Anabolic steroids have been banned in sports (and criminalized in society), in large part, due to the belief that anabolic steroids are extremely harmful to an athlete’s health. The recent deaths at the 2008 New York City Marathon suggest that often sport itself may be inherently more dangerous than the non-medical use of anabolic steroids.
Two runners, Carlos Jose Gomes and Joseph Marotta, died from heart attacks after finishing the 2008 New York City Marathon. The New York Fire Department revived two other runners who collapsed after suffering heart attacks during the race; one is apparently still unconscious. Dr. William Cole was not surprised by the cardiac incidents at the NYC Marathon(“Race Officials Confirm That 2 Died After Marathon,” November 3).
Dr. William J. Cole, a cardiologist who is a clinical assistant professor at New York University’s School of Medicine, said that in a field of close to 40,000 people, a handful of cardiac cases was not unlikely.
Sunday’s race had one of the largest fields in the marathon’s 39-year history, and Cole suggested that as the event continued to grow, the number of fatalities could swell.
As these things get bigger, you get more and more people doing this who are not quite in shape enough, or maybe not as healthy as they should be, he said. So you’re going to potentially be seeing an increase in the number of things like this happening.
The issue of steroid use at the NYC Marathon was sufficiently important for the New York Road Runners to collaborate with the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) to implement random steroid testing this year. Some wonder why the event organizers are not held accountable for doing more to prevent fatalities in “something so inconsequential as sports.”
Death through participation in a competitive sport is apparently an acceptable loss; permanent disability and brain damage are permissible consequences of participation in some sports. As a society, we are not particularly troubled by the inherent risks that are part of various sports. We do not criminalize particular sports simply because participants face the possibility of serious injury, permanent disability, or death. Yet, the dangers of anabolic steroid use in sports is apparently a crisis. The inherent risks and dangers of many sports should be of much greater concern than often inconclusive risks of non-medical anabolic steroid use.
Norm Fost has long argued that sport is far more dangerous than anbolic steroids (“Let’s Accept Performance-Enhancing Drugs in Competitive Sports” January 17).
But sport itself is far more dangerous, and we don’t prohibit it. The number of deaths from playing professional football and college football are fifty to a hundred times higher than even the wild exaggerations about steroids. More people have died playing baseball than have died of steroid use.
Norm Fost responded similarly when steroid legal expert Rick Collins asked him about the risks of steroids versus the risk of mere participation in sports (“Steroids and Sports: A Provocative Interview with Norm Fost, M.D.”).
Rick Collins: Have the media fairly put the risks in perspective of other risks that athletes voluntarily assume?
Norm Fost: No, not at all. For example, playing in the NFL for three years or more risks an extremely high rate – 80 to 90% in one study – of permanent disability. That’s unfortunate, but it goes with the territory and nobody says this is a reason to ban professional football. It’s something that competent adults decide to do in exchange for the money, glory and pleasure that they get out of it. We don’t think, in America, that people’s liberty to take risks like that should be interfered with, just so long as they are not harming anyone else. Whatever the risks of steroids, even the most extravagant view of the risks isn’t remotely in that category in terms of potential for permanent disability or even death. There have been dozens of deaths attributed to playing football. I’m not aware of any football players who have died because of steroid use.
Unfortunately, society is blinded by emotion, at the expense of science, with media-supported steroid hysteria. They are convinced that steroids are deadly and dangerous. And they are willing to overlook the inherent dangers of sport itself.
The probability of dying while running a marathon is still very low and largely affects those with pre-existing heart conditions; fatality estimates range from 1 in 50,000 to 75,000 to as low as 1 in 100,000. Obviously, the probability of dying while using anabolic steroids is infinitely lower. Nonetheless, the comparative risks of using anabolic steroids have been unfairly exaggerated in the media.
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.
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