Massive steroid conspiracy

Next....I have said all I will say. I support drug laws and the ban on steroid us without Doctors prescriptions....

Craig, Intuition is a poor justification for a policy that can affect the lives of hundreds or thousands of athletes. What seem intuitively obvious to you, someone steeped in the hippocratic (sp?) oath, is not intuitive, or true, to someone else. There is no proscription against doing harm to oneself, especially if one is not a doctor. Your qualms about providing these drugs may be very ethical, but these qualms may not apply to someone causing harm to him or her self. As you know, there is quite a lot of work in medical ethics in trying to create an environment removed from 'intuition.' Anyway, doctors seem quite willing to treat conditions that are hardly illnesses, often performing risky operations for no illness whatsoever - cosmetic surgery comes to mind. I suppose someone could argue, perhaps justifiably, that if athletes are going to use steroids, it is better under the supervision of a knowledgeable physician who can prevent some of the more serious side effects. Then it would be unethical for the physician to ignore the situation by pretending that abusers could be talked or legislated out of abuse. This logic is often used to justify providing abortion, or certain treatments for drug addiction. A recognition that some things can't be legislated away is one reason the 18th amendment was repealed. Is it justified to take a pain killer because I damaged my body by competing too hard, and in order to compete too hard tomorrow? I can imagine extreme cases - a boxer hurts during a fight, so takes some legal pain killer between rounds. This strikes me as blantantly unfair, and extremely dangerous, as some of the pain signals indicating serious damage would be more likely to be ignored. I assume that as a doctor you would not give these drugs in this situation, even though it may be legal, and certainly treats a medical condition. I'm sure it is obvious by now that I am trying to have a discussion justifying the rules, not accepting them as apriori right. Sure, they are rules now, but are they the right rules? Are they logically based on ethical principles, or intuition? Are they fair? Are they enforceable? The saddest thing in all this is when people on all sides of the issue resort to legalities, instead of the fundamental issues of right and wrong.

Interesting how this thread has wandered off into some areas far removed from the original post. The timely issue is how will the recent exposure of THG impact certain Olympic sports. Now that FINA has agreed to test urine samples from the Swimming World Championships will our sport be tarnished my new disclosure of cheating. Regardless, it does give us some hope that through such actions (applauds to the person who provided the UCLA lab with the tip) and the vigliance of people who are forcing the authorities to pursue the drug cheaters. The show that there is still hope for sports especially if the cheaters have to worry about being caught AFTER THE FACT as the various labs develop new test for new drugs. Now we just have increase the funding for new tests, keep the pressure on FINA and others to add to the list of banned drugs and keep enough samples from major world championships to retroactively disqualify cheaters. That should dissuade some "borderline" cheaters to keep on the right side of the law.

It will be interesting to see if any swimmers are caught in the web. Maybe swimming will be lucky and no one will be found using the drug. A couple of other comments Almost every medicine you see was at one time available by prescription only and it was done this way to protect the patent on the drug for 7 years, not to protect the consumers. Is there really a difference in the patent law between drugs that are prescribed and OTC. I thought they would be the same. If there is a difference is may be because of all the testing (and money for those tests) that has to be done before the drug can be released "These rules and laws are not designed or enacted for monetary gain, they are enacted to help us and protect us" then please explain why the pharmaceutical lobby is the largest lobby in DC. You really naive enough to think they are spending all those millions to help us? C'mon, money, man, money. Could you explain that statement in light of the Fortune article ( www.fortune.com/.../0,15233,,00.html ) the top ten lobbying firms are 1. National Rifle Association 2. AARP 3. National Federation of Independent Businesses 4. American Israel Public Afairs Comm 5. Association of Trial Lawyers 6. AFL-CIO 7. Chamber of Commerce 8. National Beer Wholesalers Association (now there is a lobby group I can get behind). 9. National Association of Realtors 10 National Association of Manufacturers. Well they did not make the top ten AMA was#12 and American Hospital Association was #13 Pharmaceutical Research was #24 The US has the largest drug problem in the world, hands down, no one else is even close. What numbers are you using for that statement? The US has the third largest population in the world - if one is going to have problems the US would have a lot of them just because of the the large numbers. Or it could be the US has the largest GDP. With all that wealth some could land in recreational pharmacology. (one would certainly not expect a large drug problem in Congo where the GDP / person is $400). michael

Aquageek, The article you referenced does not say that the drug industry is the biggest lobby in Washington. It says the biggest drug companies and their trade associations employed more lobbyists and spent more on Washington, D.C. lobbying in 2001 than in previous years. This lobbying increase occurred while overall lobbying by all industries appeared to decline in 2001, based on available data. All it's saying is the drug industry is spending more on lobbying than it has in the past, not that it spent more than any other industry or cause spends on lobbying. I don't really care who the biggest lobbyist in Washington is, but I think you have been unnecessarily rude and should apologize.

Please re read the article. You might note this sentence: That said, the drug industry – as defined by Public Citizen – still appeared to have spent more on lobbying in 2001 than any other industry, based on available data. So, I'm not exactly what I should apologize for.

I have better things to do with my time than to wade through a voluminous article simply to try to prove you wrong. What you should apologize for is your rudeness.

I got my info from an NPR story that make this assertion. The story was about the new prescrption drug benefit debalte and the claim was made quite clearly that the pharmaceutical industry was the largest lobby in DC. Maybe as a whole they are, not by individual company. I think it's a well established fact te US is the largest market for illegal drugs in the world. The Congo probably isn't keeping the Columbians in business. Lastly, there is no difference in patent laws. That is my point. Once the patent expires, the profilt margin is gone.

Aquageek, Maybe I read it to fast but I have to agree with Meg, it says they increased their spending not that they outspent others. If I am wrong could you please tell me where it states in the article that the drug companies outspent everyone else.

I told you my source, NPR, maybe you should rant to them. There is no single country in the world with a greater drug problem. You think the poppy fields of Asia and the coca fields of SA are destined for the Congo? Get real, amigo, it's all coming to the US. So, Tom, I did my homework and quoted my sources. Just because I don't participate in hero worship of doctors like you doesn't make me wrong, just makes me have a different opinion.