Braun rejects all steroid allegations
Maintaining his innocence, Milwaukee leftfielder Ryan Braun disputed allegations that he took performance-enhancing substances when accepting his National League MVP.
“I always believed that a person’s character is revealed in those moments of adversity,” he said. “I have so much respect for the game of baseball. Everything I’ve done in my career has been done with that appreciation in mind.”
From Winnipegfreepress.com:
Braun, who won the honours after hitting .332 with 33 home runs and 111 RBI in the regular season, also thanked the Players Association for “supporting me, especially after everything I’ve been through the last couple of months.”
Braun tested positive for elevated levels of testosterone in December. He’s appealing the results this month but if Major League Baseball deems that he was on steroids, he could face a 50-game suspension. It was the 89th annual awards dinner, meant to honour the biggest names in baseball.
“Sometimes in life, we all deal with challenges we never expected,” he said. “We have an opportunity to look at those challenges as obstacles or opportunities and I’ve chosen to see every challenge as an opportunity. This will be no different.”
NFL Player Union right to question HGH testing methods
The ongoing standoff between NFL players with WADA and its American arm, USADA, over testing for human growth hormone, is intensifying with every passing day.
“To me it’s clear that WADA is more interested in bullying us into a test than in scientifically supporting and justifying their testing protocol,” NFL Players Association Executive Director DeMaurice Smith said.
From Washingtonpost.com:
The union has taken the brunt of public criticism for the delay in implementing an HGH test, but WADA is equally to blame for its lack of transparency and refusal to answer some basic questions the union is asking — questions that Congress and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell also should be asking. Questions such as: Is there enough independently published medical science that validates the test? How was it devised, and its parameters established?
“That’s odd to me,” said Doping researcher Don Catlin, founder of the UCLA Olympic lab and the man who cracked the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative case. “I don’t understand it. Scientists with a good finding are usually crawling to get published in a peer-reviewed journal so the world can see it.”
Drugs scandal threaten Royal Australian Navy
Royal Australian Navy has been engulfed by a major scandal after revelations that sailors from a Sydney Harbour base may have been selling drugs to foreign backpackers.
The Australian Defence Force (ADF) and New South Wales police had confirmed that they are pursuing investigations about an alleged drug-dealing ring operating out of Garden Island, the Navy’s main base in eastern Australia.
From Nzherald.co.nz:
Defence authorities said “a range of substances”, including steroids, had been seized during a raid.
Dozens of sailors may have been involved in the trafficking ring, according to the Australian, which quoted an unnamed source as saying that drugs had been sold to young tourists.
Garden Island - used for naval activities for more than 200 years - lies just north of Kings Cross, Sydney’s main nightlife district and the site of numerous backpacker hostels.
The allegations are the latest blow to the image of the Australian military, which revealed in June that nearly 600 personnel have tested positive for steroids and other illegal drugs in the past five years.
Brendan O’Connor, the federal Home Affairs Minister, said that the allegations were being “taken very seriously”.
Messi and Neymar included in anti-doping trials
In a new anti-doping program, Lionel Messi and Neymar will participate to try a biological passport in soccer.
FIFA recently said all players set to be involved in the seven-team Club World Cup next month would be giving samples beforehand to help laboratories prepare their individual steroid profiles.
From Ibnlive.in.com:
Players then selected for anti-doping controls in the December 8-18 tournament in Japan will have their results measured against out-of-competition tests taken up to one month earlier.
“(FIFA) recently reviewed the current drug-testing procedures within football and come up with a new approach,” the governing body said in a statement. “The main, new aim will be to capture players’ individual steroid profile.”
FIFA announced the pilot project during the draw in Nagoya, Japan, that featured the six continental champions and the host nation’s league winners.
“Every club will be required to provide FIFA with accurate details of their team activities (matches, training schedule etc.) during the period from November 14 to December 8,” FIFA said.
Bolt’s manager refutes claims
Ricky Simms, the manager for world-record-holder Usain Bolt, called an internet blog post associating the Jamaican sprinter to admitted steroids dealer “nonsense.”
The website Deadspin posted an article under the headline, “What Do Usain Bolt And Juan Manuel Marquez Have In Common? They Train With The Same Admitted Steroids Dealer.”
From Universalsports.com:
The accusation is rooted in the seedy, often speculative world of boxing promotion.
On Saturday, WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao is set to fight Juan Manuel Marquez, who has apparently bulked up significantly since the last time the two fought.
It must be noted, that Bolt himself bulked up in between the 2010 and 2011 seasons, which he said was in effort to prevent some of the chronic back injuries that had bothered him throughout his career.
Alex Ariza, Pacquiao’s strength and conditioning coach, in questioning how Marquez had gotten so big so fast was quoted in The Philippine Star saying, “I guess (he’s working with) the same guys who work with Usain Bolt.”
Steroids may be useful if given early in ARDS
The jury is still out on whether patients with acute lung injury and adult respiratory distress syndrome derive any benefit from the use of corticosteroids, according to Dr. Stephen M. Pastores.
“This is probably the most controversial topic in acute lung injury and ARDS,” Dr. Pastores of the department of anesthesiology and critical care medicine at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, said at the annual meeting of the American College of Chest Physicians.
From Familypracticenews.com:
He went on to note that physicians should give steroids in conjunction with infection surveillance, “avoiding neuromuscular blockers if you can, and being concerned about the phenomenon of rebound inflammation if you stop steroids abruptly.”
Inhaled nitric oxide has also been studied as a nonventilatory strategy in ALI/ARDS. A Cochrane review of 13 randomized, controlled trials involving 1,303 patients found no significant effect with this approach in overall mortality, but did show a transient improvement in oxygenation in the first 24 hours. The review also found that inhaled nitric oxide had no significant effect on duration of ventilation, ventilator-free days, and ICU and hospital length of stay. An increased risk of renal impairment among adults was also noted (Cochrane Database Syst. Rev. 2010 Oct. 23 [doi:10.1002/14651858.CD002787.pub2]).
“An important piece of this study was that [the researchers] did regular infection surveillance with regular bronchoscopies, and they avoided the use of neuromuscular blockers,” said Dr. Pastores, who is also professor of medicine and anesthesiology at Cornell University in New York.
Jail term for steroids sale
A former bodybuilder was jailed for a period of five years over the illegal importation of anabolic steroids.
Mark William Rainbow was sentenced in Auckland District Court after earlier admitting breaches of the Medicine Act 1981 including importing, possessing and supplying prescription and other medicines.
From Nzherald.co.nz:
Rainbow imported medicines from Thailand in May 2008 that had been concealed in bottles falsely labelled “Gay Lube Oil”.
The contents were then transferred into bottles labelled with the name of Rainbow’s trading company, SSIS Pharmaceuticals. The products he sold were not of a pharmaceutical standard and their lack of quality assurance posed a real risk to those using them.
Medsafe investigators, working with customs and police, found Rainbow of supplying these unapproved medicines to at least three people.
Presentation of steroid use program
The picture of professional athletes is worsening each day with use of drugs for building muscle mass and jumping to the top of their game by becoming bigger, stronger, and faster.
According to recent data, the use of anabolic steroids, other appearance and performance enhancing drugs (APEDs) has reached an alarming level among young people.
From Eagles.ozarks.edu:
On Thursday, November 10, Clint Faught, Educational Program Manager at the Taylor Hooton Foundation, will be on the Ozarks campus to tell Taylor’s story, and to help raise awareness about the dangers associated with use of APEDs. Through a powerful and entertaining multi-media program called “Hoot’s Chalk Talk,” Faught will describe the effects APEDs can have on the body, and will identify common warning signs that parents, coaches, teammates, and friends should recognize. The program will also focus on the use of widely available energy and protein drinks, as well as problems that can be caused by use of seemingly harmless over-the-counter pills. Throughout his presentation, Faught will bring in topics closely related to use of APEDs, such as honor and integrity, self esteem, suicide, decision making, and peer pressure.
“Hoot’s Chalk Talk” is free and open to the public.
Olivier Renière banned
Steroids have once again brought trouble for the Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) football.
A running back with the Université de Montréal Carabins, Olivier Renière, was found to be using a substance on the World Anti-Doping Agency’s 2011 “prohibited list” and will be banned for two years from all CIS sports.
From Cupwire.ca:
Renière’s adverse result came out of testing conducted by the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport (CCES) at the Carabins’ training camp Aug. 23. Renière has waived his right to an appeal.
“I admit to having consumed dietary supplements purchased on the internet from the United States in an attempt to save money, and I was well aware of the risk of contamination associated with purchases of this sort and that the Carabins medical team was opposed to players taking dietary supplements,” Renière said in a statement.
“The substance detected by the CCES did not appear on the list of ingredients indicated on these supplements. I deeply regret my decision, and I’m now paying a much higher price by being deprived of playing a sport that has been my passion for years.”
Renière tested positive for 19-norandrosterone, which contains nandrolone, an anabolic steroid.
Lallukka denies having used HGH
Finnish cross-country skier Juha Lallukka, who is presently under suspicion of a doping violation, has denied having used the forbidden human growth hormone.
The manager of Lallukka, Juha Vanhanen, said in the Finnish commercial television channel MTV3’s sports newscast Tulosruutu that the growth hormone detected in Lallukka’s A-sample originates from the skier’s own system.
From Hs.fi:
In the Finnish Olympic Committee’s Sochi 2014 Programme a total of EUR 200,000 has been allocated for cross-country skiing for the season 2011-2012.
Now Lallukka’s computational share has been suspended until more light has been shed on the case.
On paper, the EUR 200,000 training grant has been divided between nine skiers.
In reality, however, there have been only eight skiers to enjoy the benefits, for Lallukka has not taken part in any of the organised national team training camps and has not really utilised the services of head coach Magnar Dalen.
“We have been in touch with the Finnish Ski Association and asked for further clarification. We have also approached our cooperation partners and presented our view of what has transpired,” said Kari Niemi-Nikkola, the Sports Director of the Finnish Olympic Committee.