What the heck is tobacco lobbyist George Mitchell doing investigating anyone?
Dec. 14, 2007 – Washington (apj.us) – Why was former Senator George Mitchell chosen to write a report on baseball players' use of steroids? Certainly his own prostrate cancer was not caused by his taking steroids, and it seems kind of weird to have a lobbyist for the homicidal Big Tobacco industry preaching to ball players about what they should and should not do to their own bodies. In fact, one could say that George Mitchell is an accessory to the murder of tens of thousands of cigarette smokers while he practiced his “craft” on Capitol Hill once he graduated from the “Senate School of Lobbying Your Colleagues” (or SLYC, for short).
Here's the short fairy-tale on steroids: they have been around for well over a century.
In the later 1800s medical researchers were injecting themselves with testicular fluids to increase strength and vitality. By the 1930s the Nazis were producing and experimenting with anabolic steroids on Jews in concentration camps hoping that they could make German soldiers more aggressive. Bodybuilders and athletes from the show grounds of the majority of sports have been taking steroids for decades. My neighborhood pals took steroids when they pumping up in their fathers' garages.
Steroids increase cell growth and also increase masculine characteristics like hair growth and – most important to athletes – muscle fiber growth and strength. One only need look at older photos of Arnold Schwarzenegger to see the results. Steroids also decrease fat which might get the soccer moms to start taking them.
On the flip side anabolic steroids can have some adverse impact. on the human body, but these are tied to very high doses and these same steroids are used frequently to treat all kinds of human diseases. The side effects may be elevated blood pressure, changes in one’s “bad” cholesterol levels and some can create heat and artery disease (testosterone). In very high quantities anabolic steroids can cause liver disease and other diseases – however the scientific investigation of these side effects is wanting or not present at best.
At any rate, most athletes who use steroids today also know, better than most physicians, what additional medications or additives they should be bringing to their diet to reduce or eliminate real of potentially harmful side effects.
Certainly the government of the United States and other western governments did not ban the sale of steroids over the counter to protect athletes. Most likely, they did so to protect the pharmaceutical companies that manufacture them for medical use. Remember – when considering these matters – follow the money!
The use of steroids by athletes, therefore, comes down to the hypocritical pose of good old American “fairness.” The argument goes like this: “If one athlete is using steroids and another is not – the playing field is not level and ergo unfair.”
Of course this is classic rhetorical horse hockey.