Performance Enhancing Drugs Again

With the news that Brian Cushing failed a performance enhancing drug test last year in the NFL the question has once again become when will American Professional Sports finally be free of these drugs. The real answer is never, but it can be much better. First we the viewing public and the members of congress with oversight have got to make the conscience decision to care about the use of performance enhancing drugs. Then the professional sports will respond and improve their steroid policies.
The most troubling aspects of the recent positive findings in North American Sports Leagues is that the banned substances have been products that are related to medical issues and not a classical steroid or other performance enhancing drug. Manny Ramirez tested positive for a fertility drug that was prescribed to him. The same is true for Edison Volquez on whom I blogged about earlier. From the reports I have read apparently Brian Cushing failed the test since HCG, a female fertility drug, was in his system. I won't speculate on why he had such a drug in his system, but once again the test did not catch him with testosterone or other steroids. The first two incidents can be simplified to the lack of use of the therapeutic use exception. If a doctor with a valid license prescribes a medication to treat a legitimate medical condition then this should not affect the athletes doping controls. The bigger problem that is flying under the radar but has cropped up several times is unintenional ingestion of banned substances in over the counter medicine and nutritional supplements. The nutritional supplements concern me the most since they are absolutely unregulated in the US. A simple solution would be to ban any nutritional supplement that does contain a substance as part of its formula that is on the banned lists of products.
The other thing that really irks me is that Brian Cushing was able to continue to play even though the league knew of his positive test. I understand and fully support the ability of athletes to contest an initial positive test and to even have a hearing to ensure due process to the accusation. In cycling if an athlete is has a positive test for performance enhancing drugs they are immediately suspended by their team. This suspension remains in effect until the second sample is tested and a negative result is returned. This type of suspension ought to be in place in the NFL and other North American professional sports leagues, i.e. MLB, NBA, NHL, and MLS. I should point out that cycling has its own performance enhancing drug scandals that after four years are still not resolved. Maybe my next blog post should be about that.