I don’t often yell “cite,” but cite?
It can’t possibly be as dangerous to take PEDs as it is to play football.
Wait…you get to make stuff up and then, having frightened the public with some bogus scenario, end with the statement, “massively increased health risks and the objections of those affected”?
What the heck has happened to GD standards around here? Do you have a single cite for current sports injuries, current data on injury from doping, or anything else to support this hysteria?
What’s your thinking here? We legalize PEDs and then a bunch of athletes start OD-ing on them? C’mon, madam. Surely you can do better than that.
This is a whoosh, right?
Are you seriously not aware of the cyclists who died in their sleep from excessive EPO use before the institution of the 50% hemocrit rule? Cite Cite Cite Cite
Make EPO legal, and the winner of any endurance event will be the person most willing to risk their life. You might find that an interesting competition, but I don’t.
Thanks for covering that, Gorsnak.
I’m no expert on the subject, but a few seconds on google revealed that, in the 1992-3 season, when the anti-doping regime was very lax, there were 17 recorded deaths from doping in cycling. By last year, with much tighter controls in place, that number had fallen to zero.
A few seconds more and I find this:
"*Medications used to increase red blood cells will decrease liver function and lead to liver failure, pituitary problems and increases in cholesterol levels. Misuse of EPO increases the percentage of the red blood cells by 50%, as the blood ‘swells’ and thickens with red blood cells, and will result to death.
Life Threatening Side-Effects :
Increased blood viscosity (thickness of blood)
Myocardial infarction (heart attack)
Pulmonary embolism (blockage of the pulmonary artery)
Cerebrovascular accident (stroke)
Blood contamination (chances of contracting blood-borne diseases and getting sick from bacteria growing in improperly stored blood)*"
That lot took less than thirty seconds to find and read. Perhaps next time, Chief Pedant, if you’re going to make an argument which hangs on matters such as these, you might like to do a little research of your own, instead of waiting for other people to do it for you.
Oh, and we still have nothing in the way of argument in favour of abolishing all doping controls, aside from “some fans want to see athletes with bodies only achievable through doping”.
Did you mean to say, “Thanks for covering part of that, Gorsnack”? Did you not get a chance, for instance, to also Google “football brain injury” or anything related to my statement about current sports injuries or current doping practices? If all you have is a 20 year old statistic about a single dangerous doping practice, I guess I’m underwhelmed about your evidence that doping today would cause some sort of catastrophic health risk.
Perhaps it was accidental not to put that particular EPO doping item in perspective. No question that blood doping is particularly dangerous. But so was football w/ crappy leather helmets and no anti-spearing rules. The point I made was not that doping is never dangerous, but that it is not, on average, as dangerous as sports itself, particularly at the professional level.
I might also add that making EPO doping illegal increases how dangerous it is by an order of magnitude because it is done under the radar by shady or completely incompetent supervision. Legalizing EPO–or any other doping–would tremendously increase the safety margin, as well as allow athletes to better decide what risks they are willing to take. You can’t marginalize something and then complain that it’s dangerous.
But the more important point is that you are ignoring other dangers of sport itself, and simply cherry-picking the item you’ve decided to focus on, as if that’s what’s the most important.
It’s true that 20 years ago, according to that cite, 17 cyclists had deaths attributed to doping–artificially elevated hematocrits in particular, I believe. This is a dangerous and stupid (and possibly not very effective) means of gaining an advantage. As the body dehydrates, blood viscosity increases and risk of thrombosis or stroke or various other bad things increases.
However, as I mentioned above, professional sports–heck; many amateur sports–are inherently dangerous. We try to make them as safe as possible, but in the end we decide the greater good is to let people participate in sports and decide for themselves what risk they want to take.
Want some broad numbers? I don’t have to go back 20 years like you do to find my index cases. NEISS numbers here, for example. Half a million ED injuries/yr for football and cycling. Tens of thousands of hospitalizations.
Or just consider the NFL’s problem with chronic traumatic encephalopathy. Jim McMahon’s dementia…assorted suicides.
Look, professional sports is dangerous. It is an entirely arbitrary line to draw that you may choose this danger over here but not that danger over there. Aside from the extremely dubious notion that modern PEDs would be particularly dangerous if legitimized, the choice of whether or not to trade away health risk for glory should still be up to the athlete, and in fact we allow them to make that choice every day. It’s entirely artificial to let them bonk their heads and trash their joints in pursuit of their sport but not let them take (for example) muscle-building chemicals.
Professional athletes should be permitted to decide for themselves what they want to do to overcome whatever disadvantage nature gave them. This includes training and includes exogenous chemicals, among other things. Legitimizing “doping” would also eliminate the element of unfairness inherent in current efforts to police illegal advantages. As technology advances, it will become increasingly impossible to draw a line between “natural” and “enhanced,” and the advantage will accrue to those able to avoid detection.
Doping can’t be that dangerous. Wrestlers use 'roids regularly and who’s ever heard of a wrestler dying young?
Oh, wait…
What I don’t get is the argument that football is so darn dangerous that getting addicted to a harmful substance is nothing in comparison… Shouldn’t that be an argument to make football safer?
Give it a shot - see how far it takes you.
Let’s say the NFL and MLB removes the restrictions on all drug use. Do the games’ popularities increase or decrease? I’d be less likely to follow but that’s just me. Maybe, as evidenced by the baseball boom in the steroid era when juicers were hitting 70 HRs a year, the American public would like the games better.
And what would happen if the Tour de France held a concurrent open event a day behind the “clean” race(for logistical ease), no drug testing held. Which of the two races would be of greater fan interest?
I don’t personally follow any sports but golf (no mocking, please, about whether or not golf is a sport requiring “athletes”), and I don’t understand the fan concept at all.
However, my impression is that most fans want fairness above all. A level playing field. The same rules for all. I don’t think the average reaction would be to give a damn. I doubt the average fan can quote to WADA code, and I doubt the average fan has an understanding of doping beyond “it’s illegal.” If a given substance were suddenly added or removed to the banned substances list, I don’t think there’d be much concern one way or the other, as long as either everyone or no one could use it.
Fans want a good competition, and they want the side in whom they have vested their significance to win. They don’t want cheaters, because it dilutes the tastiness of winning to have an unfair advantage.
Sports can’t be that dangerous. People participate in sports regularly and who’s ever heard of a sports participant dying young?
Oh, wait…
To your other point: Is it the case that you think doping chemicals are banned because they are addictive?
Some (amphetamines, e.g.) might be, but I doubt they are as addicting as the glory of sports itself…
I believe it would destroy proffessional sports. Those who chose not to dope could not compete in most cases. The general public would tend to hold athletes in lower regard generaly speaking. Possibly dope free sports leagues would arise on their own but maybe not. Hopefully at least colleges and youth sports could remain clean.
So you’re saying that the viewing public would hold athletes (in open competitions)
in lower regard and not watch the games? But also not be interested in dope free games? I would think that one or the other would succeed, I just don’t know which one.
Colleges would certainly have a conflict of interest in this debate.
Why did you even start this if you just want to mock people that have an opinion on the other side? You should have just put this in the pit as you seem uninterested in a true debate.
No, doping is banned principally because it’s a health risk.
And honestly, sport is supposed to be all about the health. That’s very much the point. If a sport it’s killing you, then it stops making sense as a sport.
Please examine statistics for the NFL and get back to me about whether or not professional sports (the OP title) is about health. Chronic traumatic encephalopathy quadruples the rate just for Alzheimer’s in pro football.
As a physician, I assure you that football at any competitive level is just horrible for you, and the professional level it is killing it’s participants much earlier than they would otherwise die.
Consider looking up the NEISS numbers I referenced above.
Or check articles like this one.
But, as with doping, it should be a question of personal choice and a personal decision about one’s greatest good.
If you want to argue that we shouldn’t put people at risk because they want to compete professionally, you’ll have to tone down a lot of what’s there already in sports before you can make an argument that you are now letting them compete “safely.”
I used identical wording to the original post in an effort to make the opposite point with the exact same degree of emphasis.
I did not intend to mock anyone; simply point out an exactly opposite opinion.
Again, that’s a perfectly good argument against pro football, or… boxing, or, I don’t know, deep sea diving or whatever, not in favour of doping! You could as well be using this argument to advocate for gladiatorial combat…!
Oh…
Wait… I’m an idiot. I get it now. Jesus am I dumb or what. Can’t believe I’ve been wooshed like that. Please do continue.
Did I misunderstand to hold “bad for your health” as an argument against doping?
If that is your argument, then is it the case that you feel professional contact sports should be abolished?
In my OP I do, in fact, take the (tacit) position that professional contact–and other dangerous–sports should be allowed to continue, and that participants’ health should not be a consideration in banning doping because these sports are inherently unhealthful already.