Hearing: "The Abuse of Anabolic Steroids and their Precursors by Adolescent and Amateur Athletes"
Date/time: Tuesday, July 13, 2004, at 10 a.m.
Location: 215 Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C.
Description:
For more than two decades, the use of anabolic steroids by professional athletes has been widely reported. Indictments of a San Francisco-area nutritional supplements lab of federal steroid-distribution charges have brought even more attention to the use of steroids. Recently, accusations of world class track and baseball athletes using steroids have hit the news. But, steroid use often begins before athletes achieve international recognition.
In the 1980s, performance enhancing drugs swept through sports. As these users have become coaches, the use of anabolic steroids by developing athletes increasingly became an accepted tool to reach the next level of competition.
Despite the widely publicized dangers of anabolic steroid abuse, it's estimated that as many as 5 million people annually, including 175,000 high school girls and 350,000 high-school age boys, may be abusing these drugs to improve athletic performance, appearance and self-image. The large numbers of high school age young people is alarming because the health risks and side effects are much more serious for teens than adults.
The hearing will also focus on the availability of illegal steroids, and the pressures young athletes fact to use steroids in an attempt to improve themselves. Anabolic steroids are easily purchased over the internet as well as from users who sell and distribute steroids in gyms. The ease to which anybody, including young people, can acquire these drugs, coupled with the high percentage that the purchased steroids are counterfeit, heightens the severe health risks that threaten the user.
A witness list follows.
Panel 1
Joseph T. Rannazzisi, Deputy Director for the office of Diversion Control, Drug Enforcement Agency
Terry Madden, CEO, United States Anti-Doping Agency
Bill Martin, Former President, United States Olympic Committee and Director of Athletics, University of Michigan
Panel 2
A current college athlete and team member of a Division IA football program
Curtis Wenzlaff, a convicted dealer and former user of anabolic steroids.
Donald Hooton, a father of a high school athlete who committed suicide as a result of illegal steroid abuse.
Dr. Don Catlin, a leading researcher with the University of California Los Angeles and an expert on anabolic steroid abuse and other forms of doping in sports, drug testing, and endocrinology. He is a member of the International Olympic Committee Medical Commission.
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