Steroids in Sports Is Unethical

When you were a kid, didn't you want to play a professional sport? What would you give to be one of the best athletes in the world? Would you risk your reputation? Your health? Would you be willing to die? Although many studies have come out saying that steroids diminish one's health, people still take them hoping to be the best. Imagine if you were a 28 year old who left college early because a pro team "guaranteed" you that you would play in the big leagues. Yet you just got stuck in the minors, and the only way you could get to the big's was to take a pill that made you super-strong and super-fast. It would make sense to just take it. But what if that pill shrunk your testicles, hurt your heart and vascular system, and made your heart work 3 times harder than it is suppose to? An athlete would be pressured to take these pills, yet it would be smarter to say no. Why would athletes, of all people-risk harming their bodies? If I became a major league baseball player, and hit 65 homeruns, I couldn't live with myself thinking that most of those wouldn't have gone over that fence if I hadn't taken steroids. I could never be proud of my stats or not be ashamed when a reporter told me how good I was and asked me how I learned to hit the ball that far. Although the benefits of steroids are good, the risks and side effects are too dangerous. Therefore athletes should not use steroids.

Steroids have a surprisingly long and interesting history. Although steroids did not become popular until the late 1980's and early 1990's, they were around for a long time before that. In the 1930's, anabolic steroids were developed to treat anemia and other muscle-wasting diseases. But it was not until 1954 that anabolic steroids began to appear in athletic competition when Soviet weightlifters supposedly used them at the World Championships. In 1958, a doctor by the name of John Ziegler developed Dianabol; the first mass produced anabolic steroid, with the help of a Pharmaceutical company, and in 1960 distributed Dianabol to the U.S. weightlifting team. The IOC (International Olympic Committee) banned the use of anabolic steroids in 1974, just 7 years after it hired a medical commission to perform drug tests on athletes. Two years after the ban by the IOC, eight athletes were disqualified from the Montreal Olympics after testing positive for steroids. The NFL started testing for banned substances in 1990, and the NBA in 1999, This year President Bush discussed steroids as a topic in his State of the Union Address, saying, "To help children make right choices, they need good examples. Athletics play such an important role in our society, but, unfortunately, some in professional sports are not setting much of an example. The use of performance-enhancing drugs like steroids in baseball, football, and other sports is dangerous, and 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."

Steroids are laboratory-made versions of the human hormone testosterone, which aids growth of muscles, bones and skin. Testosterone is primarily a male hormone, though females produce trace amounts. Doctors, for medical uses, may legally prescribe steroids. Steroids for muscle building are obtained illegally; they are produced overseas or in clandestine laboratories in the U.S. For all the health risks, research shows steroids do work when it comes to building muscle and power.

"These things, in my judgment, work better than most scientists believe," says Gary Wadler of the New York University School of Medicine, "the athletes figured out how well these work long before scientists." (pg. 13)

Steroids work as follows. When receptor sites don't have much testosterone, then get flooded with it, they get activated. The person will get more muscular, more defined. They'll lose some fat, increase their lean body mass, and get stronger. The muscle-building effects tend to be more quickly apparent in adolescents and adults, though among adolescents, there can be stunted skeletal growth. While there have been no studies of long-term steroid use, researchers suspect it can heighten the risk of liver cancer, heart attack and stroke. Steroids are taken in tablet form or by injection, usually in cycles over several weeks. Illegal steroids typically are sold in gyms, health clubs, and by mail. An eight-week cycle of steroids can cost anywhere from a couple of hundred dollars to a couple of thousand, depending on the dose, type, and availability. Two hundred dollars sounds expensive for high school students, but remember, some pay that much for a pair of sneakers.

On May 14th, Barry Bonds hit his 660th homerun, tying him with Willie Mays. A couple of months earlier, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft indicted four men in the Balco Probe, including Greg Anderson, Personal Trainer for Baseball superstar Barry Bonds. They are banned by sports governing bodies and leagues