New Method Suggested to Prevent Steroids Use : Sports Scientist Says That Coaches Should Try Stressing Ethics With Athletes

Because there is no conclusive medical evidence to support the horror stories regarding long-term effects of anabolic steroids on an athlete’s health, sports officials should emphasize ethics in their efforts to prevent use of the drugs, a leading sports scientist said Sunday.

That may not be the message many of the 75 participants in a two-day conference at the Amateur Athletic Foundation expected to hear from Dr. Charles Yesalis, professor of Health Policy and Administration, Exercise and Sports Science at Penn State University.

Sponsored by the AAF, the U.S. Olympic Committee, the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. and the National Federation of State High School Assns., the conference was advertised as the nation’s “first consensus meeting on the dangers of steroid abuse.”

In literature and some medical journals, steroids have been linked to cardiovascular and liver disease, sexual dysfunction, tendon damage and other side effects.

But Yesalis labeled much of that information as “hysteria.”

“Some members of the sports medicine community have, with the best of intentions, adopted a conservative strategy and used strong, but often unfounded, pronouncements emphasizing the adverse, particularly permanent and lethal, health effects of anabolic steroids,” Yesalis said. “Athletes, on the other hand, have simply not witnessed longtime anabolic steroid users dropping like flies. This aggressive health education strategy does not seem to have had any major impact on the use of steroids.”

Yesalis warned athletes not to mistake “absence of evidence” for “evidence of absence,” and called for increased research.

“Perhaps the most significant reason for absence of action on this issue has been lack of awareness, until recently, by most of the medical community, government and the public regarding the extent of use of these drugs,” he said.

“There likely is a concern by some that if, in fact, no deleterious long-term effects are identified, the use of anabolic steroids would increase further, while the moral issue of fair play would remain.

“Even more frustrating is the fact that in two recent national studies, the majority of anabolic steroid users surveyed expressed intentions to stop use if deleterious health effects were unequivocally established.

“Clearly, the lack of scientific information on the long-term health effect has impeded, if not precluded, the formulation of effective health education and drug abuse prevention strategies.”

Until that information is available, Yesalis suggested that sports officials educate athletes about the questionable ethics of using drugs to enhance performances.

“To move toward a solution of this problem, sacrifices--measured by fewer victories and lost revenues--will probably have to be made by athletes, academic institutions and sports federations,” he said. “Anabolic steroids work too well to believe otherwise.”