A Major Dilemma: PEDs in Sports

“There isn’t a team in the last 20 years that has won clean,” said former professional baseball player Curt Schilling in 2011 on a Philadelphia radio station.

Performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) have ushered in a new, unfortunate reality in the modern era of sports, and there is no longer a level playing field. These drugs remain illegal in nearly every sport yet continue to be used widely by athletes as a way to obtain an advantage. The short term effects provide users with both physical and mental boosts, but their long-term consequences include a variety of major health issues.

Since the 1960s, PEDs have created controversy about the integrity of professional and collegiate sports. Measures to outlaw them have been attempted, but have proven ineffective. Common perceptions regarding PEDs are influenced by high profile stories in several professional sports, most notably Major League Baseball. Scandals such as BALCO and Biogenesis have resulted in inquiries into these drugs, their users, and their distributors. The Mitchell Report, a 21-month investigation by former Senator George J. Mitchell, revealed the names of 89 MLB players who were connected to major distributors of anabolic steroids and human growth hormone. Even after these scandals and the suspensions and shame that followed, new scandals emerged.

There is no way to tell how many athletes are using these drugs. In an anonymous poll conducted by ESPN, MLB players estimated that close to ten percent of their peers were taking some type of banned substance, including Adderall to improve focus. While the results of this poll were approximations, the responses were shocking.

Athletes across the world are always looking for a competitive advantage and these drugs have become the norm. In addition, there is a wide variety of drugs and different lists of banned substances for each sport. The line of what is allowed has become extremely vague. There is no certainty that there will ever be a way of detecting all users because of the number of drugs and the complicated methods in use to help avoid detection.

Benefits and Health Issues 

These illegal drugs have a variety of benefits for competitive athletes. Anabolic Steroids increase muscle mass and strength while decreasing body fat and increasing lean body mass. Human growth hormone is a natural hormone which decreases body fat while increasing muscle mass and bone density, also helping athletes recover more quickly. Erythropoietin is a naturally occurring hormone that promotes red blood cell production which can significantly increase endurance Testosterone is a hormone found in both men and women which increases muscle strength, body size, and helps speed up recovery. Beta blockers are drugs that help improve focus, lower blood pressure, and lower heart rate. All the short term benefits of these drugs, however, can give way too serious long term side effects.

Dr. Darius Greenbacher, a sports medicine specialist from Massachusetts, provided his expertise on these long term health issues.

“Anabolic steroids can have devastating effects on an athlete’s health and wellbeing. Frequent negative effects of anabolic steroids are enlargement of breast tissue, testicular atrophy, impotency, infertility, hair loss, additional body and facial hair, baldness, deepening of the voice, tendon rupture, liver damage, high blood pressure, depression, and bizarre aggressive behavior,” he noted.

Dr. Greenbacher went on to add, “Growth hormone can cause enlargement of the jaw and forehead seen frequently with heavy and long-term use. Erythropoietin causes dangerously high blood viscosity which leads to abnormal clotting.  Many professional cyclists have died from heart failure and strokes from its use. Beta blockers can sometimes cause dangerously low heart rate and blood pressure.”

The Changing Landscape

Baseball is the prime example of how these drugs can alter a sport. In the MLB, PEDs have given players unfair advantages to shape their legacy among the greatest players in history. For instance, Barry Bonds, who almost certainly used PEDs, surpassed the home run numbers of some of the greatest players who ever played the game, including Hank Aaron.

Former closer John Rocker made a very strong point about how advantageous substances have changed the game. He spoke about how they have made the game more exciting, causing more home runs. He is right about the added excitement, but is it worth losing the validity of history already in place?

A current Orthopedic PA and a former Minor League Baseball player, Mike Cavanagh, talked about his changed perception about the drugs between his playing days in the 1990s and today.

“While playing I knew very little about performance enhancement drugs. At the time, steroids were the most popular drug, however there was some use of other drugs to help calm you or drugs to help with your focus,” Cavanagh noted.  “Much, if not all of this was done via the black market and teams and trainers were not involved.  Players did not know much about these drugs other than they were illegal and bad for them, but they work.”

When asked if he thought banned substances would eventually be legalized Cavanagh replied, “The title ‘performance enhancing drug’ covers a wide spectrum of different substances now in 2014. From the standpoint of a competitor, I believe they should not be part of any game. All athletes, whether competing for their high school, college, or their next big contract should do so on an even playing field.”

An aspiring professional baseball player, Erik Ostberg ’14, who currently competes at The University of Hartford, spoke about what he thinks about PEDs.

“I wondered how these guys could do this and how they could cheat the game and thought they were horrible people,” Ostberg noted. “Fast forward to now, after going through multiple demanding recruiting summers and now in the middle of a Division I baseball fall, it makes total sense. We all want to play the game for as long as possible and when baseball is a job, the days are long and hard and the last thing you want is your body failing you. There are also tons of outside factors and pressures from within an organization or program that normal fans don’t see or experience unless thrown into the situation themselves. I am willing to forgive all those guys for the choices they’ve made but it has no place in the game,” Ostberg added.

Major League Baseball and Commissioner Bud Selig have done an exceptional job of trying to combat these drugs in recent years by implementing mandatory testing, among other precautions. The MLB, however, has not placed clear guidelines in regard to how their system with suspensions works. It is known that players get “three strikes” until they are banned for life, but the definition of one of those “strikes” has not been outlined clearly.

With the recent Biogenesis scandal involving several players, including Alex Rodriguez and Ryan Braun, MLB almost seemed to be making up the rules along the way.  In order to preserve what is left of baseball’s sacred records, MLB needs to continue their fight against offenders of their policies. If the achievements set by legends are further tarnished, then the storied record books could fall to the cheaters. There might be more home runs and stolen bases, but baseball will never again be the way it was when Babe Ruth made history.

Professionals make up only a small number of athletes who are exposed to the many drugs available. Many amateur and student-athletes are held to the same standards, despite having less guidance on what is allowed and even more reason to try to obtain an advantage as they are fighting for their careers. They also do not have unions and the money to defend themselves, despite how common false positive tests can be. The fuzzy aspect of what is allowed and not, in combination with what amateur athletes have at their disposal, makes a tough combination to overcome.

Ms. Julie A. North, a litigation partner at Cravath, Swaine, & Moore LLP, gave some insight from her experiences representing athletes suspected to be involved with PEDs.

“In my view, the system for amateur athletes is not fair,” Ms. North noted. “Take my former clients, most were young  black women and men who had agents and/or coaches who did not necessarily care about what was in their clients’ best interests, and were instead more concerned about having a winning athlete as a client. Many of those individuals had contact with people in and outside the United States who were peddling some supplement/treatment that was going to give an athlete an edge. In every sport, athletes are responsible for what goes into their bodies – no exceptions.  The athlete, therefore, has the responsibility to ensure that whatever he/she ingests is not contaminated.”

She continued to talk about how hard it is for an amateur athlete to stay afloat after a positive test.

“[Should they] take the suspension because the test can never be wrong? I don’t think that is the answer because you can have a false positive, and there are times when an athlete can get a truncated suspension. But, challenging the positive result means going up against United States Anti-Doping-Agency which is a quasi-governmental agency with a lot of resources. Unless the athlete has the wherewithal to get a lawyer, he or she likely has no choice but to accept the suspension.”

Ms. North went on to say. “To make the system fair, I think that there should be an approved supplement provider from which athletes can get their supplements. The NFL already does something like this. Second, I think that there should be a better developed network of lawyers who will represent athletes who test positive. My first client had a false positive test result.  He came to me, however, after he had been suspended; he wanted to appeal the result. His first lawyer was incompetent. I hired a kinetics expert from the University of Chicago to testify in the appeal, and I got the suspension overturned. I represented this athlete on a pro bono basis and he came to me through a friend who knew of this athlete’s situation,” Ms. North noted.

“There is no way that my client could have paid me to take his case, he didn’t have the money, and, if my friend hadn’t known about his situation, I am not sure that he would have known where to turn to find a lawyer,” she continued.

Whether or not more PEDs should be legalized is an important discussion. They do have many long term health risks, but don’t athletes already put themselves at risk by playing in their respective sports? Do they actually tarnish the history of the games if sports have already changed over the years?

Perhaps the only way to make the playing field level once again is to legalize PEDs. They bring a higher level of play, push the limit of human athletic ability, and legalization could make it easier for organizations to manage the many anti-doping guidelines. They could be safer if distributed and regulated systematically rather than illegally. Legalization would bring significant controversy, however. But the reality is that doping will always be a part of sports despite all that leagues and lawmakers try to do.

But wouldn’t legalization make usage more widespread?

Julie North contemplated this consideration.

“I do think that there is a good argument for regulating PEDs,” she observed.” Given the money involved in sports and that people want to win, they will always be looking for a way to get an edge. Although I go back and forth on the issue, I think that it would be better and safer if PEDs were used under the care of a doctor.  I don’t think that we will ever get to a place where athletes stop using them, so I think we’d be better off making sure that they are used safely. ”

Performance enhancing drugs are ushering in a new era of athletics. Unless sports governing bodies find a way to adjust, there will never again be a truly level playing field.