Antonio Pettigrew, a member of the gold medal winning US 4 X 400m relay team, has admitted that he used performance enhancing drugs during the Sydney 2000 Olympics.

Pettigrew admitted use of performance enhancers and this admission could mean that the gold medals won by other relay team members, Alvin and Calvin Harrison, are in jeopardy.

From Foxsports.com.au:

Pettigrew testified that Graham encouraged him in 1997 to inject human growth hormone and the oxygen-boosting drug EPO, which are both banned in track.

Soon after, Pettigrew said, he began buying the drugs from Angel “Memo” Heredia, an admitted steroids dealer from Laredo, Texas.

Once he began taking the banned substances, Pettigrew said he was able to run 400 metres in under 43 seconds for the first time.

“I was running incredible times as I was preparing for track meets,” Pettigrew said during 30 minutes of testimony.

“I was able to recover faster.”

Pettigrew initially lied to federal investigators and denied doping when they first talked to him in February 2005. But he finally confessed to cheating when confronted with documents in October 2006 strongly suggesting drug buys from Heredia.

The doping admission came during a testimony in the trial of Trevor Graham, the former coach of Pettigrew, who is accused of hiding the truth before federal authorities investigating doping in sports.

Members of the general public and doping officials are raising their deep concerns over the growing demand and popularity of steroids. The concerns are more since the government has already said that it has tried its level best to enforce tight control on the manufacture and distribution of steroids and other performance enhancing drugs. However, the truth is that steroid usage has increased and not decreased in the last few years.

The biggest reason for increasing demand of steroids is celebrity driven image culture.

The fact that news about sportsmen and other celebrities using anabolic steroids to maintain their “invincible edge” is influencing their followers to follow the same short route to success is a matter of great concern. With big names such as Sylvester Stallone remarking that he is an old man jumping around trying to look young and getting busted with 48 vials of human growth hormone Jintropin at the Sydney Airport, things cannot be expected to slow down for the better.

From Timesunion.com:

The names of R&B music star Mary J. Blige, along with rap artists 50 Cent, Timbaland and Wyclef Jean, and award-winning author and producer Tyler Perry, have emerged in an Albany-based investigation of steroids trafficking that has already rocked the professional sports world, according to confidential sources.

Information has surfaced recently showing those stars are among tens of thousands of people who may have used or received prescribed shipments of steroids and injectable human growth hormone in recent years. Law enforcement officials have said they have no evidence in their sprawling multistate probe that customers, including Blige or other entertainers, violated any laws. Instead, they are targeting anti-aging clinics, doctors and pharmacists who prescribed the drugs.

Still, medical experts say that use of steroids and human growth hormone — an estimated $10 billion-a-year operation worldwide — reaching into the entertainment industry illustrates how pervasive steroids use in the United States has become. It is not unique to athletics, where performance-enhancing drug use has marred many sports. For many celebrities, the lure of hormonal drugs is their supposed, unproven anti-aging effects.

It is widely regarded now that the dirt created from use of steroids will not be cleared unless and until stringent measures to inhibit use of steroids are formulated and deployed. Till that happens, things such as distribution of anabolic steroids will continue despite all odds.

Steroids and other performance enhancers are mostly used in the sporting sector. Now, according to the Swiss government, more and more amateurs are also turning into the drugs to help them build muscles. Swiss custom officials and sniffing dogs have seen a doubling rise in the number of confiscated class-A drugs, fake good and contraband over the past year.

According to Swiss Medic, the country’s supervisory authority for therapeutic products, the main reason for the increasing use of anabolic steroids is due to the online sites that offer easy access in steroid purchase. Most of the performance-enhancing drugs that have been confiscated are in injectable form, but leading the list of the most confiscated are remedies for erectile dysfunction. In Switzerland, the use of steroids in medical and therapeutic doses are legal. The government even allows the use of muscle building substances, depending on the active ingredient and as long as it is in allowed amount. If you get caught importing anabolic steroids above the allowed amount, you will be charged a hefty sum of 400 francs.

Steroids may be of great help in building muscle mass but some of its side effects include hair loss, acne, psychological instability and heart or liver damage.

According to Radio Switzerland:

Swiss customs officials have seen a rise in the amount of anabolic steroids being confiscated—the number doubled from 2007 to 2008. And that spike, according to the government, is because more amateurs in Switzerland are turning to the drugs to build muscle and better their sports performance. Reporter Alex Helmick has the story.

In fact, customs officers and sniffer dogs go through the mail at the Swiss postal service’s sorting centre in Mülligen, near Zurich, every day to seek out drugs, fake goods and other contraband. So far this year, they’ve sniffed out 130 packages containing class-A drugs and confiscated around 60 fake identity documents. WRS’s Catherine Allen called on Swiss customs officer Max Gerber to find out more about their daily work—and some of the more unusual contraband that passes through.

It seems like economic recession period engulfs the excitement of baseball fans too and so creating problems for Major League Baseball, which is knocking on the doors. In a new Associated Press-Knowledge Networks poll, even hard-cored fans of the game were disappointed with the rising prices of games, which could be the main problem in the upcoming season. The poll results showed that currently the nation’s recession period was the big blow to MLB, whose opening day is less than a week away, whereas soaring salaries and steroids dominated issues were the main worries in past surveys.

About the matter, New York Yankees star Mark Teixeira, who signed an eight-year, $180 million contract said, “Like every election, it’s the economy, and in tough times, disposable income may not be there.”

However, other polls results showed that nearly 60 percent of respondnts agreed that no player, who was involved in steroids usage or other performance-enhancing drugs issues should be given Hall of fame honor. About 85% people also said that the names of players, who were listed in 2003 for positive drugs tests, should be made public. Till so far, only Alex Rodriguez has been identified. Even more than 50 percent respondents said that they were not interested in the World Baseball Classic, the preseason tournament that involves major teams.

However currently, the main concerns of fans were the rising cost of tickets, concessions, parking and other expenditures. Robert Neel, a retired director of admissions at the University of Cincinnati said, “It’s gone up like everything else. The last game we went to, we paid $50 for a seat. That’s pretty steep.”

From The Daily News:

Soaring salaries and steroids dominated fans’ worries in past AP surveys. But with opening day less than a week away, the nation’s recession is delivering the biggest blow.

“Like every election, it’s the economy,” said New York Yankees star Mark Teixeira, who signed an eight-year, $180 million contract in the offseason. “In tough times, disposable income may not be there.”

Nearly 60 percent of fans said no player who used steroids or performance-enhancing drugs should get into the Hall of Fame. Eighty-five percent said all 104 names on the list of players who tested positive for drugs in 2003 should be made public. So far, only Alex Rodriguez has been identified.

Sixty percent said they were not interested in the World Baseball Classic, the preseason tournament involving major leaguers that was won by Japan for the second time.

But the cost of tickets, concessions, parking and everything else added up to fans’ main concern. The toll of attending a game was tops at 45 percent, followed by player salaries (29 percent), steroids/drugs (19 percent) and the length of games (6 percent).

According to the Team Marketing Report, the cost for 2009 has not been determined yet, but last year the average ticket price in majors was around $25.43. To counteract the situation, Major League Baseball has said that about two-third teams among all 30 ones are deciding to lower either their average ticket price or some level of seats. The example was given by the Toronto Blue Jays, which went a step further by offering a season ticket in the upper deck for $76.

Margaret Costello, a retired teacher from Sandusky, Ohio, and fan of Sabathia said, “I’m not happy about the prices.” She also said, “Every sports team in America, every professional athlete is out of line. We have people losing their jobs, and CC Sabathia – I love him, he was my favorite – he gets more millions than a third-world country’s national budget.”

Sabathia, who signed a seven-year, $161 million deal with the Yankees, accepted that sentiment and said, “I’m not surprised with the economy being so bad and the way things are, the price of a ticket is probably going to be high.”

The big four of professional sports has reached a new level of entertaining its spectators. The players are bigger, faster, and stronger, thanks to performance enhancing drugs that turn them into super humans. The gladiators of the Roman era might have been put to shame at the lengths team owners, trainers and players would do to win every game. Surely it would be impossible for a man weighing more than 200 pounds to run a 40 yard dash in less than 5 seconds, or bear the pain after an intense game and to submit to a rigorous training the following day if not for steroids, painkillers or marijuana?

As if these were not enough, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell made a proposal to add a 17th or possibly an 18th game even to the regular season of football. This is made under the ulterior motive that more games mean more income. Never mind if this means that the players will be putting their health on the line, after all they receive a hefty pay from the owners who in turn earn billions from the fans who want more action.

From The Baltimore Sun:

If the NFLPA does go ahead with Goodell’s proposal, they ought to, at the very least, ask for this concession: If we want to take steroids or human growth hormone to stay healthy, or smoke marijuana for medicinal reasons to deal with the pain, let us.

You might laugh, but that’s the only way to make this proposal work. It’s ridiculous to pretend that drugs aren’t already a major part of life in the NFL. Teams could literally not field a full roster each week without painkillers, legal or otherwise. Marijuana isn’t just a recreational drug for a lot of NFL players, it’s the only way they can get out of bed on Monday mornings. And it’s much less addictive than a painkiller like Vicodin, which is legal.

With this kind of pressure trainers, coaches, and players need to face, it is no wonder that they would turn to steroids to at least alleviate the stress their body needs to go through everyday. This makes one wonder if there is any truth to their claim that they conduct drug tests on football players regularly, because by the looks of it the use of steroids is being tolerated if not encouraged.

Just how much would the next would-be sports hero pay you if you tell him that there is a “performance enhancing drug” that is better than anabolic steroids, can be bought legally and easily, and is safe for the body? Thousands of dollars perhaps. Interestingly, this “alternative” is something that most people eat everyday. Athletes and bodybuilders should have this in their diets and probably they are just not aware of its effectivity. This supplement provides the body with the needed boost in energy and strength by providing a good source of vitamins, minerals, anti-oxidants and the like. The perfect performance enhancers are vegetables. Literally.

From The Huffington Post:

Study after study–from the work of Dr. T. Colin Campbell, author of the China Study, to that of my own father, Dr. Caldwell B. Esselstyn, gold-medal winner at the 1956 Olympics and author of Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease–show that the only way to enhance performance and stay healthy is to eat a plant-based diet.

It’s not just doctors who endorse this message—more and more outstanding athletes are showing people there’s a better way. These men and women include Tony Gonzales, record-setting tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs; Salim Stoudamire, plant-eating guard for the NBA Atlanta Hawks; Martina Navratilova, the world’s winningest tennis player; and my very own hero, Dave Scott, six-time winner of the hardest endurance race on the planet, the Hawaii Iron Man triathlon.

And, what about seven-time Tour de France winning cyclist Lance Armstrong, the most tested athlete on the planet? He’s never tested positive, and he’s an 80 percent plant-strong guy.

Instead of selling their soul to the devil short-term, these great athletes bought their long-term health by eating nothing but plants.

So exactly what do vegetables do? They prevent the development of health risks such as atherosclerosis and high blood pressure that steroids cause. They are anti-aging agents meaning they can have protective effects on joints and muscles. They enhance performances by promoting energy production and indirectly, muscle formation. What’s best is that if you use vegetables, you won’t get caught or charged or punished.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Have you ever tried to look at the controversy on athletes using  anabolic steroids another way? Jared Zeidman of Bleacher Report shares his views on the bias against players who had used performance enhancing drugs at one point or another. Zeidman is against the use of steroids and other illegal substances. According to him, though, you can’t tell how good an athlete is even when he does not use steroids. He cited Giambi who still performed well after he had stopped using steroids.

From Bleacher Report

With all of this said, I am adamantly against the use of steroids or any other illegal performance enhancing drug. But, I am also drinking a diet coke as I write this article, which is illegal if I am an Olympic athlete. With so many ridiculous drugs out there, and so many absurd regulations trying to control them, it is more than possible that some of these athletes really don’t know what is going in them.

And I know people are going to want to say, “Everyone should be responsible enough to know what they are putting in their bodies.” To those people, I ask the following:

Without looking at the box, right now, tell me all of the ingredients in a Sudafed tablet. Not just the drug itself, the substances that hold it in pill form, the shiny coating…

Sorry you’re out of time.

With no genuine way to establish the game play effect of performance enhancing drugs, I can’t help but think that some people are just looking for the placebo effect. They are now taking the special stuff.

Another example Zeidman cited was Shane Mosley during his fight with Antonio Margarito. Mosley had been involved in a scandal with Balco and claimed that he didn’t know he was taking steroids. Mosley was drug free during his fight with Margarito, and lo and behold, he defeated his opponent with a knockout. Everyone was thinking that Margarito would destroy him but Mosley’s abilities were top class and he didn’t need steroids to win. Maybe Mosley used to take steroids but now he is clean and he won his battle.

Just recently, Jay McGwire has started his quest to look for a major publishing house to publish his proposal for a book entitled, “The McGwire Family Secret”. Jay is the younger brother of Mark McGwire, a Major League Baseball player who had been accused of using  anabolic steroids. While Mark chose not to comment on the issue when his teammate Jose Canseco claimed that he (Canseco) injected the former with steroids, Jay is the one who chose to speak up for his brother. Jay started using steroids after he managed to purchase some using money he got from his insurance. According to Jay, he introduced his brother to a steroid dealer after he won a bodybuilding competition back in May 1994. The steroid dealer explained everything to Mark and the baseball player had been using Deca Durabolin since.

From NY Daily News

Jay McGwire’s book proposal describes an idyllic childhood as the youngest of four boys in an exceptionally athletic family (another brother, Dan McGwire, was an NFL quarterback). The youngest McGwire says he stopped using steroids when he started feeling ill effects from the drugs – depression, high cholesterol, high blood pressure – and embraced religion. The McGwire brothers have had a falling-out and no longer speak to each other. Mark McGwire avoids the spotlight – he has repeatedly turned down Tony LaRussa’s invitations to attend St. Louis Cardinal training camps as a hitting instructor – but his younger brother says his story needs to be told.

“My bringing the truth to the surface about Mark is out of love,” Jay McGwire wrote. “I want Mark to live in truth to see the light, to come to repentance so he can live in freedom – which is the only way to live.”

Jay believes that if Mark would admit his mistake and apologize, he would be set free from the life of isolation that he chose. It makes you wonder if that would be enough to patch things up between the brothers

Last November 2008, Kenneth C. Anderson (also known as “Mr. Kennedy” in the world of professional wrestling) did an interview with Live Audio wrestling. Interestingly, his statement went against what Vince McMahon, chairman of World Wrestling Entertainment, had said during the latter’s interview in the Congress. Mr. Kennedy is one of the eleven WWE wrestlers that were suspended due to buying anabolic  steroids from an illegitimate online pharmacy, Signature Pharmacies. According to Mr. Kennedy’s latest interview, however, he never bought from the internet pharmacy and that he didn’t take steroids, at least during that time. It was his doctor who bought from Signature Pharmacy. He chose to keep quiet about it since he knew that saying something would just add fuel to the fire and that the media would most probably just misinterpret what he would say. According to some documents obtained between October 2006 and February 2007, Mr. Kennedy received shipments of somatropin, testosterone, and anastrozole.

This is contradictory to what McMahon said during his interview. The chairman released a statement saying that he personally asked each and every one of the wrestlers involved in the scandal if they had bought from Signature Pharmacy and all of them said “yes”. Some of them, however, didn’t use the steroids but that didn’t stop WWE from suspending them.

In an interview with Mike Mooneyham of The Post and Courier, Mr. Kennedy blames his doctor again and says that he had a medical reason on why he had to take steroids.

From WWE Headlines:

“I had a legitimate medical reason to have it,” Anderson told Mooneyham. “How was I supposed to know my doctor’s a quack? I was injured and had a legitimate reason. I tore my lat in 2005. I had surgery, went home and had a staph infection that I almost died from. I lost about 45 pounds in about three days. I had a legitimate medical reason for having it, however my name turned up on that list. Vince and the company’s hands were tied. They had to suspend me.” Anderson told Live Audio Wrestling he is aware of the pressure some of the newer wrestlers might have to take steroids. Anderson said taking steroids is really not necessary and that they should avoid using them.

This is probably how Tony La Russa, former manager of Mark McGwire feels right now. He has been on McGwire’s side amidst all the controversies he has been facing. McGwire was accused by a teammate, Jose Canseco, of injecting with anabolic steroids and the later had even personally administered a dose on the former. McGwire didn’t deny or affirm any of this since he believed that if he had said “no” no one would believe him, and if he had said “yes” then the law will get him.

La Russa feels that McGwire still has so much ahead of him. The manager thinks that his athlete has the makings of someone who should and could be put in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. La Russa has also been constantly inviting McGwire to participate in baseball events again, which the athlete consistently turned down.

La Russa defended McGwire’s character and integrity when voters for the Hall of Fame explained why they chose not to vote for the athlete.

From New York Times:

When voters receive their ballot, they are instructed to consider six elements of a player’s career, including character and integrity. Ken Rosenthal of FoxSsports.com echoed numerous writers by citing character and integrity in explaining why he was “just not comfortable” voting for McGwire now. Rosenthal said he was hopeful that more concrete information about what McGwire did or did not do would become available in the 12 years he might have left on the ballot.

“If it’s a question of what did he do to make himself stronger that wasn’t legal, and that’s kind of a character-and-integrity issue,” La Russa said. “If it’s a character-and-integrity issue, how many guys do we know who did what Mark did?”

La Russa was referring to how McGwire had two years and $30 million left on his contract when he retired after the 2001 season because he did not think he could be effective anymore. McGwire did not attempt to collect any of that money.

“There was no negotiation,” La Russa said. “No ‘Buy me out, I’ve got you for $30 million.’ Nothing. He said: ‘I don’t want to sign anything. I’m done.’ To me, that speaks about his character and his integrity.”

Unfortunately, La Russa really doesn’t have a say in the matter. He believes that it is up to McGwire to clear his name and to give it back the prestige it once had. If McGwire doesn’t do that, then he may not be able to change the negative opinions about him

It was just last week when news broke out that Texas has been reconsidering its 6 million dollar anabolic steroid testing program meant to provide random drug testing high school athletes of different sport. The main issue was that the first batch of results had low positive yields. Out of the 10,000 tested, only 4 were proved to be taking performance enhancing drugs. Because of this, Gov. Perry did conclude that steroids use doesn’t appear to be a problem among the youth of Texas and is considering scaling the program back. This has produced different violent reactions, such as one from Dr. Don Hooton, a Texas local.

Hooton is an advocate of the anti-steroids campaign after he lost his son in 2003. Hooton believes that the initial test results aren’t enough to conclude anything. The program was not meant to check if steroid use is a problem. In fact, Hooton even cited a survey of local high school students conducted by Texas A&M back in 2007. The survey suggests that approximately 2% of the students had use steroids. While only 4 of over a thousand tested positive in the recent drug test, Hooton believes that the low outcome is a result of the program itself. The steroid testing program is meant to serve as a deterrent and it has been just that to students. At present, the future of the program is still unsure.

From Dallas Morning News:

“I’m disappointed that stance is being taken before all the results from the field are in,” Hooton said. “I was under the impression we’d get at least one full year of results with football players before there was any recommendation.”

Perry made his remarks during a wide-ranging interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday. His office said the governor has not made any official recommendations for trimming the program.

Perry also said during the interview that he had no issue with leaving some degree of testing in place. But he added, “Do we need to test every kid in every school?”

Roger Clemens may not be the only All-Star baseball player to face the scandal of anabolic steroid use. According to prosecutor Daniel P. Butler, another player might be placed in the hot seat after Kirk Radomski faces the federal grand jury. Butler meant no other than Miguel Tejada of the Houston Astros Major League Baseball team. This isn’t the first controversy Tejada has been involved in. Just last year, Tejada was found to be lying about his age since he first joining the Major Leagues. On September 22, 2005, Tejada was one of the players identified by the Mitchell Report to be using and distributing steroids. FBI kept a close watch on Tejada since. Now that Clemens’ case is on the role, it seems like Tejada’s will follow soon after.

From Daily News:

Tejada has been the target of an FBI perjury investigation that was initiated in January 2008 at the request of Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), who was the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform when it held two hearings on the Mitchell Report on baseball and steroids last year. Waxman requested the investigation at the first hearing, on Jan. 15, 2008. Clemens testified on Feb. 13, 2008, at the committee’s second hearing on the report.

“It is often the case, for the sake of economy, for the Justice Department to name two or more defendants in a single indictment with respect to crimes that are related,” said former federal prosecutor Mathew Rosengart, now a partner at Manatt, Phelps and Phillips. “That seems to fit for Clemens and Tejada.”

Tejada has been the target of an FBI perjury investigation that was initiated in January 2008 at the request of Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), who was the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform when it held two hearings on the Mitchell Report on baseball and steroids last year. Waxman requested the investigation at the first hearing, on Jan. 15, 2008. Clemens testified on Feb. 13, 2008, at the committee’s second hearing on the report.

“It is often the case, for the sake of economy, for the Justice Department to name two or more defendants in a single indictment with respect to crimes that are related,” said former federal prosecutor Mathew Rosengart, now a partner at Manatt, Phelps and Phillips. “That seems to fit for Clemens and Tejada.” Unfortunately for Tejada, a former federal prosecutor by the name of William Callahan will be preparing a charge fit for the player. Callahan claims that the grand jury listens to the prosecutor and that the jury chose has been studying steroid use and such evidences for quite some time now. Even worse, Tejada’s lawyer won’t be able to participate or even be present in the proceedings. While all the forces seem to be against Tejada, all the player can do now is sit and wait for the verdict.

Good actors are the ones who live the role of the characters they play, not just act it. Does this mean that Mickey Rourke really did everything that wrestlers normally do such as workout 24/7, train, and maybe take anabolic steroids?

From SFGate.com:

Mickey Rourke has hit back at reports he took steroids in a bid to get in shape for the gritty new movie “The Wrestler,” insisting the media has gone too far with comments he made in a magazine interview.

The Golden Globe-winner hinted at the fact he’d taken steroids to bulk up for his role as battered fighter Randy “The Ram” Robinson in a recent interview with Men’s Journal.

It is no doubt that Rourke worked hard for his role. In fact, he had to train under ex-WWE wrestler Afa the Samoan. The hard work paid off since the actor took home the award for best actor from the 2008 Independent Spirit Award. The Wrestler also won the best film award at the Venice Film Festival.  His interview with Men’s Journal, however, caused a stir when he commented, “When I’m a wrestler, I behave like a wrestler.” This has started the rumor that Rourke had been using steroids or other such drugs to prepare for his role.

Mickey Rourke wouldn’t be the first celebrity to use anabolic androgenic steroids or other performance enhancing drugs if ever he was using these drugs. A few months back, there had been several artists said to have used steroids as an anti-aging drug. According to Rourke though, he did not use steroids or human growth hormones in order to improve his body. He just used new heavy duty supplements.

While staying behind the scenes the past few months during the Roger Clemens investigation, Jeff Novitzky, a federal agent, now himself in the lime light.

From New York Times:

Novitzky is currently in Washington helping federal prosecutors prepare witnesses and evidence to present to a grand jury that has been convened to investigate whether Clemens lied to Congress when he said he did not use performance enhancing drugs, according to several lawyers briefed on the matter.

Novitzky is serving as a liaison between the prosecutors and two witnesses the government is preparing to bring in front of the grand jury: the convicted anabolic steroids dealer Kirk Radomski and Clemens’s former trainer, Brian McNamee.

Novitzky primarily found evidence that Radomski distributed steroids among Major League players. As part of his plea, Radomski ultimately led Novitzky to McNamee, who also cooperated with the ongoing investigation of steroids used in baseball. The Mitchell Report issued based on information both by Radomski and McNamee named Clemens and dozens of players, a little more than a year ago.

Baseball players Andy Pettitte and Chuck Knoblauch admitted to McNamee’s story and stated that they had indeed been accepting steroids from him. Knoblauch is now out of the league, and Pettitte has declined accepting the contract offered to him to pitch in 2009.

With the meeting between McNamee, Novitzky and their respective lawyers being postponed, Pettitte’s chance of returning the Yankees next season is unclear. One thing is certain though: the Yankees will inevitably distance themselves from Pettitte.  The Clemens case has proved enough of a distraction for spring training last season. If and when Pettitte will be summoned to testify, it will prove to be another distraction once again

In High School Football, a coach is similar to a mentor who guides athletes to become better in their fields. The coaches of a local high school apparently go beyond what is expected of them. In fact, they go to such extent as to erase the thin border between what is right and what is wrong.

The athletes of Nevada’s local high school went to a local nutritionist to ask about supplements promoted by their coaches. Apparently, these legal supplements are alternatives to anabolic  steroids and serve as bulking agents.

While coaches encourage the use of these supplements, they send a hidden message to students that it’s okay to take the quick, easier way. These future athletes might have this notion that it’s alright to take performance enhancing drugs someday since it has been implanted in their minds that what’s important it the state championship.

From Las Vegas Now:

One parent learned about the dangerous locker room chats through his son, who asked him to buy some supplements similar to steroids, “There is a need for student athletes to get bigger, from their coaches and from their school, to compete at the levels that they are at. I was shocked.”

They both visited Optivita Nutrition and talked to Nutritionist Michael Konowalski. He says coaches are encouraging the wrong message, “I see them walk in with their school bags and I know they have no idea what they are doing. They say, ‘My coach says this is a great thing,’ but they don’t want people to know they are actually pushing them in this route.”

A student athlete claims that the pressure doesn’t only come from the coaches but from fellow teammates as well. Everyone in the team knows what is going on. The problem is no one is willing to do anything about it. It might be a team secret but the use of supplements, whether they contain steroids or not, promotes bad habits and may even cause health problems.

What is the price of knowing your kid is not using any illegal, health-threatening substances? Well, to the critics of the high school steroid testing program, it shouldn’t be as expensive as 6 million dollars.

The testing bill was sponsored in 2007 and aimed to identify Texas’ high school athletes in all sorts of sports who used anabolic steroids and other performance enhancing drugs. The program doesn’t want to “catch” and punish these teens per se but would rather teach a lesson against steroid use. Fortunately, only a few students showed positive results, contrary to the belief that students using steroids is widespread in Texas.

From The Associated Press:

By the end of the current school year in June, officials expect between 40,000-50,000 public school students from all sports to be tested.

Critics rolled their eyes when the first results were released.

According to a University Interscholastic League report released Dec. 1, the first 10,117 tests produced only the four confirmed cases of steroid use. Two of the drugs identified were the anabolic steroid boldenone and a steroid called methylandrostandiol.

Another 22 cases were deemed “positive” results because students broke testing rules. They either refused to provide a urine sample, had unexcused absences the day they were selected, or left the testing area without approval. A positive test brought a 30-day suspension from play for the first offense.

The National Center for Drug Free Sport tested athletes at 195 schools between February and June 2008, covering 12 sports. Football (3,380) and girls’ volleyball (835) were the sports most often tested. The UIL will update test results next month.

Because of the few positive results, critics like Republican state Sen. Dan Patrick think that the program is a waste of the taxpayer’s money and the funds could have been used for other meaningful programs addressed to teen health issues. On the other hand, steroid testing supporter Gov. David Dewhurst thinks that it is too early to see if major changes have been made. Because of this, Rep. Dan Flynn has found middle ground in saying that the steroid testing program in Texas will continued but it will have to be scaled down to a level where it will still serve as an effective deterrent.

Vince McMahon isn’t just one of the professional wrestlers in the World Wrestling Entertainment industry. He is the chairman of the Board of Directors, a shareholder of the company, and the one many people, fans and wrestlers alike, look up to. Maybe this is why Rich Twilling found McMahon’s testimony regarding steroid use in wrestling quite annoying or why he thinks that McMahon would have every reason to lie.

From AOL Sports

The testimony was contentious from the beginning, with McMahon repeatedly saying “I don’t know” when investigators pressed him to answer whether  anabolic steroids are harmful. McMahon made the completely reasonable point that if the Committee wants to know about the health effects of steroids, it should probably ask the FDA, not the WWE.

Not long after that, McMahon told an investigator who was questioning him to “Stop trying to put words in my mouth.”

It only got more heated, with McMahon at one point saying, “I’m insulted, quite frankly, sitting in front of you today by answering some of these ridiculous questions. I’m a businessman. I’m a good businessman. I do things legally. We’re a public company. We put smiles on peoples faces all over the world. That’s what we do. This is a fun business. So it seems to me that this inquiry is some sort of witch hunt.”

Twilling had pointed out that the House Oversight Committee is just wasting its time with McMahon constantly giving tangential answers. Things got a lot similar to your usual wrestling skit when McMahon’s lawyer, Jerry McDevitt, came into the picture. McDevitt did everything from threatening to rebutting inappropriately to becoming quite aggressive.

According to Twilling, the committee shouldn’t be content with how McMahon is addressing the issue. They should consider that his answers might be reveal that he is just covering up the use of performance enhancing drugs in Pro Wrestling.

Although already well-known by bodybuilders and athletes, 6-OXO Extreme has been made more famous due to the recent scandal involving Phillies reliever, J.C. Romero, who was taking this supplement.

The supplement 6-OXO Extreme is not a steroid although its effects are the same as any regular performance enhancing drugs. The supplement is actually an androstenedione, a hormone stimulant that boosts the production of testosterone in your body. In addition to that, a newer version of the supplement also blocks the effect of the aromatase enzyme therefore blocking the effects of estrogen. These properties will generally give you an extreme elevation of testosterone in the blood.

The manufacturers of 6-OXO Extreme, Proviant Technologies, admitted to putting a warning on the label of the supplement saying, “Use of this product may be banned by some athletic or government associations”. They pointed, however, that no ingredient in the supplement would cause a positive result in anabolic steroid drug tests. There is much information on the supplement that remains unknown such as its safety, if it’s healthy and if it’s natural. Just because it is not FDA-approved, it doesn’t mean that 6-OXO Extreme is illegal. In fact even GNC admitted that it sells the supplement and that “it only sells products that meet all relevant legal and regulatory standards for the nutritional supplement industry”.

With all these facts stated, it makes you wonder why J.C. Romero is now being condemned for the use of 6-OXO. Dr. Bruce Sennet of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania has a theory:

From 6 ABC Action News:

Dr. Sennett says the tests which tripped up J.C. Romero probably picked up elevated testosterone, but not any residues from the supplement itself.

Do you remember the hit reality television series, “American Gladiators” that showed a few years back? If so, you will probably remember one of its stars, Dan Clark also known as “Nitro”.

Dan Clark used to be a defensive lineman for the LA Rams. Even before he had started his career on television, he had been using anabolic steroids for a total of 20 years. When he first started, the drug enabled him to gain massive strength and a whopping 32 pound increase in muscle weight. It’s no doubt that these gains had helped him throughout his career.

Behind all the glitz and glamour, however, Clark faced the serious consequences of using steroids for such a long period of time. In his memoir entitled “Gladiator: A True Story of ‘Roids, Rage and Redemption”, he reveals that ironically, the “performance enhancing drugs” caused his privates, namely his testicles, to shrink.  He also experienced pain whenever he had sex. Clark found it very difficult, embarrassing and awkward to explain his condition to the women he was with.

One of the more obvious effects the steroids had on Clark was the development of man boobs, scientifically known as gynecomastia. It caused Clark a great deal of embarrassment that he had to ask his wardrobe stylist to design a new uniform for him in order to hide his breasts. Clark writes more about his experiences:

From Fox News:

“I hate[d] taking off my shirt. For photo shoots, [I'd] wet my nipple with spit … [to] look firm instead of hanging down.”

In the end, Clark decided to undergo reduction surgery, the only method to “reverse” gynecomastia.

On January 24, boxer Shane Mosley will be facing WBA welterweight champion Antonio Margarito in the rings of Staples Center. While the preparation is intense, this isn’t the only challenge Mosley will be facing. For the past few months, his legal team has been trying to clear his name from his connection with the 2003 federal raid on BALCO, implicating that Mosley had used illegal performance enhancing drugs during his match with Oscar De La Hoya. In the process, Mosley and his camp bumped heads with founder and owner of BALCO, Victor Conte. BALCO is the company that allegedly sold Mosley anabolic  steroids.

While Mosley would claim that he was misled by Conte and was not aware of what he was taking, Conte would claim that he had fully disclosed the steroids to the boxer. Mosley would the counter with, as Conte would claim, a web of lies. The case slowly became more confusing as to who is telling the truth.

From Maxboxing

Conte, speaking exclusively to Maxboxing, would explain, “Basically what happened is that we filed an anti-SLAPP (strategic lawsuit against public participation) motion; basically this is what you do when there’s no merit to a lawsuit and it’s strictly a PR stunt and it’s frivolous. So that was our response and we were getting ready to file a motion and there were some issues that came up about Shane and his residence. And what we discovered was that he had represented in a court case, under oath, two weeks before we deposed him, that he was a resident of California. And when we deposed him he said he was a resident of Nevada. Now, you can’t be a resident of both states at the same time, so in one of the cases he was not being truthful. We believe it was in our case because he lives in California, his children go to school in California, and he operates his business out of California. He may have income or properties that he owns in Nevada and may have income that he has there fighting, but it was clear, in our opinion, that he’s a California resident. So once we told them that we were going to bring this issue up, which could have possibly led to discussions of tax fraud, because one of the two times he was not being truthful, we know he’s misrepresented a number of things to the grand jury. So what happened was they agreed to withdraw the federal lawsuit and we found out later that the exact same day they withdrew the federal case, they filed another case in the state court of New York.”

This actually isn’t the first case of its kind that BALCO got involved with. Back in 2004, Marion Jones, a multi-gold medalist in track and field, also tried to dispel any connections between herself, BALCO, and the use of performance enhancing drugs. Conte had come clean about his role in Jones’ career and although she had initially filed a lawsuit for defamation, she later on admitted to lying. This eventually led to a prison sentence.

Conte believes that this issue with Mosley is another “Marion Jones”. He is quite confident that Mosley’s own words would eventually lead to his downfall while he faces the court this January 15.

Mr. Universe 2003 Manuel Manchado will find himself celebrating a not so happy New Year this year. The Spanish body builder, as well as six others, was sentenced to two years of prison for illegal trafficking of anabolic steroids. This arrest was a result of the opening of two postal packages containing “substances used clandestinely for the development of the mass and the force muscular” in 2003, which led to the finding of several illegal operations in the country.

Manchado runs a gym in Leganes, Madrid, as well as an online business that sells these drugs over the internet, and a store that sells sporting supplements. Local police have seized half a million doses of illegal products when they raided several of his warehouses. These products were allegedly provided by a company named Steromax Spain. According to Manchado, he was contracted by Steromax to commercialize and distribute its products. Among these products were three types of drugs banned from being sold in Spain. Steromax was also found to counterfeit prescriptions, as well as sell supplements with no medical or pharmaceutical value but were claimed to have the ability to increase muscle tone. The company was also penalized for distributing the drugs without having proper authorization, and for bringing about serious health risks to their buyers.

The court has considered that the arrested might be a part of an organized group involved in illegal importation of banned substances, storage of these products, and their distribution and commercialization.

The local magistrates have offered Manchado and some of his companions the possibility of posting a bail of 5,760 Euros.

Timesunion.com has released its list of top stories for the year 2008 based on the number of clicks by readers. Included in this list are the reports that Obama’s surname was converted into a terrorist’s name in an absentee ballot, the story about a psychologist who had sexual relations with a student, and wrong information told by the police.

Interestingly, the story that ranked second was an article entitled “Steroids beyond sports”. The story details the use of steroids extending from sports to various celebrities. This article was released last January and mentioned a number of stars who have allegedly used anabolic  steroids and injectable human growth hormones.

From Albany Times Union:

The names of R&B music star Mary J. Blige, along with rap artists 50 Cent, Timbaland and Wyclef Jean, and award-winning author and producer Tyler Perry, have emerged in an Albany-based investigation of steroids trafficking that has already rocked the professional sports world, according to confidential sources.

Information has surfaced recently showing those stars are among tens of thousands of people who may have used or received prescribed shipments of steroids and injectable human growth hormone in recent years. Law enforcement officials have said they have no evidence in their sprawling multistate probe that customers, including Blige or other entertainers, violated any laws. Instead, they are targeting anti-aging clinics, doctors and pharmacists who prescribed the drugs.

Still, medical experts say that use of steroids and human growth hormone — an estimated $10 billion-a-year operation worldwide — reaching into the entertainment industry illustrates how pervasive steroids use in the United States has become. It is not unique to athletics, where performance-enhancing drug use has marred many sports. For many celebrities, the lure of hormonal drugs is their supposed, unproven anti-aging effects.

Investigations of baseball players that have been doping surprised the public. Apparently, the news of famous artists using steroids also caught the public eyes. As mentioned in the article, this was nothing new to Hollywood and while people focus on the individuals taking them, they should be more interested in the doctors providing these athletes and celebrities with prescriptions to purchase the drugs.

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