Steroids are used throughout the medical profession. They obviously aren't all bad, so if health were the only reason behind drug rules, why not regulate steroid protocols that could make healthier athletes?
Like all drugs, steroids are partly good and partly bad. They have therapeutic effects that the medical profession uses them for, and they have serious side effects too. If athletes used steroids only in the prescribed therapeutic doses there wouldn't be much of a health risk, but there wouldn't be much of a performance benefit either. That's why for decades scientific studies kept being published that said that steroids didn't work - didn't enhance athletic performance. Because, being ethical medical professionals, they tested them only at the modest therapeutic doses. All the dope-drenched athletes back at the gym just laughed at those publications. They knew first hand that in high enough doses steroids worked very well.
The sad fact is that athletes who abuse steroids use them at doses tens or hundreds of times higher than the therapeutic doses. When it comes to side effects, beyond a few anecdotes of this or that athlete getting sick or dropping dead, those athletic hyper-doses are uncharted territory - especially for long-term use
Steroid protocols designed to "make healthier athletes" would by definition be low dose and thereby also do away with the performance benefit. Then the question becomes "What's the point?"
Kurt Bray
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