Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Ugh

This is going to get very ugly very fast:
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) -- Athletes were involved as customers in an illicit steroid distribution network that led authorities to raid two Orlando pharmacies and arrest four company officials, a New York prosecutor said.

...The Times Union said investigators found evidence that testosterone and other performance-enhancing drugs may have been fraudulently prescribed over the Internet to current and former Major League Baseball and NFL players, college athletes, high school coaches, a former Mr. Olympia champion and another top contender in the bodybuilding competition.

Here's how this apparently worked. Athletes would go on a website and pick out what they wanted--steriods, human growth hormone, etc. Based on the order, a doctor would then be contacted to write a prescription for the athlete.

That's all very, very illegal.

And it gets worse. A game-day physician for the Pittsburgh Steelers purchased over $150,000 in testosterone and human growth hormone last year.

Oops.

The physican said that the purchases were for his "elderly patients." Um, sure.

Hopefully this will finally get professional sports leagues to start seriously testing for human growth hormone. Performance-enhancing drugs at this point seem to be absolutely endemic to team sports, and it's hard to cheer for anyone when everyone could be cheating.

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