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http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/articles/2005/03/20/dissenting_voice_on_steroids/
Dissenting voice on steroids
By Gordon Edes | March 20, 2005
Then there is this side of the steroids debate, the one you didn't hear on Capitol Hill last Thursday, when Mark McGwire shrank in front of America's eyes and a congressional panel battered Major League Baseball from alabaster pillar to marble post.
"This all reminds me of `Reefer Madness,' " said Jose Antonio, executive director of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, "when they told you that if you smoked pot you'd go crazy.
"Now they're saying that if you take steroids you die? When did steroids become lethal? More people died of Benadryl and Tylenol overdoses than ever died from anabolic steroids. When did you ever hear of an anabolic steroid overdose? You haven't, because it can't happen."
Antonio has a PhD from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. He did a post-doctoral fellowship and did a study on anabolic steroids that was published by the Canadian Journal of Applied Physiology. He is the co-founder of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, and is the owner of Javalution Coffee Company in South Florida, which markets a high-energy coffee drink.
He is well-known among sports nutritionists and others in the fitness industry, having published dozens of articles in fitness magazines and authored a couple of books on sports supplements. On the society's website, Mark Verstegen, the athletic trainer who runs the gym used by Curt Schilling, Nomar Garciaparra, and a host of other pro athletes, is quoted as being delighted that his Athletic Performance Institute hosted a symposium conducted by Antonio's group.
Among his friends, Antonio said, is Bob Alejo, the personal trainer used by Jason Giambi, the Yankee first baseman who according to leaked grand jury testimony confessed to using steroids over a three-year period.
Antonio was not impressed by what he observed in Washington.
"It's like that line from the Jack Nicholson movie: `You don't want the truth, because you can't handle the truth,' " he said.
The notion, as put forth by several members of the congressional panel, that baseball needs a stricter testing program, much like the Olympic program, is laughable, he said.
"They're catching from 1 to 5 percent out of the 95 to 100 percent of athletes who use them," he said. "You talk to Olympic athletes, and they laugh. The NFL program, that's a joke, too."
What he heard last week in the hearings, he said, was a lot of ill-informed opinion.
"The athletes are 10 steps ahead of any testing program that is out there," Antonio contended.
The truth that no one wants to hear, he said, is that there is a monetary incentive for baseball and its players to have players who are bigger, stronger, and faster, and they can accomplish that through the safe use of anabolic steroids, which Antonio insists is not an oxymoron.
"There are good things associated with steroids," he said. "You're able to increase lean body mass and muscle mass with minimal side effects, with the right steroids, the right doses, and under the supervision of the right doctors."
When asked how prevalent steroids were in baseball, he said: "I definitely tend to agree with [Jose] Canseco and say it's more widespread than people think. You don't hear how anabolic steroids can be good for you, but that's an opinion shared by a lot of sports scientists. It's the same thing when they were saying things about creatine [a muscle-enhancing supplement], that it was bad for you. Me and my sports scientists friends laughed about that."
In the current climate, Antonio's position, which he insists is grounded in medical research, is an untenable one. The possession or use of anabolic steroids are federal offenses. But the greater point may be that despite the law -- and regardless of how strict a testing program is put in place -- steroids and other performance-enhancing substances aren't going away soon, and there is a need for more informed discussion. If significant portions of the fitness community are convinced of the positive effects of steroids, regardless of their legality, you can be sure they won't be going away.
Dissenting voice on steroids
By Gordon Edes | March 20, 2005
Then there is this side of the steroids debate, the one you didn't hear on Capitol Hill last Thursday, when Mark McGwire shrank in front of America's eyes and a congressional panel battered Major League Baseball from alabaster pillar to marble post.
"This all reminds me of `Reefer Madness,' " said Jose Antonio, executive director of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, "when they told you that if you smoked pot you'd go crazy.
"Now they're saying that if you take steroids you die? When did steroids become lethal? More people died of Benadryl and Tylenol overdoses than ever died from anabolic steroids. When did you ever hear of an anabolic steroid overdose? You haven't, because it can't happen."
Antonio has a PhD from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. He did a post-doctoral fellowship and did a study on anabolic steroids that was published by the Canadian Journal of Applied Physiology. He is the co-founder of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, and is the owner of Javalution Coffee Company in South Florida, which markets a high-energy coffee drink.
He is well-known among sports nutritionists and others in the fitness industry, having published dozens of articles in fitness magazines and authored a couple of books on sports supplements. On the society's website, Mark Verstegen, the athletic trainer who runs the gym used by Curt Schilling, Nomar Garciaparra, and a host of other pro athletes, is quoted as being delighted that his Athletic Performance Institute hosted a symposium conducted by Antonio's group.
Among his friends, Antonio said, is Bob Alejo, the personal trainer used by Jason Giambi, the Yankee first baseman who according to leaked grand jury testimony confessed to using steroids over a three-year period.
Antonio was not impressed by what he observed in Washington.
"It's like that line from the Jack Nicholson movie: `You don't want the truth, because you can't handle the truth,' " he said.
The notion, as put forth by several members of the congressional panel, that baseball needs a stricter testing program, much like the Olympic program, is laughable, he said.
"They're catching from 1 to 5 percent out of the 95 to 100 percent of athletes who use them," he said. "You talk to Olympic athletes, and they laugh. The NFL program, that's a joke, too."
What he heard last week in the hearings, he said, was a lot of ill-informed opinion.
"The athletes are 10 steps ahead of any testing program that is out there," Antonio contended.
The truth that no one wants to hear, he said, is that there is a monetary incentive for baseball and its players to have players who are bigger, stronger, and faster, and they can accomplish that through the safe use of anabolic steroids, which Antonio insists is not an oxymoron.
"There are good things associated with steroids," he said. "You're able to increase lean body mass and muscle mass with minimal side effects, with the right steroids, the right doses, and under the supervision of the right doctors."
When asked how prevalent steroids were in baseball, he said: "I definitely tend to agree with [Jose] Canseco and say it's more widespread than people think. You don't hear how anabolic steroids can be good for you, but that's an opinion shared by a lot of sports scientists. It's the same thing when they were saying things about creatine [a muscle-enhancing supplement], that it was bad for you. Me and my sports scientists friends laughed about that."
In the current climate, Antonio's position, which he insists is grounded in medical research, is an untenable one. The possession or use of anabolic steroids are federal offenses. But the greater point may be that despite the law -- and regardless of how strict a testing program is put in place -- steroids and other performance-enhancing substances aren't going away soon, and there is a need for more informed discussion. If significant portions of the fitness community are convinced of the positive effects of steroids, regardless of their legality, you can be sure they won't be going away.
