The Canadian Football League (CFL) is the only professional sporting league in North America that has not yet implemented steroid testing for its football players. Former WADA chief Dick Pound had previously called the CFL a “summer camp” for NFL players suspended for violations of the NFL policy on anabolic steroids and related substances (“WADA chief Pounds on CFL,” October 19, 2006).

“We’ve got the CFL,” Pound said. “It’s like a bad scene from the NHL. They say, ‘We don’t test in the Canadian Football League because we don’t need to test — there’s no drug use.’ Helloooo. We’re like a refuge for all the Americans… a summer camp for NFL players who have been suspended for drug use.”

This weekend, John Fahey, the head of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), publicly urged the CFL to adopt an anti-doping testing program. Fahey was in Montreal for the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Executive Committee and Foundation Board meeting. Fahey made his comments just prior to the 2008 CFL Grey Cup Final between the Calgary Stampeders and the Montreal Alouettes (“WADA chief challenges CFL to join fight against drugs,” November 23).

“To be here in Montreal on the weekend of the Grey Cup final and to find there is no doping code is very disappointing,” Fahey told Reuters following a WADA board meeting. “I understand there have been discussions and I hope they eventually lead to fruition.
 
 ”There has been dialogue between WADA and the CFL over a period of time but that doesn’t suggest that there is anything imminent.
 
 ”I can only say I think they are draw attention to the game in an adverse way by not having a (doping) code.
 
 ”I don’t see how any sport cannot have an effective anti-doping program.”

The WADA chief’s criticisms of Canadian Football League’s lack of an effective steroid testing program were undermined by WADA board member and British IOC member Sir Craig Reedie who was also in Montreal for the WADA Foundation board meeting.

Sir Reedie hihglighted the failure to implement an effective anti-doping program at WADA due to the noncompliance of over half of the signatories to the WADA code at the 2008 Beijing Olympics (“Drug Rules ‘Not Enforced’,” November 23).

Rules that bind athletes to give details of their daily movements to drugs testers are not being enforced in “half the countries in the world”, it was claimed on Thursday [...]

Sir Craig Reedie, British IOC member and a board member of the WADA, said “half the world” was not operating the system properly – WADA regulations state that athletes must provide testers with their whereabouts for an hour each day.
 
Reedie said: “The one issue the world of sport will want clearing up is in relation to whereabouts regulations for athletes.
 
“What has come out of Beijing is that half the world operates the system properly and half the world does not.
 
“This has come out of a survey done of national Olympic committees, and some are struggling with the whereabouts rules.
 
“We have to get the system to work properly so that everyone is operating in the same way.”

The major failure to implement the WADA code by the majority of its signatories compounds the major failure of WADA procedures and protocols to effectively catch dopers. WADA has not developed an anti-doping protocol that effectively closes the testosterone loophole, that has ever detected human growth hormone in athletes, or has thwarted the use of numerous banned blood boosting techniques and drugs. The sad truth is that WADA’s steroid testing program, far from Fahey’s “effective anti-doping program,” is only marginally more effective than the CFL’s drug testing program i.e. no testing at all.

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The National Football League apparently is willing to jeopardize the health of its players in a misguided effort to catch athletes who use banned performance enhancing subtances. John Lombardo, M.D., the administrator and medical advisor to the NFL Policy regarding Anabolic Steroids and Related Substances allegedly knew that the dietary supplement StarCaps were contaminated with bumetanide as early as 2006. Bumetanide is a powerful prescription diuretic found in StarCaps but not disclosed by the manufacturer. Yet, he failed to notify any NFL teams about the discovery to prevent athletes from using StarCaps as an explanation for a positive bumetanide test result exposing NFL players to significant health risks that could have easily been prevented by responsible concern for players’ health and well-being as the primary objective. 

Attorney David Cornwell, representing New Orleans Saints Deuce McAllister, Charles Grant, and Will Smith, made this allegation the NFL appeals hearing regarding the four-game suspensions resulting from bumetanide-positive drug tests (“Cornwell Says NFL Failed to Warn Players That StarCaps Contains Bumetanide,” November 19). 

Cornwell contends that Dr. John Lombardo, the administrator of the NFL’s policy regarding anabolic steroids and related substances, testified during the hearing that he learned in late 2006 of the presence of Bumetanide in StarCaps.  Lombardo, per Cornwell, did not share this information with NFL players, because Lombardo feared that other players testing positive for Bumetanide would claim that they were taking StarCaps, even if they weren’t.

Says Cornwell:  “Dr. Lombardo’s failure to disclose what he knew about StarCaps may have exposed NFL players to the significant health risks associated with the unintentional ingestion of diuretics.  If Dr. Lombardo had notified NFL players that StarCaps contained bumetanide, Will, Deuce and Charles would have never used the product to lose weight.”

John Lombardo has previously notified teams of supplements that may cause NFL players to fail a drug test even when the banned substance was fully disclosed on the product labels. Why did he not notify players about the great threat of an UNDISCLOSED prescription drug in supplements that may have been used by NFL players!?! (“N.F.L. Is Uneasy About Diet Supplements’ Use,” May 24, 1998).

This month Dr. John Lombardo, the N.F.L. adviser on steroids, sent a memo to every general manager, team doctor and trainer in the N.F.L. regarding two substances, the hormones dehydroepiandrosterone, known as DHEA, and androstenedione. Lombardo said that both are banned substances under the league’s steroid policies and are in an EAS product called Andro 6, sold in health and fitness stores throughout the country and used by many N.F.L. players. Andro 6 is also used to build muscle mass.

The banned substances DHEA and androstenedione ”are listed plainly as ingredients on the labels of these supplements,” Lombardo wrote in the memo, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times.

It appears that NFL players have turned the tables on the NFL anti-doping administrator, potentially opening the door for a lawsuit against the National Football League. After all, John Lombardo had the responsibility as a physician (“do no harm”) to notify management at various NFL teams about the discovery similarly to his notification about androstenedione and DHEA. At the very least, he should have made this information readily available to all NFL players by sharing it with NSF International, the independent company contracted to help NFL players with their dietary supplement decisions via a supplement hotline as part of the Official NFL/NFLPA Supplement Certification Program.

New Orleans player Jamar Nesbit, who has already served a four-game suspension, has already initiated legal action about the manufacturer of StarCaps. We expect more player lawsuits against Balanced Health Products and possibly even lawsuits against the NFL.

Molloy said that Nesbit had four bottles of the StarCaps pills, which were sent off for lab testing, and all of them tested positive for Bumetanide…

“What I’m saying in the complaint is that at least as of then, if not sooner, StarCaps knew there was an issue. They had a duty to advise consumers and to change their product. They did none of that. In fact, the product is still contaminated,” said Molloy, who also has represented tennis player Guillermo Coria and NFL running back Mike Cloud in similar cases, both of which were settled out of court.

“Since the contamination from bottle to bottle was consistent, it’s not inadvertent contamination,” Molloy said. “That really indicates to me that they’re spiking the product.”

Balanced Health Products, the manufacturer of Nikki Haskell’s StarCaps, has recalled a shipment of approximately 2,000 bottles from supplement stores around the country.

John Lombardo, M.D. is the administrator and medical advisor to the NFL Policy on Anabolic Steroids and Related Substances, the Clinical Professor in the Department of Family Medicine at the Ohio State University Medical School and Medical Director of the Max Sports Medicine Institute in Columbus, Ohio.

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Anti-doping expert Don Catlin believes the numerous NFL players who tested positive for the diuretic butemanide may have unknowingly used dietary supplements tainted with the drug.  (“Alleged use of old-school drug surprises experts,” October 29).

“I’d love to know,” said Don Catlin, a renowned expert who ran America’s first anti-doping lab. “But that’s why the first thing I thought was, ‘They take supplements all the time. Every athlete does. Maybe it’s a bad batch of supplements.’”

We reported previously at Catlin’s bewilderment at the intentional use of butemanide by NFL players as a masking agent for anabolic steroids. There were several plausible indicators that a contaminated supplement could have been the culprit. Experts are indeed baffled by the presence of an old and dangerous drug in anti-doping samples.

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Four of the eight NFL football players whose names were “leaked” as having violated the league’s policy on anabolic steroids and related substances were caught using the diuretic Bumex (bumetanide). New Orleans Saints running back Deuce McAllister and defensive ends Will Smith and Charles Grant tested positive for bumetanide as did Houston Texans deep snapper Bryan Pittman.

Reports of a “rash of positive steroid tests” in the NFL by news websites here and here and here and here are highly misleading and false since none of the players are alleged to have tested positive for steroids by the NFL. Nonetheless, MSNBC stated that one player tested positive for anabolic steroids with the headline ”Report: Saints’ McAllister positive for steroids“, but deep in the article reported the truth that it was bumetanide. There are even plausible indications these may have involved inadvertent doping from weight loss supplements tainted with bumetanide.

First, the prominent anti-doping drug tester Don Catlin recognizes bumetanide as a masking agent but is surprised because it hasn’t been used in over twenty years.

“It can be seen as a masking agent because it produces so much water that it dilutes drugs in the system,” Catlin said Friday in a telephone interview. “But we haven’t seen it used by athletes to mask drugs in over 20 years.”

He added: “It is also banned because some athletes need to make weight and it helps flush water out of an athlete’s body. In general, though, it is used by physicians to control blood pressure and reduce the amount of excess water in the body.”

Secondly, some dietary supplements marketed for weight loss have been empirically shown to be contaminated with bumetanide. StarCaps by Balanced Health Products has been found to contain near therapeutic levels of bumetanide by a 2007 article in The Journal of Analytical Toxicology in spite of claims by the manufacturer that the product contained only natural ingredients.

Third, it appears that the NFL players who tested positive for bumetanide are not only denying the use of bumetanide to mask other performance enhancing drugs, but appear ready to appeal the findings.

Bryan Pittman is appealing.

Atlanta attorney David Cornwell, who has been hired to represent Pittman at his appeal on Nov. 3, issued a statement on Friday that said: “Bryan did everything humanly possible to comply with the NFL steroid policy, including obtaining doctors’ written authorization to take weight-loss medication. He did not use steroids.

Deuce McAllister is appealing.

 ”I’ve hired an attorney, and I’m going to let him do his job,” he said. “I will be playing this Sunday against the Chargers.”

Fourth, the source who leaked the story seems convinced that bumetanide was not used for masking steroids or amphetamines but solely as a weight loss supplement.

“I don’t think many of them are attempting to cheat, or even know it is on the list. We are talking big guys who have likely never seen a steroid in their life. My understanding of the steroid policy is that it was intended to catch cheaters or people using performance enhancing substances to gain a competitive edge. These guys don’t fall into that category,” said the source.

The only conclusive evidence to support inadvertent doping would be the existence of sealed dietary supplements that can be proven to be tainted through testing. Otherwise, suspicions of doping with other substances will persist.

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No sooner than I finished writing an article critical of the supplement industry does a professional football player file a lawsuit against a supplement company for containing steroids in their supplements (due to either contamination or intentional “spiking” of the ingredients). It gives me no pleasure to write this story because the defendant is a friend of mine.

Former NFL running back Femi Ayanbadejo has filed a lawsuit against Author L. Rea of ALR Industries. He claims an undisclosed ingredient in ALRI Max LMG caused him to fail an NFL doping test leading to his release by the Arizona Cardinals and Chicago Bears. Ayanbadejo tested positive for a “form of nandrolone.” Ayanbadejo’s attorney is blaming the positive steroid test on the manufacturer for possibly intentionally “spiking” the supplement with banned substances or contamination from the manufacturing facility.

I have not had a chance to review legal documents in the case. The owner of ALR Industries did not seem to be aware of the lawsuit and could not provide me with any insight into the case.

But on the surface, I’m not sure it has merit from a legal standpoint. Keep in mind that substances prohibited by the NFL (or WADA) are not necessarily prohibited by DSHEA as over the counter supplements (nor should they be). It does not appear that ALR Industries is guilty of producing supplements unintentionally contaminated with steroids or supplements containing undisclosed steroidal products unless there is evidence other than the failed drug test.

It appears that the ingredient that caused Ayanbadejo to test positive on the NFL’s steroid test was clearly listed on the label and/or marketing materials and identified as a legal progestin similar to other progestin-based steroids like trenbolone and nandrolone.

The active compound in Max LMG is 13-ethyl-3-methoxy-gona-2,5(10)-diene-17-one… It is legal because it is a progestin, and before anyone thinks “birth-control”, remember that trenbolone, nandrolone, methyltrienolone and Methyl-Dien all are also progestins. I doubt anyone will disagree with the effects of these compounds upon favorable body composition.

In addition, the label warned consumers about androgenic side effects.

Possible side effects include acne, hair loss, hair growth on the face (in women), aggressiveness, irritability, and increased levels of estrogen.

When an ingredient is said to be in the same class of compounds as banned steroids “trenbolone” and “nandrolone” (legality notwithstanding) and the side effect of “hair growth on the face (in women)” is listed on the bottle, I think this would be indicative of a dietary supplement that a drug-tested athlete would be wise to avoid. In other words, Ayanbadejo made a mistake and should have known better.

My opinion is based on the following assumptions:

1. Max LMG is not contaminated with undisclosed steroidal hormones, either intentionally or unintentionally.

2. The active ingredient in Max LMG is accurately disclosed as 13-ethyl-3-methoxy-gona-2,5(10)-diene-17-one.

3. A metabolite of 13-ethyl-3-methoxy-gona-2,5(10)-diene-17-one resulted in Femi Ayanbadejo’s positive steroid test for a “form of nandrolone.”

4.  The compound 13-ethyl-3-methoxy-gona-2,5(10)-diene-17-one was legally permitted under DSHEA and the Anabolic Steroid Control Act of 2004 whereas the “term `anabolic steroid’ means any drug or hormonal substance, chemically and pharmacologically related to testosterone (other than estrogens, progestins, corticosteroids, and dehydroepiandrosterone).”

Given these assumptions, there does not appear to be a violation of law nor a failure of enforcement (of DSHEA).  Comments are welcomed.

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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:

Consider that until 1984, testosterone — now the paragon of a PED — was not labeled a PED by the American Academy of Sports Medicine. Consider that most PED studies look at ‘weekend warriors’ and not elite world class athletes. And consider that no scientist has studied the effect of any PED on home run production in a double-blind placebo-controlled cross-over pharmacological study. Considering all these points, saying PEDs affect MLB home-runs — or any athletic task — constitutes a classic inductive leap. But a reasonable conclusion in my view.

Gaffney discusses the importance of syngergism in the use of performance enhancing drugs. Bodybuilders have long recognized and exploited the synergism amongst various combinations of anabolic steroids, growth hormone and other peptides, and other performance enhancing drugs and have coined the term “stacking” to describe it. But Gaffney is one of the few doctors I’ve seen that has appreciated the concept of synergy in the context of PEDs in baseball and other sports outside of bodybuilding.

In the complex physiological milieu that constitutes human biology, hormones like HGH do not act alone. Neurotransmitters, hormones, growth factors, and other biochemicals act in concert with a multiplicity of biological variables to produce behavior, performance, emotions, and the other functions that we call life…

Many experts contend that HGH by itself my not increase strength or athletic performance. However, athletes take the drug in combination with anabolic steroids, thyroid hormone, insulin, IGF-1 (insulin-like growth factor), and other ‘stacked’ PEDs. The effects of these drugs appears to be synergistic…

Experts on metabolism and endocrinology suggest that androgenic hormones modulate the response to HGH — ie. a synergistic effect. The response to HGH becomes even more complicated because another hormone IGF-1 may actually be performing much of the cellular dirty-work for HGH.

In 1999, my friend Bryan Haycock wrote a groundbreaking article on the synergism between growth hormone, insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1), insulin, thyroid, and anabolic-androgenic steroids.  The lengthy series offers incredible insight in the synergy of performance enhancing drugs.

In the first installment of this series we discussed the mechanism by which human growth hormone (GH) exerts its anabolic effects in the body. We also discussed the important role of insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) in the anabolic properties of GH. In part two we discussed the role of androgens in GH secretion and sensitivity in a hypothetical pharmacological regimen aimed at dramatically increasing skeletal muscle growth. Based on research looking at the effects of androgens on GH secretion and IGF-1 sensitivity, it was deduced that the testosterone esters should provide the most potent anabolic stimulus compared to other androgens, especially those that do not aromatize. Now, in the final installment, we shall look at the feasibility of using GH, IGF-1, Insulin, and perhaps tri-iodothyronine (T3) to enhance the anabolic properties of androgens.

Athletes, particularly bodybuilders, will always be far ahead of the scientific community when it comes to experimentation with performance enhancing drugs. Bodybuilders usually are the first to establish trends in the types of anabolic drugs used and the manner in which they are used. The body of knowledge amonst bodybuilders continues to advance through real world trial and error.

There is no prohibition on performance enhancing drugs in bodybuilding which completely eliminates the ethical considerations faced by researchers and physicians and even athletes subjected to doping controls. As a result, anyone who wants to learn about performance enhancing drugs just needs to investigate bodybuilding to learn what is on the leading edge.

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Many people believe that dietary supplements, specifically sports nutrition supplements, are a “gateway” to anabolic steroid use. It is the steroid war’s version of the “gateway drug theory.” While I agree that teenagers should not be permitted to purchase or use stimulants and steroids sold as dietary supplements, I do not subscribe to the “supplements as a gateway to steroids” theory.

 Chris Connolly, the head football coach and athletic director of Dolgeville High School in Dolgeville, New York, has taken the gateway theory, as it applies to suppplements, to the extreme.

The fear that using most common and casual substances will encourage his players to use more volatile and potentially harmful drugs is what has driven Connolly to ban his Blue Devil teams from using any supplement, including legal ones.

“I don’t even like GNC or EAS,” Connolly said. “We talk about in the preseason and in spring training: eat right, work right and take absolutely no supplements. We don’t even use Gatorade, only water.”

On the one hand, I think it is good to teach young athletes to believe in intrinsic factors as responsible for their abilities and success in sports rather than external factors like supplements. 

But it is borderline irresponsible to be so anti-supplement as to ban Gatorade. I guarantee that more high school athletes die and will continue to die from dehydration and heat stroke than will likely ever die from anabolic steroid use.  Gatorade can help prevent dehydration, heat related illnesses such as heat stroke and heat exhaustion. Coach Connolly’s irrational fear of supplements places the teenage athletes playing sports for Dolgeville High School at a slightly greater risk for heat related illnesses.

Water works. But Gatorade has been documented to outperform water for various reasons detailed here, not the least of which is the flavor/taste of Gatorade.

Gatorade or Powerade – the electrolytes promote fluid retention & the carbohydrates provide energy for the brain and muscles. Electrolytes (sodium, potassium, magnesium & chloride) are necessary for maximum absorption of water. Athletes typically prefer the flavor of Gatorade or Powerade & will stay better hydrated if these products are available.

There are legitimate reasons to prohibit supplement use by teenagers e.g. problem of contaminated dietary supplements, but the gateway rationale is not one of them.

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The State of Texas University Interscholastic League (UIL) produced a steroid education video entitled “The Making of a Champion.” The steroid education video was released in conjunction with the introduction of steroid testing in public high school sports in Texas.

The video features lengthy segments featuring high school teenage athletes who used steroids and suffered. The video implies that anabolic steroids caused stroke and paralysis in one case; it implies that steroids caused suicide in the other case (Taylor Hooton). This type of “scare tactic” approach is common in state produced steroid education and anti-drug productions.

Legislators and state educators need to realize that what is negative to adults is not necessarily negative to teenagers. High school athletes contemplating the use of steroids are much more motivated by the positive reinforcement resulting from steroids; their behavior isn’t as heavily influenced by fear of uncertain punishment, especially the low probability, overstated, exaggerated, or downright inaccurate side effects promoted in typical steroid education videos.

There was an insightful comment by a high school student who watched the UIL steroid education video. He watched the emotional scare tactics involving steroids and stroke/paralysis, and steroids and suicide, but this apparently had little influence on him; his biggest concern was the risk of tendon tears.

Me and a couple of friends got a little worried about it after we watched it… One thing that really scared me is your muscles get too strong for your tendons and then your muscles rip out your tendons.

The scare tactics didn’t work; he was more influenced by the (more realistic) possible effect on performance. What is negative to adults and what is negative to high school athletes are not necessarily the same thing.

In society’s obsession with steroids, I think the real concerns are often ignored. The student goes on to say:

That [steroids] can take you out of football for life, and football is my life.

A discussion of the overemphasis of athletics in high schools (especially in Texas) and winning by everyone involved is critical in the steroid debate.

Steroid Education Video by UIL Texas: The Making of a Champion

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John Lombardo, M.D. is the drug advisor to the NFL on anabolic steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs. He has granted waivers to football players who have tested positive for anabolic steroids based on medical need. The medical rationale was “testicular disease” in each case.

John Lombardo, has granted waivers to players who have failed drug tests but then explained their medical need for testosterone. NFL spokesman Greg Aiello won’t disclose names or reveal how many players have been allowed to pump synthetic hormones into their bodies except to say it’s “a very small number.”

This is the National League Football (NFL) version of the therapeutic use exemption that can be submitted after failing a drug test. An interesting article by Tom Farrey of ESPN the Magazine suggests this is a precedent opening the door to widespread use of hormones in sports like football.

It’s a little-used exemption to the league’s drug policy, but it’s a precedent-setting one: Any player who can show that replacing hormones is critical to his continued health should be allowed to take them.

The demonization of anabolic steroids and performance-enhancing drugs in sports fails when there is a legitimate medical need for treatment. No longer are anabolic steroids and growth hormone categorically bad or dangerous.

Tom Farrey cites recent studies showing that mild concussions can cause brain damage (pituitary dysfunction) resulting in growth hormone and/or testosterone deficiencies.

Players with testicular disease are not the only ones in need. At the base of the brain, encased in a small, bony shell, is a pea-size gland called the pituitary, which secretes hormones that help regulate everything from mood to energy level. For years, the gland had been overlooked in discussions of head trauma. But in the late 1990s, UCLA neurosurgeon Daniel Kelly noticed that many of his head-injury patients suffered from symptoms associated with pituitary failure: depression, fatigue, anxiety, poor concentration. His findings, which he published in 2000, have led to at least eight studies on three continents, which together involved more than 600 subjects. Each study confirmed the link between traumatic brain injury (TBI) and a loss of hormonal function. The most common deficiencies in men were those of growth hormone, which occurred in 15% to 20% of cases, and of testosterone, in 10% to 15%.

Most of the subjects in these studies had suffered a moderate or severe TBI with some bleeding in the head during a car accident, a fall or some other nonsports-related activity. But, Kelly says, “if you look at the literature, there’s a small but definite component of patients with milder head injuries who also lose hormonal function.” One study, in Italy, found pituitary dysfunction in as many as 37.5% of patients with mild TBI, the same level of injury NFL players typically incur when they get dinged.

Another interesting bit of information from this article includes information from World Anti-Doping Association (WADA) about the number of therapeutic use exemptions granted for testosterone and growth hormone.

International sports federations overseen by WADA have granted 15 therapeutic-use exemptions for HGH and 26 for testosterone.

As a society, we’ve already accepted brain damage as an acceptable consequence of playing certain sports. This likely risk in football from concussions doesn’t make the sport unacceptable. Yet, the dangers from anabolic steroids and growth hormone will likely continue to be unacceptable. At the very least, let’s hope that exemptions for the therapeutic use of steroids and other performance enhancing drugs is permitted in sports to preserve the health of affected athlete’s. (Therapeutic use by definition means the benefit outweighs the risk of harm.)

Thanks to Radley Balko for pointing us to this article. He also makes the following comment on the hypocritical concern given to the health of (football) athletes subjected to drug testing:

The league has banned HGH (on very little evidence), allegedly to protect its players from the harm it allegedly does to their health. But the game of football itself is causing debilitating, potentially life-threatening injuries to players, and we think little of it. These injuries are the entirely predictable result of the slobber-knocking hits that make the game so much fun to watch, both live, and from the six different angles in various highlight packages on SportsCenter.

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I applaud Laurie Fox of the Dallas Morning News for breaking ranks with the sycophantic cheerleaders for Texas’ UIL Anabolic Steroid Testing Program.

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.”

Some critics also question the state’s policy decision to go after steroids when the use of other illegal drugs, including marijuana, heroin and prescription drugs, is far more common among teenagers. The state’s steroid tests will cost up to $140 each, compared with $15 for most other drug tests.

Ms. Fox asked Texas State legislators about the statistically low probability (Lloyd Johnston’s “needle in a haystack” analogy) of catching steroid users. Legislators say catching steroid users wasn’t the primary objective anyway. The real goal of the steroid testing program is to serve as a deterrent for high school athletes considering the use of anabolic steroids.

Ms. Fox asks steroid prevention researcher, Linn Goldberg, M.D., about the deterrent effect of steroid testing in high schools:

Linn Goldberg, a national drug-testing expert and the head of the division of health promotion and sports medicine at Oregon Health & Science University, said “drug testing, as yet, is not a deterrent to use. There’s no evidence that it is.”

He called the Texas steroids program “a knee-jerk reflex so they can say they’re doing something.”

Dr. Goldberg’s study and another done in 2003 at the University of Michigan showed that drug testing did not have a significant effect on whether students continued to use drugs.

Although I don’t think Linn Goldberg is an uninterested, neutral observer in this debate, I do agree with his assessment of Texas’ steroid testing program.

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