Posts Tagged ‘Steroids’

MMA phenom Cris “Cyborg” Santos has been suspended by the California State Athletic Commission (CSAC) for testing positive for anabolic steroids prior to her bout with Hiroko Yamanaka on Dec.17.2011.

The legitimacy of Cyborg’s bulky frame has been questioned for years but this is the first time an official testing has confirmed those suspicions.

From Mmaboom.com:

Along with her suspension, Cris “Cyborg” Santos will face a $2,500 fine and her bout with Hiroko Yamanaka will be retroactively changed to a No Decision (NC). With Santos currently out of the women’s MMA picture, there are early concerns that the Strikeforce 145 lb women’s division may be in big trouble moving forward. With all the best female fighters at 135, and Santos now gone, it wouldn’t be shocking to see the two divisions merged or purged in some fashion in the near future.

As it would happen, the recent confirmation of Ronda Rousey vs. Miesha Tate now makes that contest the biggest match possible in women’s MMA, although that’s a bit of a bittersweet recognition under the circumstances.

The news has once again brought the relationship between steroids and professional sports to the limelight.

A court has heard that a man facing drugs charges after a police raid which allegedly turned up cash, cocaine, MDMA, and steroids was already on bail for a serious offence.

Gregory Jason Merrilees briefly faced the ACT Magistrates Court after being arrested on Thursday night following the search.

From Canberratimes.com.au:

Police allege they found 8g of suspected cocaine, 100 tablets believed to be MDMA or ”ecstasy” and three vials of steroids.

Merrilees’ lawyer told the court her client was already on bail over serious alleged offences which carry a maximum penalty of five years or more. Under territory law a person accused of committing further crimes while on bail for a serious offence has to show special or exceptional circumstances to justify their release on bail again. Merrilees was remanded in custody.

The 39-year-old was formally charged with unlawful possession of property, cocaine trafficking, possessing anabolic steroids, and is also facing a charge of driving while disqualified.

One Pennsylvania columnist thinks he has figured out why Alex Ovechkin hasn’t been the dynamic player he has been in years past, as the Capitals continue to find their footing after recent changes to the coaching staff.

A long time Pittsburgh sports scribe, the Capitals center isn’t what he used to be because he is off the juice, according to the Pennsylvania Observer-Reporter’s John Steigerwald.

From Wtop.com:

The guy was superhuman when he first came into the league. He had the hardest shot anybody had seen in years. Goalies around the league talked about how it was different from everybody else’s shot.

He’s taking about half as many shots as he used to.

Is any of this proof that Ovechkin’s performance was enhanced before, and now it’s not? No. But, you combine it with the fact that his doctor was charged with bringing PEDs over the border from Canada, and it gives you the right to be suspicious.

Add to that the fact a Washington D.C. chiropractor was investigated after he bragged about supplying steroids to members of the Capitals and Washington Nationals.

The chiropractor Stigerwald refers to is Douglas Nagel, who was arrested in 2010 for buying anabolic steroids from a Florida dealer.

A couple living lavish lifestyles while operating a multi-million pound racket to import and supply anabolic steroids have been stripped of assets worth more than £1.3m, under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

In December 2010, Patrick Hyland and his estranged wife Hyacinth were both jailed at Chelmsford Crown Court.

From Chelmsfordweeklynews.co.uk:

During the trial Patrick Hyland was described as the chief executive of the smuggling operation, while his wife was involved in the organisation when he was abroad sourcing and buying anabolic steroids.

Patrick Hyland was sentenced to 54 months and Hyacinth Hyland, of Little Waltham, near Chelmsford, was handed a two year sentence.

At a Proceeds of Crime Confiscation hearing at Chelmsford Crown Court this week (December 6 and 7) Patrick Hyland, 49, of Great Saling, was found to have accrued a criminal benefit of £5,142,110.

“The defendants will have to make considerable payments in line with the confiscation orders and if not they face additional time in custody, this clearly highlights to those involved criminality that crime really does not pay and we will continue to use this dynamic legislation to hammer home that principle,” Det Chief Insp Keith Davies, head of the Kent and Essex Police serious economic crime unit, said.

A major scandal threatened to engulf the Royal Australian Navy after revelations that sailors from a Sydney Harbour base may have been selling drugs to foreign backpackers.

The Australian Defence Force (ADF) and New South Wales police confirmed that they are investigating an alleged drug-dealing ring operating out of Garden Island, the Navy’s main base in eastern Australia.

From Nzherald.co.nz:

Defence authorities said “a range of substances”, including steroids, had been seized during a raid.

Dozens of sailors may have been involved in the trafficking ring, according to the Australian, which quoted an unnamed source as saying that drugs had been sold to young tourists.

Garden Island – used for naval activities for more than 200 years – lies just north of Kings Cross, Sydney’s main nightlife district and the site of numerous backpacker hostels.

The allegations are the latest blow to the image of the Australian military, which revealed in June that nearly 600 personnel have tested positive for steroids and other illegal drugs in the past five years.

Brendan O’Connor, the federal Home Affairs Minister, said that the allegations were being “taken very seriously”.

The latest feat of Major League Baseball of extended “labor peace” with the Major League Players Association was reached on November 22, 2011.

MLB has apparently won out in its attempt to curb illicit use of human growth hormone (HGH) by its players, as per terms of the latest basic agreement between the parties.

From Sports-central.org:

The lockouts by both the NFL and NBA this year perhaps did not go by unnoticed by MLB brass in its seemingly under-the-radar collective bargaining talks with the MLBPA this past fall. MLB attempted to show up the other leagues’ rather unkempt labor relations.

And MLB Commissioner Bud Selig made it quite clear by way of his public display of self-aggrandizement during the week following a new collective bargaining agreement (CBA) was reached, that his is the first North American professional sports league to agree to such a test for HGH. And perhaps it was indeed Selig’s latest and greatest coup yet, in such a pronouncement, however yet to be realized.

The agreement will run five years in duration and expire on December 1, 2016. Article 39, Sec. 7 (b) of the NFL’s CBA states: “The parties confirm that the Program on Anabolic Steroids and related Substances will include both annual blood testing and random blood testing for human growth hormone, with discipline for positive tests at the same level as for steroids.”

A joint operation between the Ontario Provincial Police and the RCMP led to the arrest of two alleged drug traffickers.

According to a police spokesman, Scott Hutchings, 41, of Bell Island and Jocelyn Dunn, 26, from St. John’s have been charged with conspiracy to traffic cocaine.

From Cbc.ca:

The action was part of Operation Longridge, a covert police investigation led by the OPP that targets outlaw motorcycle gangs, specifically the Hell’s Angels Kitchener chapter.

$50,000 in cash was seized from both suspects at the time of their arrest. Anabolic steroids and evidence of trafficking in steroids were also found and seized.

Police said more arrests have occurred in Ontario as part of the same operation. Hutchings and Dunn will appear in court in St. John’s on Monday.

The RCMP made the arrests on Friday in St. John’s.

According to Dr. Stephen M. Pastores, the jury is still out on whether patients with acute lung injury and adult respiratory distress syndrome derive any benefit from the use of corticosteroids.

“This is probably the most controversial topic in acute lung injury and ARDS,” Dr. Pastores of the department of anesthesiology and critical care medicine at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, said at the annual meeting of the American College of Chest Physicians.

From Familypracticenews.com:

He went on to note that physicians should give steroids in conjunction with infection surveillance, “avoiding neuromuscular blockers if you can, and being concerned about the phenomenon of rebound inflammation if you stop steroids abruptly.”

Inhaled nitric oxide has also been studied as a nonventilatory strategy in ALI/ARDS. A Cochrane review of 13 randomized, controlled trials involving 1,303 patients found no significant effect with this approach in overall mortality, but did show a transient improvement in oxygenation in the first 24 hours. The review also found that inhaled nitric oxide had no significant effect on duration of ventilation, ventilator-free days, and ICU and hospital length of stay. An increased risk of renal impairment among adults was also noted (Cochrane Database Syst. Rev. 2010 Oct. 23 [doi:10.1002/14651858.CD002787.pub2]).

“An important piece of this study was that [the researchers] did regular infection surveillance with regular bronchoscopies, and they avoided the use of neuromuscular blockers,” said Dr. Pastores, who is also professor of medicine and anesthesiology at Cornell University in New York.

On Wednesday, a former Norfolk police officer admitted in Circuit Court to selling steroids, syringes and marijuana to an undercover Virginia Beach investigator.

The 37-year-old Kristin Wayne Harris pleaded guilty to drug possession and the sale of an anabolic steroid.

From Hamptonroads.com:

In addition to Harris, three other Norfolk Police Department officers resigned during an internal investigation into Harris’ sale of steroids, said Officer Chris Amos, Norfolk police spokesman.

Harris was the only one of the four charged with a crime. The department would not comment further because the resignations were a personnel matter, Amos said.

Harris, an 11-year veteran of the Norfolk department, resigned a day after his June 9 arrest. He was charged with 11 drug-related felonies and two misdemeanors, but prosecutors withdrew all but two felony drug charges.

“For 17 years, he was a public servant with an unblemished record, and then he made a mistake,” Harris’ attorney, Peter G. Decker III, said after Wednesday’s court hearing.

BALCO founder Victor Conte has remarked that the Major League Baseball may have come to an agreement with its players to test their blood for human growth hormone but the game would be required to come to grips with its present testing before it touts itself as the leader in new drug testing.

MLB should use a more sophisticated form of detecting testosterone or its HGH testing won’t really make an impact as players often make use of small amounts of testosterone in conjunction with HGH, Conte said.

From Articles.nydailynews.com:

“HGH is not effective unless it is used in conjunction with testosterone or other anabolic steroids,” Conte says. “It’s important to understand that HGH is not an anabolic agent. It is an anti-catabolic agent. It basically helps to reduce muscle degradation and enables a player to maintain the gains they’ve made using steroids for a longer period of time. By itself, HGH has been shown to have no significant performance-enhancing effects.”

Conte, who is now an advocate for stronger testing, has been saying for years that the 4-to-1 testosterone to epitestosterone ratio used by baseball and other leagues to detect testosterone use is ineffective.

“Testosterone gels, creams and patches will clear an MLB player’s system within a matter of hours and be below the 4 to 1 T/E ratio allowable in urine,” he says. “A player could possibly use a fast-acting form of testosterone at night after a game to help with recovery and their T/E ratio would be within the normal range by the time they would get to the ballpark the next evening.

“If MLB were to implement CIR testing, I believe they would possibly catch a significant number of players using testosterone,” Conte says.