Every athlete is constantly looking for an edge. Something that will make him better than the competition. A little extra that will drive him to the next level. But what if there was an easier way to get an edge? A factor that could enable an elite athlete to train at a higher level, stay healthy, and in doing so, get bigger, faster, stronger. And while technically illegal in the United States, there would be no way of detecting it because it wasn't tested for.
This would not be something easily passed up by many athletes. If you're thinking steroids at this point, unplug your Walkman and get out of the 1990s. The drug that I'm talking about that can do all of these things but is still not tested for in the NFL is HGH, human growth hormone.
HGH is a hormone produced naturally by the human body in the pituitary gland. Without going into a litany of terms that you would cover in a cell biology course, such as MAP Kinase pathway and insulin-like growth factor, HGH works basically by causing cells of the body to "build up." This can then help athletes recover faster and also build up muscle and bone mass, which is why it is popular in sports that punish the body.
The test for HGH is a blood test that has been instituted by the World Anti-Doping Agency since 2000, but the NFL Players Association has been stalling in the implementation of HGH testing. It was supposed to start this season, but while Roger Goodell has expressed disappointment at the delay, it's hard to blame him for letting it slide when the league is bringing in billions of dollars in revenue. A scandal similar to the steroid "problem" in baseball would be bad for business.
The current tactic used by the NFLPA is that they believe their players naturally have higher levels of growth hormone than the normal population. Thus, testing by the normal levels would not suffice because their players are so masculine it would be like comparing apples to oranges. I was skeptical so I asked my physician, Dr. Chris (he asked for anonymity), who asserted that claim was hogwash (he used a more colorful term, but this is a student newspaper). It may be tough for some NFL fans to swallow, but it's possible that the union is protecting its players because they know the players will test positive.
As fans, we often want to believe that our favorite players are also perfect people; that they would never cheat or act unethically. We enjoy being blissfully unaware of any wrongdoing in our favorite sports. Football, which has become America's game, is no exception to this. We want to see players make huge tackles and score points for our fantasy teams. Getting busted for using human growth hormone to improve their performance is not supposed to be part of the athlete-fan agreement. But in an age where there seems to be a scandal behind every locker room door, this hope has become a fairy tale.
The NFL will probably continue to overlook this problem and allow the NFLPA to stall until forced to do otherwise. But if we are to believe the union, which claims that "The players of the National Football League are unequivocally committed to ensuring that football is played by men who do not use performance-enhancing drugs," then it needs to take this small step and make it a clean game. In which case, this fairy tale will not have a happy ending.
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