In regards to Novitzky’s new job, Dwight Sparlin, a retired I.R.S. manager who led the San Francisco office when the Balco case started nearly six years ago, said he had been hearing for two weeks that Novitzky was going to the F.D.A. to continue focusing on drug cases.
“I think it would give him more exposure to just doing that type of work,” Sparlin said by telephone Tuesday. He added: “For Jeff to go as far as he did in Balco was a stretch for the I.R.S., too. I think he was allowed to go a lot further than he would otherwise because of the impact.”
Jeff Novitsky has been involved in almost every aspect of the BALCO steroid scandal and steroids in baseball investigation.
A three-member arbitration panel ruled last December the testing of her sample, given at a meet in Belgium, was not done in accordance with WADA rules that require tests be run by two different technicians.
That broke USADA’s perfect record in front of arbitration panels, which was 35-0 according to the best available statistics.
To the question of Jenkins’ appearing to have won on a technicality, Valparaiso Sports Law Clinic director Michael Straubel had said, “[The arbitrators] set aside the test results because they were not based on reliable lab results.”
The United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) has been conducting a formerly secret pilot program for longitudinal testing for anabolic steroids and other performance enhancing drugs. USADA recruited twelve U.S. athletes for voluntary participation in “Project Believe.” News of the anti-doping program was leaked when decathlon champion Brian Clay and runner Allyson Felix discussed it at a press conference possibly violating USADA’s code of secrecy on the program (”US sports stars try to dim doping fears with ‘Project Believe’,” April 17).
“I may get in trouble for talking about it but I want people to know I’m doing everything in my power to stay clean,” said Clay, who began having extra tests done before last month’s world indoor championships.
In spite of Clay’s concerns, it is unlikely that Clay or Felix will face any sanctions by USADA for revealing the existence of “Project Believe” prior to its official launch.
Senators Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) have modified a bill that would have added human growth hormone (HGH) to the Controlled Substances List. The bill was introduced as a kneejerk reaction to revelations of widespread HGH use in professional baseball. But in the end, legislators avoided making the same mistake with HGH as they did with anabolic-androgenic steroids (AAS) with the Anabolic Steroid Control Act of 1990. (”HGH bill altered to help children,” April 16)
Dr. Gary Gaffney from Steroid Nation posted an article on Huffington Post about the performance enhancing effects of human growth hormone. Gaffney responds to so-called experts who assert with certainty that growth hormone does not help performance in sports. As Lou Schuler stated in a recent post, the true effects of growth hormone on performance are not always empirically “knowable and measurable.”
Gaffney takes note of the lack of empirical research examining the performance enhancing effects of drugs that has historically resulted in mainstream medical organizations failing to recognize performance enhancing drugs. Given this along with results seen in “experiments of nature,” Gaffney feels it is reasonable to conclude that GH has performance enhancing effects:
Sylvester Stallone has apparently endorsed anti-steroid crusader John McCain for President. Sylvester Stallone has been using his Rambo promotional tour to advocate growth hormone and testosterone in age management medicine. Senator John McCain is well-known for his anti-steroid grandstanding in Congress. Nonetheless, Senator McCain’s positive reaction to the endorsement was priceless as seen on Fox & Friends stating “I’m going to Philadelphia and running up the steps.”
Senator McCain has expressed his disappointment with Roger Clemens’ alleged use of anabolic steroids and growth hormone, but that is probably only because Clemens has not endorsed him.
The Steroid Nation blog has some very insightful commentary by Jürgen Kalwa, a journalist for the German national newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, on the recent Humanplasma Lab doping scandal. It seemed to me that the recent German reporting, lawsuits, apologies, and financial conflicts of interest were problematic for arriving at the truth in the Humanplasma Lab case. Kalwa discusses Germany’s unique relationship with doping and the threats to independent journalism when it comes to covering doping scandals. Read the rest of this entry
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is once again going to be confronted with his own admitted use of anabolic steroids as a former professional bodybuilder with his promotion of the 2008 Arnold Classic Bodybuilding contest in Columbus next month. This has become an annual ritual with the steroid-addicted media and it is sure to continue as long as Arnold is in politics and continues his involvement in the sport of professional bodybuilding.
But there may be further attention given to Schwarzenegger and his relationship, past and present, with anabolic steroids. Sources tell the Steroid Report that the steroid documentary “Bigger, Stronger, Faster”, premiering at the Sundance Film Festival this month, will be highly critical of his conflicted positions on anabolic steroids. Read the rest of this entry
Google has made millions of dollars from companies selling steroids through Google’s contextual ad service. But Google was assisted by mainstream news outlets like NYTimes.com and CNN.com who displayed the ads offering “steroids for sale.”
Michael Arrington recently commented on this at TechCrunch:
The problem with automated advertising on news sites has always been the placing of inappropriate ads next to serious news issues.
Many news/media websites posted editorials complaining about the dangers of anabolic steroids and the role of the internet in facilitating steroid sales only to provide links for consumers to buy steroids (and receive payment from Google for displaying those links). Read the rest of this entry
Several months ago, Bill Llewellyn and Rick Collins told me about an independent filmmaker that was interested in hearing their perspective on the “steroid issue”; Chris Bell patiently spent several hours with each of them for on camera interviews. They had a good feeling about the film he was making finally hoping to see a truthful examination of anabolic steroids in society appear on the big screen.
I had the opportunity to meet Chris Bell, the director and screenwriter of “Bigger, Stronger, Faster,” at the 2007 Ironman Pro Expo in Pasadena thanks to an introduction from my good friend Rehan Jalali. After talking with Chris, I could understand why so many people were excited by this film. Clearly, Chris was striving for an open and honest examination of steroids free of the hysteria that is so commonplace nowadays. The irony is that it is most likely this same hysteria that makes financing of such independent documentaries possible. Read the rest of this entry
