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January 21, 2004
Bush And Steroids
All sorts of people are pointing to President Bush's statement about steroids and professional sports last night, but it's important to make a distinction between what he said and what he didn't say. From ESPN.com's account: Bush told Congress that "to help children make right choices, they need good examples." What you have here is the President using his bully pulpit to create some pressure, rather than enact another multi-billion dollar program to attack the problem (hence, no war on steroids to resemble the war on drugs). And that's fine as far as it goes. Unfortunately, there may be a larger problem lurking. Millions of people use so-called nutritional supplements as part of their regular dieting and fitness regimen. Unfortunately, this entire industry is unregulated by the Food and Drug Administration. The result: lots of folks don't know exactly what they're ingesting. Why is this a problem? Because, as we've found out through drug testing in professional sports as well as international competition, a number of these nutritional supplements are regularly spiked with steroids and other banned substances designed to enhance performance. The real question that needs to be answered is whether or not this industry should be regulated. That was an issue the President didn't address, and I'm guessing he won't in the future either. POSTSCRIPT: I can't resist pointing out that Gene Orza of the MLB Players Association refused comment on the President's statement on steroids. Silence can speak volumes sometimes, can't it? And yes, I did see Tom Brady in the gallery last night as well. And I have to wonder out loud how much grief he'll get in the locker room if he comes out as strongly for Bush as Matt Drudge's account describes. If he does, I don't expect he'll get many calls from Kellen Winslow. UPDATE: Ted & Sara at Women's Hoops supply some more background on the issue of nutritional supplements, and why the industry holds so much sway in Washington, D.C. Meanwhile, in New York, MLB finally responded to the President's speech: "We wholeheartedly agree with and fully support President Bush's call to rid sports of the use of steroids and other illegal performance enhancing substances," MLB commissioner Bud Selig in a statement. Whatever. . .
Eric
08:02 AM
Trackback PingsTrackBack URL for this entry: CommentsEric, Wasn't sure if you had seen the article I had written up yesterday about this topic, at least from what the NFL had been doing. I'm in the process of trying to contact the League about this subject, to see what they're doing about this. The NFL seems to take an "all supplements are bad" type of stance - whether that's right or wrong, I'm not sure. Do I think this industry is going to be regulated at some point? Perhaps - the issue is going to be coming up a lot, I think, as players continue to get banned from their sport. The point I was trying to make is that the whole industry is getting slammed because of the fact that there is no regulation - and until someone steps in, there are going to be problems. Posted by: at January 21, 2004 10:38 AM Bush's steroid topic came out of left field. He did not mention Osama, but apparently he is after Barry Bonds, and I feel safer already. If he meant diet supplements, he should have said so. Posted by: at January 21, 2004 12:18 PM Post a commentThanks for signing in, . (If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.) |