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.
The short history of steroid testing in public schools has yielded little, if anything. In the handful of local school districts that already test for steroids, no positive test has been reported. The same is true for limited state programs in Florida and New Jersey.
“It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack,” said Lloyd Johnston, a noted researcher at the University of Michigan. “My guess is that the payoff relative to the cost won’t be high.”
Most people at every point on the steroid regulatory spectrum, from the advocates of steroid legalization to anti-steroid zealots, agree that anabolic steroid use by teenagers is bad. There are a few people who believe steroids are good for children, pre-teens and teenagers. But in general, most people agree with government efforts to reduce steroid use in teenage athletes. Unfortunately, they seem to accept all anti-steroid efforts without question regardless of their efficacy or lack thereof. People seem to be content with “feel good” endeavors that accomplish little. Read the rest of this entry
The $20 million dollar Mitchell Report on anabolic steroids in professional baseball relied largely on the testimony of two former baseball trainers, Kirk Radomski and Brian McNamee. And the only reason the Mitchell Report contained such such evidence of steroid use by baseball players was because the Department of Justice forced Radomski and McNamee to cooperate with investigators from the Mitchell Report as a condition of their plea agreements. Was this an abuse of the government’s criminal powers? Was this legal? Was this ethical? Read the rest of this entry
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:
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.
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
