Dan Hooton is not new the in the world of anabolic steroid use especially when it comes to the youth using these drugs. He is not a steroid user himself but someone whom he dearly loved once was– Taylor Hooton. Does the name ring a bell? For most, maybe not. That is because news of steroid use in professional athletes stays around longer than news of normal citizens suffering from the side effects of the drugs. Taylor Hooton was Dan’s 17 year old son. Taylor was pitcher in his high school baseball team. In order to make a cut, he began using anabolic steroids to increase in size and strength. Seven months later, the effect was not what everyone expected. Taylor was found dead in his room and the reason was due to the side effects of the steroid he used. Dan grieved for a while then turned his sadness into an advocacy to spread the word against steroid use. He formed the Taylor Hooton Foundation and has been active in different anti-steroid events since then. Just recently, Dan had contacted Alex Rodriguez to be part of this advocacy. A-Rod had gladly accepted the challenge.

From Kansascity.com:

Drugs have cost Rodriguez credibility and fans, maybe even a spot in the Hall of Fame. But it didn’t cost Rodriguez what it cost Taylor Hooton, and that’s why Rodriguez called Don Hooton last week and said he wanted to shake Don’s hand, sign up and spread the word.

Don told him to join the train; these days they need as many voices as they can get. And in some ways, Hooton said Friday, it’s good for the foundation’s target demographic — high school athletes — that Rodriguez messed up, got caught and came clean.

“It’s good for us when this is in the headlines,” Hooton said, nursing a cup of water and living the last week out of his leather briefcase. “When it’s in the headlines, we get to talk to people. As long as it’s on the front pages, the public has some appetite for talking about this. As soon as it’s not on the front pages, nobody wants to talk about it anymore.

“It’s painful for the public, but this is reality.”

Dan really doesn’t care if the professional athletes use steroids. He does mind, however, that the youth looks up to these athletes as their models. When their idols start using steroids, the youth think that it’s okay to do so. Dan’s main concern is making kids everywhere realize the negative effects of anabolic steroid use and he does this by sharing his story as well as the stories of those like him.

Out of the 3,693 letters sent for a recent survey of retired NFL players, 2,552 responded openly and about 20.3% of them admitted to have used steroids at one point in their careers. The survey was sent out to members of the NFL Retired Players Association and those who participated played during the 1980’s, when drug testing was still not done. From the survey, the majority of steroid users were offensive linemen or defensive linemen. These two groups also registered with having the highest number of injuries on several joints mainly involving the ligaments and cartilages.

From CBC Sports:

The injury patterns suggest that joint ligaments and cartilage, rather than tendons, might not adapt to muscle changes brought about by steroids, making them “weakest link in the chain,” said lead author Dr. Scott Horn of the UNC School of Medicine.

The survey indicated no steroid related increase in the risk of injury to the muscle (biceps and triceps) and no increase of injury to shoulders and tendons.

Based on previous studies, the researchers suspected that tendons might be at increased risk to cope with a rapid increase in muscle size and strength.

The findings of the research correlated the injuries caused by steroid use with other negative health effects through a “snowball effect”. This means that injuries that have occurred led to the development of more health problems later on in life. This was further determined when respondents who had used steroids also admitted to suffering various systemic diseases such as osteoarthritis and depression, and having a generally physically inactive lifestyle years after the injuries have occurred. The development of these medical entities which also include obesity and diabetes is gradual.

Due to the several steroid use and performance enhancing drug issues coming up on Major League Baseball, people are starting to point fingers on who really should be blamed behind this “steroid era”. According to former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura, the one who should be punished is Bud Selig since he was the “captain” of the baseball ship. Ventura cites pro wrestling and that it had gone through its steroid era too. This essentially led to the indictment of Vince McMahon, chairman of the WWE. Ventura is wondering why the same thing hasn’t been done to Bud Selig who should equally be responsible to everything that is happening.

Selig, on the other hand, tries to come clean by saying that he has done his best given what was available to him.

From ESPN.com:

“I don’t want to hear the commissioner turned a blind eye to this or he didn’t care about it,” Selig told Newsday in a Monday phone interview. “That annoys the you-know-what out of me. You bet I’m sensitive to the criticism.”

“The reason I’m so frustrated is, if you look at our whole body of work, I think we’ve come farther than anyone ever dreamed possible,” he said, adding, “I honestly don’t know how anyone could have done more than we’ve already done.”

Selig said that he doesn’t regret anything that he has done. In fact, he wouldn’t have changed anything. There have been many changes with regards to the anti-steroid policies in the Major Leagues since 10 years ago and people should not forget that. While he allegedly wasn’t aware of A-Rod’s positive result back then, at present, it is something that he and everyone in the game should look at and learn something from.

What is the difference between the NBA and the MLB? Well, first of all, there’s the game. Second, there are the players. And third, there is steroid use. Major League Baseball started out to be a clean sport with several of its best players earning titles and awards based on pure training and hard work. Now, however, it is probably the only sport that has been tainted with so much steroid use and widespread performance enhancing drug abuse. Basketball, on the other hand, used to be that sport that was almost dragged down by “gangsta” mentalities and recreational drugs. Yes, its tattoo-laden players had that “we bad and we know it” aura. Now, though, NBA has been redeemed. During the NBA All-Star game, basketball players, officials and fans were proud to know that out of the 20,000 people there, no one had used performance enhancing drugs and no one doubted the talent of the athletes.

From The Canadian Press:

“There are no questions,” Tim Duncan said. “They know we’re tested. They know we’re clean and they know the product that’s put on the floor are natural athletes that are performing the way they perform.”

The reasons behind that are many, though commissioner David Stern would like everyone to believe that the league’s drug-testing program is so stringent that it’s almost impossible to cheat. Olympic drug-testing experts say that’s not entirely true because there’s not enough tests and they don’t test for enough things, but what is true is that everyone in the league is tested four times a year and it’s truly random.

The real reason, though, may be that steroids never became a big part of the NBA culture because the perception among players is that they wouldn’t help much.

According to Chauncy Billups, basketball doesn’t have any need for anabolic steroids or growth hormones. Basketball is more of a mental game rather than a sport that needs its players to have rippling muscles or something to that extent. Nobody suspects anything bad from NBA players and that is something that basketball is truly proud of on top of every veteran and retired members of the sport that deserved the awards they received.

Just this week, Congressman Elijah Cummings of Maryland had written a letter to Alex Rodriguez, a young baseball superstar that had recently admitted to steroid use. The letter was not an invitation to face the House Committee for Oversight and Government Reform which Cummings is an active member of. It was a letter inviting Rodriguez to participate in “Powered by ME!“, an anti-steroid program in Maryland aimed at teaching the youth the dangers of using performance enhancing drugs. Cummings believes that Rodriguez will be perfect for this position.

From The Associated Press:

Rodriguez admitted Monday that he used banned drugs from 2001-2003 while playing for the Texas Rangers.

“In light of your recent acknowledgment that you used steroids in the past,” Cummings wrote, “I believe you are in a unique position to send a strong message out to our young people that they should refrain from using performance-enhancing substance.” The Associated Press obtained a copy of the letter Thursday.

Rodriguez’s camp has yet to receive the invitation. Just last year, Cummings also invited Brian Roberts of the Baltimore Orioles. Roberts had admitted to using steroids once in his career after the Mitchell Report was released and he welcomed the congressman’s offer. According to Jennifer Kohl, Cummings’ spokeswoman, Rodriguez shouldn’t worry that the letter would lead to questioning by the Congress. If that was the intention, it would have come from the chairman of the committee and not the congressman. Cummings is a vocal anti-steroid advocate. Not only is he one of the honorary co-chairs of “Powered by ME!”, he is also one of the tough guys when it comes to burning guilty athletes when they face the committee.

Arizona has set up a very unique way of controlling prescription drugs such as addictive pain killers, hormone drugs and steroids. The program is called “The Controlled Substance Prescription Monitoring Program” and was introduced last December under the Arizona State Board of Pharmacy. Its main goal is to address the problem on prescription-drug abuse by allowing physicians and pharmacists to identify individuals who go to different doctors to obtain drugs that are otherwise illegal. There will be a centralized database storing the prescriptions of members of the community and authorized personnel can view these in order to determine if there are some discrepancies or some suspicious activities.

From AZCentral.com:

The Controlled Substance Prescription Monitoring program still is in its infancy, but its database already contains more than 6.5 million prescriptions dating back to April 1, 2008.

Here’s how it works:

When any Arizona pharmacy or doctor who dispenses medication fills an order for a drug listed on Schedules II, III or IV of the federal Controlled Substances Act, the details are forwarded to the outside contractor that maintains the database and are entered within a week or two. The data include the patient’s name, date of birth, prescribing doctor, medication, the date the prescription was filled and the mailing addresses of the pharmacy and patient.

The drugs on the lists include potentially addictive painkillers, sleep aids, medications that contain morphine or certain forms of codeine, and hormone drugs, including steroids.

The main concern of the public is the lack of privacy this program might entail. The state argues that there is a greater benefit from doing this and that access to the database will be recorded and limited to certain professionals only. Illegal drug dealers, pharmaceutical companies and hopefully even hackers won’t be able to override the program.

It seems like most of the clean players of Major League Baseball want the remaining 103 players who tested positive for the survey test back in 2003 named. Just a few days ago, an athlete wrote in his blog his suggestion to make the list public. Today, other players have started to speak up. Among them are Torii Hunter of the Angels and Lance Berkman of the Houston Astros who both have their reasons for wanting to know who else used steroids.

From Los Angeles Times:

“I’m upset that those names on the list came out,” Hunter told The Times. “Someone dropped the ball. Those other 103 players, they might as well bring those names out too. If A-Rod’s name is out there, others should be.”

Berkman called the release of a confidential test result “deplorable.”

“But, on the other hand, the competitive side of me, I’d like to know who took performance-enhancing drugs,” he told the Houston Chronicle. “Those of us that have never taken anything like steroids or HGH or anything like that, I’d like to know who has.”

It’s still not known how Alex Rodriguez’s name managed to slip out of the list and into public eye. An American League player recently said that talk about revealing that list had started even a year ago during spring training. He said that players confronted Donald Fehr, the union chief. What Fehr said back then and is saying now is still the same. The list will be kept confidential as it should have always been. Should. But now, many innocent players want to know who used steroids so they can avoid groundless public speculations on who’s taking what. In order to clarify and discuss things, Fehr will be starting talking to players of all the camps this February 23.

It seems like it’s not only Alex Rodriguez who will be put to public judgment. You might think that the 104 athletes that tested positive among more than 600 samples should be the only ones scared now that the list has been found. It doesn’t seem that way though since even those who tested negative could be subject to some re-testing. Apparently, the trend started by Barry Bonds seems to be getting carried over other athletes. As we can recall, Bonds tested positive back in 2003 but when the prosecution tested his samples again, it came back with traces of a then-undetectable steroid.

From Daily News:

Even those who tested negative could be subject to re-testing as a result of the Players’ Association’s failure to destroy the spreadsheet with the names of those who tested positive.

There are believed to be 525 negative urine samples in the hands of the government in addition to the 104 positive samples.

After the testing process was completed in 2003, union officials had the right to destroy the documents that connected names to actual urine samples. Sources close to the union defend its inaction, saying it would have been improper to destroy urine samples and test documents because they were potential evidence in the ongoing BALCO probe.

The protocol is that the laboratory should destroy negative samples after 30 days and positive samples after a year. Unfortunately, the lab didn’t destroy the negative samples and that leaves the government with about 525 urine sample to analyze once again, and 525 baseball players who are at risk of becoming the next target for public critique. It is even possible that a sample of Roger Clemens urine still exists. And like Bonds, that sample could be analyzed and, if it yields positive results, be used against them.

Just this weekend, reports came out that Alex Rodriguez had tested positive for testosterone and Primobolan back in 2003. He was still with the Texas Rangers then and that was the season when he first received his Most Valuable Player award and broke 300 career home runs. Of course, there was no sanction for using performance enhancing drugs until 2004 and the samples for those tests were supposedly destroyed and the results kept confidential. Unfortunately, the list came up during the BALCO investigation and the laboratory that did the test still had the samples.

From Washington Post:

According to the report, Rodriguez was one of 104 players on a list of positive tests that year, when baseball instituted “survey” testing to determine the extent of steroid use in the game. Those supposedly anonymous results were seized in April 2004 by federal agents investigating the Balco steroid ring, which did not involve Rodriguez. The legality of that seizure is the subject of a case in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Pasadena, Calif.

A message left for Rodriguez’s publicist yesterday was not returned, but Rodriguez, who has repeatedly denied having used steroids, is quoted by SI.com as declining comment. “You’ll have to ask the union,” he reportedly said. “I’m not saying anything.”

Rob Manfred, Major League Baseball’s executive vice president for labor relations, would not discuss the validity of the story, saying in a statement that the 2003 survey testing was “intended to be non-disciplinary and anonymous.”

While the accuracy of the report is still in question, MLB officials chose not to condemn anyone. For Rodriguez, he won’t be facing any legal charges unlike Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens who are now fighting in court. Nevertheless, many believe that the news of the baseball superstar using steroids could greatly affect his name and status as the highest-earning baseball player in MLB. It can also make people question his MVP award and his chances in the Hall of Fame.

After a year of investigations, Canby police finally arrested one of the steroid suppliers of a Canby police officer. Last November 17, Chief Greg Kroeplin was suspended after he was found to conceal that his former roommate, Jason Deason, also a then-Canby police officer, was involved in steroid use. Further investigations led to businessman William Jake Traverso who allegedly supplied Deason with anabolic steroids.

From Oregon News:

Federal authorities identified Traverso, a former competitive bodybuilder who works at Canby Landscape Supply, as one of Deason’s suppliers. Traverso admitted selling steroids and human growth hormone, or HGH, to Deason. In fact, Traverso turned over to federal agents an April 30, 2002 order for steroids that Deason had given him, written on Canby police stationery, according to federal court records.

Neighbors of Traverso, who lives in a home on Canby’s North Vine Street, had grown frustrated by suspicious drug activity at Traverso’s home, and complained to Canby’s mayor and council about a lack of Canby police response to their multiple complaints.

According to affidavits filed in the U.S. District Court, Deason coached Traverso on what to tell the police if he ever would be questioned about steroids back in 2001. This was during the time Deason was being investigated for his alleged steroid abuse.

Federal agents raided Traverso’s workplace at Yamhill County. They seized various stolen goods, two firearms and several details about Deason including his name, work phone and cell phone number. Traverso was arrested this week and is charged of illegal possession and distribution of controlled substance and first-degree theft. Traverso was given a bail of $75,000.

Several materials submitted by Brian McNamee, Roger Clemens’ former trainer, were used for verification and DNA tests in order to link the athlete with steroid use. According to McNamee, he administered anabolic steroids and human growth hormone on Clemens and had kept syringes and gauze pads in a box in his basement. Prosecutors are hoping to use the result of the test to prove that Clemens in lying when he said that he never used performance enhancing drugs. The results had been release and yes, the blood found on the syringes match Clemens’ DNA.

It is still too early for the prosecution to rejoice though. Rusty Hardin, Clemens’ defense lawyer, claims that the results of the DNA exams won’t damage the defense. They are ready to counter whatever the prosecution presents them with.

From SBR Forums:

“It will still be evidence fabricated by McNamee,” Hardin told the newspaper. “I would be dumbfounded if any responsible person ever found this to be reliable or credible evidence in any way.”

Federal authorities are conducting genetic tests of Clemens’ DNA after the former pitcher voluntary provided them with samples, but even those tests won’t prove McNamee’s claims.

According to the report, the Anti-Doping Research Institute in Los Angeles, who were brought onto the case by authorities, are still attempting to find out if the syringes ever contained steroids or HGH.

Clemens has previously stated that he has been injected with vitamin B-12 and painkillers during his career and the report states that without evidence of steroids or HGH in the syringes, it will be difficult for prosecutors to convince jurors that he was injected with those substances.

In order to find more information, federal agents had interviewed several of Clemens’ friends and they might be called in to testify in the coming hearings

Just a few weeks ago, “Spiral of Denial: Muscle Doping in American Football” was released and had received overwhelming publicity. The writer of the book is Matt Chaney, a journalist who was involved with college football during his younger years. As a student and a would-be athlete, Chaney also had his share of  anabolic steroid use. He took a cycle of testosterone that made him stronger that he had no trouble when doing bench presses. After he suffered a severe knee injury which he later attributed to the steroid use, he became a student assistant coach. As an assistant coach, he helped one of the players get his hands on some performance enhancing drugs. He realized that a good 10 to 20 percent of the players were using steroids and that everyone knew about it. It was an unwritten law to keep quiet. And that was just college football. After he left the sporting world, Chaney became a writer. In his book, he says that even with all the modern drug tests, only little can be done with illegal steroid use. There is no one test that can detect everything and there are still so many steroids that remain undetectable.

From Southeast Missourian

Chaney said he has proposed — along with others — that the only immediate way to help curb the use of steroids is to put a cap on the weights of players based on their height and body type.

“It’s a terrible problem and there is no solution in terms of the absolute,” he said. “There will never be technology or laws that will stop this. One thing we can do is limit the sizes of the players. It’s not my idea, it’s been around. Right now that’s the only immediate prevention anybody knows.”

Chaney said it’s foolish to think coaches on all levels don’t know what’s going on, but as he mentioned earlier, he does not blame coaches — past and present — for the steroids problem in football. In fact, he doesn’t blame anybody, instead calling it a cultural issue.

Chaney wants to point out in his book that steroid use is not the problem of the athlete or the school or the team. It is a problem of that everyone should know about.

Steroid users are becoming younger these days. Matthew Piasecki, a former competitive swimmer from Edmonton, Canada, was sentenced to 6 years of jail time after he had shot a man in the chest. Piasecki had already been charged of drug trafficking before and he served 2 years in prison. According to his lawyer, Piasecki felt the pressure of having a brother who had won a provincial championship in competitive swimming, a sport which they both participated in. As soon as he got out of jail, Piasecki began injecting  anabolic steroids in order to enhance his performance. After that, his family and his girlfriend noticed that he would have episodes of explosive, unreasonable temper flares over nothing. Unfortunately for Adam Sheen, Piasecki just had one of those episodes when he came to his trailer park.

From Sun News Edmonton:

Court heard Piasecki had been looking to collect a $1,400 drug debt, and he and five buddies crashed a July 18 backyard party at the Maple Ridge mobile home park.

Piasecki was armed with a gun, and he ran up to various people at the party asking, “Where’s Dustin?”

When he approached Dustin Micallef, the man asked him “Dustin who?” and Piasecki responded by slamming him in the face with the butt end of the pistol grip.

Micallef fell to the ground, and his cousin, Ricky Micallef, ran over, helped him up and told Piasecki to take it easy.

Piasecki responded by hitting him in the eye with the butt end of the gun.

After someone said Dustin was not there, Piasecki called for another person to come out of the trailer.

Instead, Adam Sheen emerged and asked Piasecki what was going on. The gunman responded by shooting him in the right chest from about one meter away, court heard.

Although it was nothing new to him, Provincial Court Judge Robert Philp found Piasecki’s case “disturbing”. He said that this is what you get when you put steroids and guns together. This is an example of the dangers of using anabolic androgenic steroids.