The following story is part of the reason why I don't see Pennsylvania adopting a high school drug testing policy for athletes any time soon.
Texas steroid tests still net few positive results
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas’ steroid-testing program for high schoolers — the nation’s largest — has returned just eight positive results from the latest 16,000 tests.
The University Interscholastic League said the results announced Friday bring to 19 the total cases of steroids use confirmed by 45,000 tests conducted since February 2008.
Given so few positive results, state lawmakers agreed in May to slash spending on the much-touted program from $6 million to $2 million during the next two years.
The latest round of tests conducted from January through May also deemed 62 cases “protocol positives.” That’s when an athlete has an unexcused absence on the day they’re selected for testing or refuses to provide a urine sample.
8 comments:
Steroids are really not the issue anymore. When are the masses going to get wise to HGH? You need a blood test to detect it (not a urine test) and many athletes are getting their hands on it via doctor's prescription. Take the top 10 sports athletes in Washington County High schools and I wouldn't be surprised if at least half were on the stuff.
If that is true I would be in shock!
50 percent sounds a bit high.
I disagree. No way 5 out of the top 10.
Only way to settle this debate is to blood test the top 10 sports athletes in Wash Co. Would be a ground-breaking and possibly trend setting idea if it could be done.
these are kids...what doctor is perscribing a kid HGH to help his high school football career? Come on...maybe im naive but if there were 5 in the WPIAL let alone 5 in the top 10 id be shocked.
According to the OR the top athletes are soccer and basketball players so I'd say ZERO. And zero might be a little high
For perspective, talked with a coaching buddy of mine at a local FCS football school and the subject of performance enhancing drugs came up. He asked me to name how many kids out of roughly 80 on his roster were users. I guessed zero, thinking he was going to gloat about how he was associated with a clean program. Unfortunately I was way off as he told me the NCAA urine test nabbed 7 players, but their own school blood test (which is not reported to the NCAA) caught an additional 27 players. That's 34 out of approx 80 (43%).
While he was not sure about all of the 27 failed blood tests, he did say that HGH was the overwhelming drug of choice. So apparently people are getting their hands on it with relative ease.
Obviously these are college kids (not high school), but I think the results mean we cannot turn a blind eye to any division of athletics.
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