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Mitchell report: no surprises, no closure

The WSJ Health Blog has interviewed Charles Yesalis,  a professor emeritus of health and human development at Penn State and author of Performance-Enhancing Substances in Sports and Exercise.

Yesalis relates that performance-enhancing drugs first entered baseball when "professional baseball players who served in the Army brought back amphetamines." He feels that amphetamines are still being used. The Mitchell report does not cover this class of drug. He views the Mitchell report as anticlimactic.

In 1998, as a possible solution, Yesalis recommended that the various sports governing bodies provide $100 million in funds to support chemists who need to develop the tests needed to detect the new crop of performance-enhancing drugs. He now feels that it's not possible to plug all the loopholes that corrupted researchers may come up with.

Is there any solution? I don't think anyone would imagine that there would be a fan boycott in response to revelations like today's.

What about the integrity of the sport? What about our young athletes who are seeking these performance-enhancing drugs? Why are different standards being used for different sports? Will the actions against Marion Jones, taking away all her medals and financial rewards from the Sydney games, be matched in the MLB?

Michael Kay of ESPN radio is now talking on the radio, asking what MLB's endgame will be. He thinks that Barry Bonds is the big winner in today's announcement. "He's not the only bad guy."

But it's not about the endgame or closure at all. Presently, MLB has finally come to terms with their acceptance of this pervasive drug use, and it was for their financial interests and little or nothing to do with the health of these athletes. If today seems difficult, the future is even more daunting now that we know that these performance-enhancing work so well.

MLB releases Mitchell report

The Official Site of Major League Baseball: News: Mitchell Report

Right now the press conference by former Senator George Mitchell is underway. His main points:

The use of anabolic steroids in MLB was widespread, and MLB was slow to respond initially. Random testing started in 2002, seems to have decreased the use of anabolic steroids. Many players have shifted to human growth hormone since it is not readily detectable in a urine sample.

The full 409 page report is available for download. Doing a quick search for "Clemens," brings up this passage.

According to McNamee, during the middle of the 2000 season Clemens made it clear that he was ready to use steroids again. During the latter part of the regular season, McNamee injected Clemens in the buttocks four to six times with testosterone from a bottle labeled either Sustanon 250 or Deca-Durabolin that McNamee had obtained from Radomski. [page 217]

This appears to be the reporting of Brian McNamee, a trainer for several MLB players. But there are others who including Jose Canseco who are corroborating his story. All Most of the players mentioned in this report were offered a chance to speak with Mitchell, but all refused.

Mitchell is now saying that he is recommending that no penalties be imposed by the Commissioner on the athletes named in this report. One-third of these players are no longer active in the sport. Also, Mitchell believes that this report is not comprehensive in that he believes there are more suppliers and more players abusing steroids that have not been discovered yet.

Mitchell uses the word "closure" in the context of the release of this report. This might be a little naive considering that there will be new technologies both pharmaceutical and mechanical that will enhance human enhancement and are not addressed by current laws.