I am always willing to give athletes the benefit of a doubt especially given the lack of fair and reliable doping protocols administered under WADA. But, the statements Vroemen offers in his defense are weak, misleading and wrong.

Simon Vroemen claims that Dianabol would be “counterproductive” for a middle distance runner because it primarily increases muscle mass without a significant increase in strength; furthermore, Vroeman claims Dianabol remains detectable in doping tests for up to nine months after ingested making it unsuitable for any athlete competing in a drug tested competition (“A small trace with large consequences?,” July 11).

The compound, named metandienone, increases muscle weight and volume (not so much strenth) and is therefore popular in the body building scene. As a steeple chase runner, one would probably only be disadvantaged by its consequences. It appears to be traceable up to 9 months in your urine and is hence unlikely to be used consciously by sportsmen as a performance-enhancing substance.

These statements are innacurate. Dianabol can lead to significant increases in strength; anabolic steroids are particularly beneficial for endurance athletes (as seen in the number of positive steroid tests for middle distance runners and cyclists) since heavy endurance training tends to significantly suppress endogenous testosterone production. Anabolic steroids do not automatically transform an athlete’s physique into that of a bodybuilder; body size while on steroids is more heavily dependent on variables such as caloric intake versus expenditure and training specificity.

Vroemen also claims that Dianabol is detectable for up to nine months after ingestion. This is false. The metabolites are practically undetectable after 1-2 weeks.

Earlier this year, eleven members of the Greek National Weightlifting Team tested positve for the anabolic steroid methyltrienolone which resulted in the expulsion of the entire Greek Weightlifting Team from the 2008 Beijing Olympics. In May, Greek Olympic swimmer Ioannis Drymonakos also tested positive for methyltrienolone.

Dimitris Regas denied the use of anabolic steroids and claimed sabotage. Regas alleges a conspiracy of “people who want to attack (Greek) athletics” as being responsible for his positive test for methyltrienolone and presumably other Greek positive doping results (“Greek runner Regas fails drugs test,” July 11).

Regas, 22, said in a statement that he tested positive for the banned substance Methyltrienolone at a national athletics meet in Athens on June 13.

“The use of anabolic steroids by an athlete who knows that he will be tested would not only be immoral but suicidal,” he said.

Regas claimed he was a victim of “some people who want to attack (Greek) athletics,” adding he would lodge an official complaint against the parties in question, without specifying who they might be.

We look forward to details of the conspiracy once Regas submits his official complaint.

Thomas, whose case is the first to go to trial in the five-and-a-half-year Balco investigation, was charged with making false statements to a grand jury in 2003 about substances she is suspected of receiving from Arnold. For the jury to convict Thomas, it must conclude that her statements were false and that they were material to the government’s investigation.

I am certain that Tammy Thomas is anxiously awaiting the verdict. Not only is her freedom in jeopardy but also a future career as an attorney. She has been silent about the case and has not spoken to the media; however, she has been very outspoken in her fashion statements outside the courtroom where she was photographed wearing a San Francisco Giants baseball cap, no doubt in support of other athletes who have been targeted for perjury by this federal investigation.

The Steroid Report feels that Thomas’ defense attorney Ethan Balogh has successfully created reasonable doubt with his arguments.

The government’s case against cyclist Tammy Thomas for perjury is surprisingly weak. The government’s case is largely based on the assertion that Tammy Thomas ingested “anabolic steroids” and/or “controlled substances” and/or “banned substances” obtained from chemist Patrick Arnold and she lied about it.

The inconvenient fact is that tetrahydrogestrinone (THG) and norbolethone were NOT legally classified as “anabolic steroids” until the Anabolic Steroid Control Act of 2004 was passed; Norbolethone and THG were two of the 26 compounds added to the Controlled Substances Act with this legislation. Consequently, THG and norbolethone were NOT controlled substances until the passage of the legislation. Furthermore, THG and norbolethone were not on the WADA/IOC banned substances list at the time.

Of course, not everyone agrees. Steroid Nation feels Balogh’s statements in court in defense of Tammy Thomas were simply “ludicrous.”

It irritates this writer that a lawyer would argue that point in court without his tongue turning black and his eyes bleeding out.  As ludicrous as a woman shaving every morning, not thinking she is taking an anabolic androgenic steroid.

However, juries do not hinge deliberations on the issue of ludicrous statements.

The statements upset Dr. Gaffney because they are medically (pharmacologically) inaccurate; this is true. As I commented, his statements about THG and norbolethone may be scientifically correct, but not necessarily legally correct.

But this is a legal case and the arguments are legal arguments. THG and Norbolethone were NOT LEGALLY classified as anabolic steroids. Read the Anabolic Steroid Control Act of 1990 – THG and norbolethone are not included. Then read the Anabolic Steroid Control Act of 2004 and notice that this amendment LEGALLY CHANGED the status of THG and Norbolethone to “Anabolic Steroids.”

 Admittedly, a steroid is a steroid is a steroid. No amount of semantic bickering or legal lobbying will change that. But for better or worse, criminal justice is deliberated by rule of law (not pharmaceutical rules) and juries are instructed to base their verdicts on the law no matter how ludicrous the arbitrary legal definitions may appear to them.

As I further commented, legal definitions don’t change pharmacological definitions. But they matter in the criminal justice system.

The arbirariness of legal definitions regarding steroids is really quite silly. Over the past decade, we have learned that a pharmacologically defined (anabolic-androgenic) steroid can be legally defined as (1) a “dietary supplement”, (2) an “anabolic steroid”, and (3) an “unapproved new drug.”

The legal status obviously does nothing to change the pharmacological definition. But the legal defintion (no matter how arbitrary) has very important implications in our criminal justice system.

It will be very interesting to see if the jury accepts defense attorney Ethan Balogh’s argument, in whole or in part.

Claims that growth hormone enhances physical performance are not supported by the scientific literature. Although the limited available evidence suggests that growth hormone increases lean body mass, it may not improve strength; in addition, it may worsen exercise capacity and increase adverse events. More research is needed to conclusively determine the effects of growth hormone on athletic performance.

This confirms what J.C. Bradbury, Ph.D. has been saying all along. Bradbury is the Associate Professor of Economics at Kennesaw State University and author of the Sabernomics blog where he has argued again and again that human growth hormone does not enhance athletic performance. According to Bradbury, there is no scientific evidence documenting the performance enhancing effects of growth hormone. He confidently dismisses any effect of HGH in MLB:

The impact of HGH on home runs in today’s game is zero. If a player is dumb enough to take this stuff, let him go right ahead.

Dr. Bradbury is correct at least when it comes to the lack of scientific evidence.

But he may still be wrong about growth hormone’s effects on sport performance.

Athletes knew anabolic steroids worked (anecdotal evidence) for DECADES before available scientific evidence supported this belief. There are several prominent bloggers who argue that, in spite of limited absence of scientific support, growth hormone does improve athletic performance.

Lou Schuler of Male Pattern Fitness points to the credible anecdotal evidence to support his views on growth hormone.

Athletes and their doctors believe the drugs work. I’ve been hearing this for years from the people I come across, who’re mostly trainers and strength coaches. I get a chance to chat with researchers or former pro athletes from time to time, and I hear the same thing. The only way you can convince yourself that human growth hormone doesn’t speed recovery and/or enhance performance is to ignore all the anecdotal evidence that comes from knowledgeable insiders who believe it does.

Lou addresses the shortcomings and limitations of the recent review in an article today (“Don’t Those Stupid Athletes Realize Their Drugs Don’t Work?,” March 18)

Once again, a study attempts to convince us of something that isn’t likely to be true…

To its credit, the story by the Associated Press calls bullshit on itself, citing the litany of limitations to this kind of reasoning that I’ve noted on MPF here and on my original blog here:

• Clinical studies aren’t conducted on elite athletes, and don’t measure “performance” in any way that would be meaningful to an athlete. For example, they don’t consider whether it would help them recover faster in between workouts, or have less downtime because of minor injuries.

• They don’t use the doses elite athletes use, and they can’t possibly take into account the combination of drugs an athlete might employ. Is growth hormone more effective when used simultaneously or in some sort of sequential pattern with anabolic steroids? You can’t test that in a lab.

• The studies can’t possibly track long-term use of HGH, so if there’s a chronic, cumulative effect that’s greater than the acute, short-term effect, you’d never know from the published research.

Gary Gaffney, M.D., University of Iowa School of Medicine, also addresses the review study. Gaffney believes growth hormone has beneficial effects on athletic performance; however, these effects may only be evident in its synergy with other performance-enhancing drugs (“Review from Stanford says HGH no benefit as PED,” March 17).

As we pointed out in the Huffington Post, HGH by itself may not be anabolic. There is evidence that the hormone is synergistic with anabolic steroids (or insulin or T4), which means that the effects of these hormones add to each other. Further, we don’t know the effects of the drugs on the most genetically gifted athletes – professionals.

However, a study is a study. HGH by itself in these doses used in young healthy men does not appear to be an impressive anabolic drug.

Given that athletes were decades ahead of the scientific community when it came to anabolic steroids, I tend to give credence to the anecdotal evidence. Also, based on growth hormone’s use in bodybuilding (whose participants are far ahead of athletes in other sports when it comes to pharmaceutical enhancement), there is a fair amount of support for the synergistic effects of growth hormone combined with anabolic steroids and other drugs.

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.

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.

Although the stupidity of it all seems self-apparent, it is nice to hear legal professionals weigh in on the matter. Thanks to Steroid Nation for finding this article with criticism of Rusty Hardin and Roger Clemens by Minnesota attorney former talk-radio host Ron Rosenbaum:

No one can really explain the strategy followed here… It strikes me as insane.

Clemens’ ego is so huge that nobody could tell him what was right or he’s getting bad legal advice.

There’s a difference of opinion in this town, but from the very beginning I thought this was a textbook case of how to not handle a legal situation like this…

He’s just a buffoon, and there’s nothing juicier than a buffoon in the legal system… They’ll treat him like a piñata.

Rosenbaum is critical of how the legal case has been handled although he doesn’t directly place the blame of Hardin or Clemens legal team by leaving open the possibility that Clemens is ignoring his legal counsel’s advice. But I doubt it.

An attorney friend of mine has told me that not only has Clemens committed perjury but his lawyers are likely complicit. I liked Roger Clemens a whole lot better when he was just an elite baseball player who I assumed used anabolic steroids and growth hormone. I have lost respect for him after the stupidity he has displayed over the past couple of months.

It is simply bizarre that McNamee would have saved such items for seven years; I am sure there will be considerable speculation as to his motives. But the evidence could increase McNamee’s credibility if the physical evidence is consistent with his allegations of steroid use and growth hormone by Clemens. Steroid Nation explains how the physical evidence would support the allegations:

DNA matching could prove the Clemens connection.  When an injection is performed a small amount the the recipient’s blood is back-washed into the syringe.  That would allow DNA testing to verify Rocket-DNA; forensic analysis could also identify anabolic steroids.

While the physical evidence could corroborate McNamee’s statements, legal experts debate whether the evidence is admissible in court and the likelihood that such evidence would successfully be discredited by defense attorneys.

I also found it somewhat bizarre as well that the New York Times tried to suggest a similarity between the bloody syringe and Roger Clemens with the controversial retroactive testing of Lance Armstrong’s urine sample a few years ago:

The newest development in the Clemens case is similar to an issue that cyclist Lance Armstrong, long under suspicion of using performance-enhancing drugs, confronted in 2006. In that instance, the International Cycling Union discounted a reported link between Armstrong and the banned substance EPO because they concluded that testers had not followed proper procedures in retroactively testing Armstrong’s 1999 urine samples five years later.

Odd story.

But those confessions also pointed towards another element of the wide-ranging cheating scandal: the duplicity of sports journalists, especially in public television, which is funded by a system of mandatory monthly fees every German with a TV set has to pay. Their commentators had long abandoned their role as independent reporters, but had evolved into cheerleaders chasing after high ratings. Only after the debacle of last year’s Tour de France, ARD, one of the two large public television channels, installed a special doping team and gave them free reign to chase the bad guys. Hajo Seppelt became the man in charge.

Hajo Seppelt’s team was responsible for breaking the news story of the Vienna lab involved in blood doping. But his journalistic independence seems to be threatened by a variety of sources, including the Russian Mafia.

The situation is threatening the reputation of a journalist, who for years had been the only German TV reporter to actively pursue leads and stories about doping. While he insists that he has clear indications that Human Plasma practiced “blood doping in the style of Eufemiano Fuentes”, the Spanish doctor well-known for his stable of cycling clients, he still wants to protect his sources. “Russians and Ukrainian mafia members are behind this”, he said according to a report in German news daily Die Welt. “Fear [is] a constant companion.”

Source: Steroid Nation