Bruce Douthit, MD of the Baylor Medical Center at Frisco revealed himself as a secret weapon in the fight against steroid use by teenagers in high schools and steroid use in sports at the Texas Steroid Summit. He guaranteed that he could simply look at an athlete and determine whether they are using banned or illegal anabolic steroids (“Summit in Frisco to address dangers of steroids,” August 10).
But I guarantee you, if I could walk through the school and pick the athletes there to be tested, my positive rate would be a whole lot higher, because I can look at them and tell whether they’ve been doing it.
Bruce Douthit apparently considers himself an anti-doping expert. As the team physician for several Texas high schools and for the professional football team Frisco Thunder of the Intense Football League (IFL), we venture to guess that he has eliminated the problem of anabolic steroid use for the athletes under his supervision. This is quite an accomplishment; his unique ability to simple look at an athlete and ascertain their use of performance enhancing drugs is a skill that would benefit the MLB, NFL and other professional sports leagues.
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the National Football League (NFL), and Major League Baseball (MLB) have struggled for decades with unsuccessful efforts to eliminate steroid use from sports competition.
If Douthit’s anti-doping protocol is fair and effective, it could overcome the known pitfalls, weaknesses and loopholes of existing steroid tests; in addition it would save millions and millions of dollars that are currently spent on flawed anti-doping protocols.
It is unknown whether WADA, USADA, IOC, NFL and MLB have rushed to contact the Baylor Medical Center at Frisco to secure the services of Dr. Douthit. For some reason, I seriously doubt it.
Seriously, if it were only that easy… Parents could easily identify whether their children are using steroids and anti-doping agencies could effectively eliminate steroids from sports.
About the author
Millard writes about anabolic steroids and performance enhancing drugs and their use and impact in sport and society. He discusses the medical and non-medical uses of anabolic-androgenic steroids while advocating a harm reduction approach to steroid education.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.