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Congress called in
leaders of the major
sports leagues after
allegations arose about
Bonds, Clemens and
scores of others.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty
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By Jack McCallum
Athletes who take performance-improving
drugs make all the headlines. But the
culture of personal physical enhancement has
pushed the use of steroids and HGH
everywhere -- from Hollywood to the music
industry to your next-door neighbor who
doesn't want to grow old. Don't blame only
the jocks.
We are a juiced nation.
We are a nation on dope.
We are a nation looking for enhancement, a
way to age gracefully, perform better and
longer, and, at the outer edge, vanquish
what was once considered that alltime
undefeated opponent known as aging. We do
that by Botoxing our wrinkles, lifting our
faces, reconstructing our noses, despidering
our veins, tucking our tummies, augmenting
our breasts and taking a little pill to make
sure we're ready when, you know, the right
time presents itself. We also do it by
injecting human growth hormone (HGH) and
testosterone, America's new golden
pharmaceutical couple.
Numbers are hard to come by because much of
the flow of these drugs is illegal, but Dr.
Mark Gordon, one of 20,000 members of the
American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine,
cites a 2004 study that found that more than
$1 billion was spent annually on legal HGH.
"And it's safe to assume it's gone up in the
last four years," Gordon says. The Mayo
Clinic reports that 2.4 million testosterone
prescriptions were filled by U.S. pharmacies
in 2004, more than twice the number filled
in 2000. Mayo also estimates that three
million people in the U.S. use anabolic
steroids, the synthetic versions of
testosterone that are illegal when they are
used for nonmedical reasons such as building
an impressive physique and increasing
endurance for training. John Romano, senior
editor at Muscular Development, the
top seller among the dozens of magazines
that cover powerlifting and bodybuilding,
estimates that 15 million Americans use
performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs).
Yet to judge by the blanket coverage given
the bizarre Roger Clemens--Brian McNamee pas
de deux; Congress's incessant (and in many
cases politically motivated) effort to
ferret out drug cheats among athletes; the
table-pounding vows of various politicians
to get drugs out of sports!; and the
never-ending BALCO-Barry saga, one might
conclude that PEDs are the exclusive
province of professional athletes. When
George Bush mentioned steroids in his
January 2004 State of the Union speech, he
set the societal agenda. "The use of
performance-enhancing drugs like steroids in
baseball, football and other sports is
dangerous," thundered the President. "It
sends the wrong message that there are
shortcuts to accomplishment and that
performance is more important than
character. So tonight I call on team owners,
union representatives, coaches and players
to take the lead, to send the right signal,
to get tough and to get rid of steroids
now." Massive applause followed.
O.K., performance-enhancing drugs . . . bad.
Athletes who use them . . . bad. Influencing
kids to use them . . . bad. On to the next
problem.
That politicians have locked in on sports is
understandable at one level (beyond the
obvious fact that a nationally televised
Clemens hearing will draw more attention
than, say, an antitrust debate on C-Span).
Athletic achievement is made to be measured
and is available for instant analysis when
performances improve, even incrementally.
Athletes stand on pedestals, and pedestals
are made to be toppled. A kind of moral
ceiling hangs over sports, as degraded as
that ceiling might've become in the 3,000
years since a bunch of Greeks began throwing
javelins and racing chariots. Play by the
rules. Play fair. Level playing field.
But what's happened is that the subject of
PEDs has been conveniently compressed and
poured into a small airtight bottle at which
politicians and society at large can throw
stones. We did roughly the same thing with
cocaine in the '80s, when you might've
thought that baseball players and an
unfortunate 22-year-old named Len Bias were
the only ones snorting the drug, along with
a godless Hollywood elite, of course.
The truth is, sports do not define the
culture -- they reflect it. Society's image
of the ideal body is shaped largely by
forces outside the chalked lines. And the
belief that life can be improved, even
extended, by drugs comes not from sports but
from the burgeoning field known as antiaging
medicine.
Jack
McCallum: