The National Football League apparently is willing to jeopardize the health of its players in a misguided effort to catch athletes who use banned performance enhancing subtances. John Lombardo, M.D., the administrator and medical advisor to the NFL Policy regarding Anabolic Steroids and Related Substances allegedly knew that the dietary supplement StarCaps were contaminated with bumetanide as early as 2006. Bumetanide is a powerful prescription diuretic found in StarCaps but not disclosed by the manufacturer. Yet, he failed to notify any NFL teams about the discovery to prevent athletes from using StarCaps as an explanation for a positive bumetanide test result exposing NFL players to significant health risks that could have easily been prevented by responsible concern for players’ health and well-being as the primary objective.
Attorney David Cornwell, representing New Orleans Saints Deuce McAllister, Charles Grant, and Will Smith, made this allegation the NFL appeals hearing regarding the four-game suspensions resulting from bumetanide-positive drug tests (“Cornwell Says NFL Failed to Warn Players That StarCaps Contains Bumetanide,” November 19).
Cornwell contends that Dr. John Lombardo, the administrator of the NFL’s policy regarding anabolic steroids and related substances, testified during the hearing that he learned in late 2006 of the presence of Bumetanide in StarCaps. Lombardo, per Cornwell, did not share this information with NFL players, because Lombardo feared that other players testing positive for Bumetanide would claim that they were taking StarCaps, even if they weren’t.
Says Cornwell: “Dr. Lombardo’s failure to disclose what he knew about StarCaps may have exposed NFL players to the significant health risks associated with the unintentional ingestion of diuretics. If Dr. Lombardo had notified NFL players that StarCaps contained bumetanide, Will, Deuce and Charles would have never used the product to lose weight.”
John Lombardo has previously notified teams of supplements that may cause NFL players to fail a drug test even when the banned substance was fully disclosed on the product labels. Why did he not notify players about the great threat of an UNDISCLOSED prescription drug in supplements that may have been used by NFL players!?! (“N.F.L. Is Uneasy About Diet Supplements’ Use,” May 24, 1998).
This month Dr. John Lombardo, the N.F.L. adviser on steroids, sent a memo to every general manager, team doctor and trainer in the N.F.L. regarding two substances, the hormones dehydroepiandrosterone, known as DHEA, and androstenedione. Lombardo said that both are banned substances under the league’s steroid policies and are in an EAS product called Andro 6, sold in health and fitness stores throughout the country and used by many N.F.L. players. Andro 6 is also used to build muscle mass.
The banned substances DHEA and androstenedione ”are listed plainly as ingredients on the labels of these supplements,” Lombardo wrote in the memo, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times.
It appears that NFL players have turned the tables on the NFL anti-doping administrator, potentially opening the door for a lawsuit against the National Football League. After all, John Lombardo had the responsibility as a physician (“do no harm”) to notify management at various NFL teams about the discovery similarly to his notification about androstenedione and DHEA. At the very least, he should have made this information readily available to all NFL players by sharing it with NSF International, the independent company contracted to help NFL players with their dietary supplement decisions via a supplement hotline as part of the Official NFL/NFLPA Supplement Certification Program.
New Orleans player Jamar Nesbit, who has already served a four-game suspension, has already initiated legal action about the manufacturer of StarCaps. We expect more player lawsuits against Balanced Health Products and possibly even lawsuits against the NFL.
Molloy said that Nesbit had four bottles of the StarCaps pills, which were sent off for lab testing, and all of them tested positive for Bumetanide…
“What I’m saying in the complaint is that at least as of then, if not sooner, StarCaps knew there was an issue. They had a duty to advise consumers and to change their product. They did none of that. In fact, the product is still contaminated,” said Molloy, who also has represented tennis player Guillermo Coria and NFL running back Mike Cloud in similar cases, both of which were settled out of court.
“Since the contamination from bottle to bottle was consistent, it’s not inadvertent contamination,” Molloy said. “That really indicates to me that they’re spiking the product.”
Balanced Health Products, the manufacturer of Nikki Haskell’s StarCaps, has recalled a shipment of approximately 2,000 bottles from supplement stores around the country.
John Lombardo, M.D. is the administrator and medical advisor to the NFL Policy on Anabolic Steroids and Related Substances, the Clinical Professor in the Department of Family Medicine at the Ohio State University Medical School and Medical Director of the Max Sports Medicine Institute in Columbus, Ohio.
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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