and regularly include baffling statements such as this (emphasis added):
While Congress is preparing to focus on baseball players alleged to have taken the drugs, medical experts are warning that steroids and human growth hormone are being illegally prescribed nationwide at an alarming rate under the misconception they will aid healing, enhance looks, strength and speed, or slow aging.
ESPN reports that trainer Brian McNamee claims Roger Clemens developed an abscess in his buttock resulting from injections of anabolic steroids in 1998. No medical records have surfaced to corroborate this claim. Of course, if Roger Clemens claims that he regularly received intramuscular injections of B-12, then this could have been equally responsible for the alleged abscess. However, Clemens’ attorney has denied that Roger Clemens’ had an abscess.
But ESPN found an “anti-doping expert” who claims that anabolic steroid injections represent a special type of intramuscular injection that is more likely to cause abscesses. According to Gary Wadler of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Read the rest of this entry
I am shocked at the misinformation regarding lidocaine that has circulated the media news sites and blogosphere as it relates to major league baseball player Roger Clemens. The addition of lidocaine to a B-12 injection didn’t seem unusual to me or even in need of an explanation. I didn’t think I need bother to comment upon it; surely, someone would explain it.
ESPN interviewed two “experts” - Dr. Ken Dretchen, pharmacology department chair at Georgetown University and Dr. John F. Dombrowski, director of pain medicine at the Washington Pain Center. They were clueless. Amazing. But I definitely won’t hold it against them. They are most certainly experts in their respective fields, just not experts on doping. Read the rest of this entry
