03/18/2008
Researcher discusses studies on steroids, HGH
By Amy Gray
Moscow-Pullman Daily News
Jennifer Beller said many athletes - particularly those
who use steroids - tend to have impaired moral reasoning
and judgment.
"They don't have the skills to make good decisions," said
the Washington State University College of Education
associate professor. "They don't know what right and
wrong is."
Beller's research specialties are sports ethics, moral
reasoning in competitive populations and evaluation of
moral and social reasoning. She is a consultant to the
United States Anti-Doping Agency and the Clean Sport
Alliance. The agency is a nongovernmental organization
that receives federal funding to ensure Olympic athletes
are drug-free. It is particularly focused on
performing-enhancing drugs such as steroids and human
growth hormone.
Beller discussed her research into the costs and effects
of performance-enhancing drugs and HGH on sports and
society Tuesday with about 80 WSU sports management and
athletic training students.
In 20 years of studying athletes, Beller has discovered
they use less information to make decisions and are "less
principled in making moral decisions."
She said these personality traits extend to all
competitive people, including those in business and
law.
Beller said baby boomers use more human growth hormone
than athletes as a way to fight aging. Professors and
other professionals use it "to have a mental edge - and
students too."
"But they're getting their drugs from China and Mexico,"
she said, which means the substances are not FDA approved
and probably include other ingredients and little
HGH.
Beller said there's no way of knowing how much "doping"
has increased because there is no baseline for
comparison.
"We can't consider any post-1960 sport as drug-free," she
said, showing photographs of celebrity athletes such as
Marion Jones, Kelly White, Floyd Landis and Roger
Clemens.
Beller said Olympic athletes are on call for drug testing
at all times - 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365
days a year.
"They get in helicopters and our Olympic athletes have to
pee on the spot," she said. "They show up at your house
and you have to pee - anywhere, anytime. They'll wait for
you to come home."
Beller showed students myriad products to aid in
drug-testing deception - the Urinator, the Whizzinator
and heat packs that quickly bring cooled urine to room
temperature. She said she found 4,400 urine products in
an online search. Clean urine can even be purchased in
dehydrated form.
New techniques and products are constantly under
development and Beller said she and the anti-doping
agency will probably always be six months behind the
latest faux-urine technology, although the U.S. Olympic
Committee is starting to freeze samples for future
testing for comparison data.
Beller counseled students to be mentors to the athletes
they work with.
WSU kinesiology students Ryan Dixon and Kallie Doherty
said they had not encountered athletes who take
performance-enhancing drugs and attended Beller's
presentation to learn more about them.
That also was the case for Omar Fercha, who is studying
to be an athletic trainer.
"I wanted to know more about HGH," he said.
Amy Gray can be reached at (509) 332-0745, or by
e-mail at agray@dnews.com.