Uber-lobbyist to the supplement industry, Loren Israelsen, recently forwarded selected remarks from an editorial by Rob Eder of Drug Store News to members of the United Natural Products Alliance. I was dismayed to see Rob Eder (and by extension Loren Israelsen) rave about the good job the supplement industry does at policing itself.
“As I have previously suggested, perhaps the Congress should examine whether the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act–DSHEA, as it is commonly known–is being adequately enforced,” Fehr said [...]
I have got some news for Donald Fehr: They don’t sell steroids in the supplement aisle. They don’t sell the “cream” or the “clear,” either. That’s because this industry does a better job of policing itself than Major League Baseball ever could.
Clearly, Fehr was disingeniously trying to blame DSHEA for the problem baseball was having with anabolic steroids. He tried to use the supplement industry as a scapegoat for MLB’s problems and it deservedly failed.
But the supplement industry needs to pull their heads out of the stand, stop patting themselves on the back for a job well-done, and respond honestly to criticisms of their industry.
The federal government’s obsession with eliminating anabolic steroids from Major League Baseball is compromising state law enforcement efforts to fight drug dealers and violent criminals thereby jeopardizing the public safety according to Oakland County Sheriff Michael Brouchard.
“While Congress focuses on the need to eliminate drug use from baseball, law enforcement is struggling to get action on Byrne . . . which fights drugs not just in baseball, but on our streets and in our neighborhoods,” Bouchard said. “Literally thousands of children have been saved from drug scenes by this program.”
Sally Jenkins, writing in the Washington Post, observes that professional athletes who use anabolic steroids are treated more harshly than others who have committed similar crimes.
Perjury cases are rarely prosecuted by the Justice Department according to Jenkins:
It charged just 99 people with the crime in 2006, out of more than 88,000 federal defendants. Between 2001 and 2006, 566 perjury cases were filed — about 1 percent of all criminal charges. Cases brought before the federal criminal justice system are supposed to be top-notch in quality, and of overriding size and importance.
Unless, of course, the defendant is famous.
Prosecuting trivial lies by the likes of Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, and Marion Jones in federal court is highly unusual. This is especially true when serious lies have been told to Congress with no perjury charges:
Nick Garcia claims his “theory of roidactivity” is the most reliable statistical tool for predicting steroid use in baseball. It applies a statistical formula to the “career trajectories of suspected steroid users.”
Garcia began to study the career trajectories of known steroid users such as Jose Canseco, Ken Caminiti and Jason Giambi.?His statistical analysis showed that each aforementioned player’s performance in the areas of batting average and home runs significantly and quantifiably spiked after he?began taking steroids.
I know it is not popular to express skepticism at claims that anabolic steroids lead to suicide or suicidal behavior. But the media has once again embraced a story of a teenager who blames steroids as the cause of his/her psychological state without question.
A former cheerleader and gymnast admits to injecting Winstrol ever other day for a five week period when she was in high school. She claims the steroid caused her to experience “roid rage” and experience suicidal thoughts and behavior.
Many people seem to assume that growth hormone and testosterone are both anabolic steroids. The media has shown very little interest in distinguishing the two throughout the entire war of steroids or the steroids in baseball fiasco. (Never mind the fact that there are dozens of different steroids with differing effects and side effects within the class of anabolic steroids.) When Sylvester Stallone tried to explain that growth hormone was a completely different class of drugs than anabolic steroids, he was met with widespread disbelief if not ridicule. Never mind the fact that he was correct.
So, I have to give credit to the few journalists who “try” to explain the difference between growth hormone and anabolic steroids like testosterone e.g. The Growth Hormone Myth:
We’ve learned a few things from the Congressional hearings on Roger Clemens and anabolic steroids. Roger Clemens is not very smart. And his attorney Rusty Hardin is an idiot. From the very beginning, I thought that Hardin should be fired.
Hardin allows Clemens to wait several days before responding to allegations of steroid and growth hormone use in the Mitchell Report. Hardin prepped Clemens for his terrible performance on 60 Minutes where he: (1) admitted the hypocritical use of various other performance-enhancing drugs that enabled him to continue playing while masking pain of his injuries; (2) offered idiotic explanations as proof that he never used steroids; and (3) admitted to allowing a non-medical professional inject him with B-12 and lidocaine. Hardin compared Clemens’ drug use to a high performance racehorse (apparently oblivious to the problem of steroids in horse racing). Hardin apparently preps Clemens to secretly record a phone conversation with Brian McNamee and hold a press conference to share it with the media even though it proved nothing. Hardin stands by as Clemens releases statistical report that supposedly proves he didn’t use steroids but fails to accomplish its goal. And lastly, Representative Henry Waxman apologizes for holding the disastrous Roger Clemens steroid hearings, explaining that the only reason he did it was because Clemens’ attorneys insisted upon it. Read the rest of this entry »
Several commentators noted the partisan debate at the Roger Clemens versus Brian McNamee Congressional steroid hearings. Republicans supported Clemens; Democrats supported McNamee. After reading the transcripts, I agree.
Committee members from the Republican side of the aisle at times fawned over the seven-time Cy Young Award winner and tore into the credibility of Brian McNamee, who claims to have injected Clemens with anabolic steroids and human growth hormone, calling Clemens’ former trainer everything from a lying ex-cop to a drug dealer with a phony doctorate.
The DailyKos chastised Representative Henry Waxman for wasting time (and taxpayer money) investigating anabolic steroids in baseball. Since Congress is having a difficult time determining our nation’s priorities, Kos offered a list of “100 things Congress could do that matter more than steroids in baseball.” This could have have just as easily been a list of 1000 things as there is no shortage of more important issues facing the United States.
Kirk Radomski, steroid dealer to professional baseball players, avoided jail time when he received 5 years probation. He pleaded guilty to distributing anabolic steroids and money laundering charges in a plea agreement with federal prosecutors. He cooperated closely with federal prosecutors, particularly with investigators involved with the Mitchell Report, in naming almost 30 current and former MLB baseball players to whom he sold performancing-enhancing drugs including anabolic steroids and growth hormone.
The customary practice for federal prosecutors is to prosecute dealers rather than users. In a reversal of this practice, Radomski was given leniency in exchange for his testimony against his clients (individual steroid users who happened to be professional athletes). Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve added it to my reading list.