So Tired of the Media With ECA

[SOEX]

Congressman calls for ban of ephedra sales

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Associated Press


WASHINGTON -- A New York lawmaker called Wednesday for an immediate ban on sales of the diet drug ephedra after the spring training death of a 23-year-old Baltimore Orioles pitcher.

Rep. John Sweeney, R-Clifton Park, said ephedra, already banned by the NCAA, the NFL, and the International Olympic Committee, is too dangerous for athletes.

Pitching prospect Steve Bechler collapsed Sunday during a spring training workout in Fort Lauderdale and died after his temperature soared to 108 degrees. The Broward County medical examiner said Bechler was taking a product containing ephedrine, the active ingredient in ephedra.

"Baseball has nowhere to hide anymore," said Sweeney. "How many young men have to die before someone wises up and bans this junk?"

Sweeney said he is sending a letter to the Food and Drug Administration asking to halt all sales of ephedra products until Congress holds hearings on the issue.

He also wants Congress to end over-the-counter sales of products containing ephedra, arguing the current loose regulatory requirements endanger not just professional athletes, but teenagers and non-athletes trying to lose weight.

Sold as a dietary supplement under numerous brand names, ephedra speeds up metabolism, but can make it harder for the human body to stay cool.

Broward County medical examiner Dr. Joshua Perper said Bechler was taking Xenadrine RFA-1, which contains ephedrine.

Perper has urged baseball to ban use of the substance.

Preliminary autopsy findings indicated Bechler died from complications of heatstroke that caused multi-organ failure, Perper said.

A full toxicology report will be needed to determine exactly what role ephedrine played in Bechler's death.

Baseball officials have said they will wait to make a decision about the substance until more is known about the circumstances of Bechler's death.

Sweeney said MLB has dragged its feet on the issue, making it "incumbent upon Congress to take a look and act, not just wait."

New York State Assemblyman Felix Ortiz, D-Brooklyn, who has held hearings on safety concerns of dietary supplements, said he would push for a statewide ban of ephedra, and urged Congress to ban it completely.

When will they leave it alone? I'm sure nothing else had to do with his temperature raise...

 

[SOEX]

Doh, forgot the link.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/news/2003/0219/1511383.html

 

[leancuisine]

fuck the media..
i've been dancing with effedrine for the last 5 years.
normal thyroid, normal liver values, slightly above avearge blood pressure (from cycles not from ephedrine) and normal test levels.

they're like fuckin leaches.

 

[ZKaudio]

as if ephedrine is the only legal stimulant...

 

[Ceebs]

The guy would have died with or without ephedrine in his system. He was dehydrated, excercising in ridiculous heat, and had high blood pressure.

 

[SOEX]

I agree Ceebs,

The thing for me is that ECA is one of the things that helps me out the most on my diets. I've naturally got a voracious appetite, and it curbs those hungers. It's one of the most useful tools for my diets.

I've been using it responsibly for a long time now, and I'm worried that some dumb ass athlete is going to get it pulled because they hurt themselves. And chances are it wasn't even that, they're just using it as an excuse.

Just unfortunate I guess that people believe what they hear all the time. They never look into or try things for themselves.

 

[abc 1]

new research coming out (i saw 1, that is 1, article from my boss) stating that eca fries out your adrenal glands. that article only had 2 studies to draw any conclusions from any they were not detailed. i'll try and get it from him. my close friend is a chiropractor who has been telling me the same thing for a while now also.

don't think for a minute these eca stacks are safe. i am not on a soap box here and will not preach but if you honestly feel that any herbal supplement that causes bronchial dilation and increases the force at which blood is pumped through the arteries is safe put your head back in the sand.

Ceebs --- you said he was going to die anyway, that is a horrible thing to say. i know a ton of people with higher than normal blood pressure who train in extreme conditions while not fully hydrated, should they die too? why not say that to his teammates, or better yet his family.

 

[Magnus T Rico]

Ceebs --- you said he was going to die anyway, that is a horrible thing to say. i know a ton of people with higher than normal blood pressure who train in extreme conditions while not fully hydrated, should they die too?

No it ain't. It's the truth. We ARE all going to die anyway. Part of life. The people you know may not push themselves after a certain point that Bechler probably did. If they didn't stop, they would probably at lest do some serious, IRREVERSABLE damage under those conditions and may die later if it is done repeadtedly. We had a few local athletes that were hospitalized or worse this last summer (we have them every year. They focus on the end results and don't bother to pay attention to the details that are needed to get them that result) because of conditions similar to Bechler's. One of them eventually died as a result of improper hydration, poor diet and rest. The rest of them have taken up less physical pursuits.

Besides, have you even bothered to look at his conditioning, enviroment, or his nutrition?I'm willing to bet he wasn't using the Xenadrine properly to begin with. Combine that with an Ultra-piss poor diet and rest and more than likely other things that shouldn't have been used, and you have a recipe for disaster. I have yet to see any reports of real value that show Ephedra to be bad. On the contrary, we have over 5,000 years of evidence that it can be safe and effective (the chinese and Asians have used it that long) for humans AS LONG AS IT IS USED PROPERLY!

The bottom line is this, if we rush headlong into something just because a politico gets a feather up his ass, then we are all screwed. Look at the problems with Iraq, AAS, and several other things in the U.S.

 

[Naxis]

...and now they have pulled anything with ephedra off the shelves of the grocery store and the health food store that carried sport supplements here. And all ads in the mags now are for ephedra free products. Are they trying to tell us something? Harbinger of the New Order of Regulation?

 

[Ceebs]

Ceebs --- you said he was going to die anyway, that is a horrible thing to say.

It's just as horrible a thing that someone else's mistake may impair my right to supplement as I see fit. Way to completely misconstrue my post...

When I said that he would have died anyway with or without ephedrine, I meant most people would not have been able to survive under those conditions. I will never understand why coaches and trainers run their players (especially hypertensive or injured ones!) ragged in obscene heat in the name of "practice" and "conditioning". These types of deaths happen often in football training, but they don't make national headlines because the kids are usually a) rookies that no one's heard of, and b) not taking the demonized supplement du jour.