Keep your mind open and imagine

quote:

progress chang

Drugs that are sold to the masses generally don't make you healthier. They mask symptoms and hurt your overall performance. I wouldn't worry about this as long as the pharmacy is ruled by money...

Isn't that already the case? If I have a legitimate injury, that has been diagnosed by a legitimate doctor and seconded by another legitimate doctor, a prescription can be given for the condition, that contains any of the prohibited performance enhancing substances, as long as you notify your club, MLB, and the union, give prior approval authority to all entities and cease using the substance as soon as the condition ceases.

What you can't do is buy years worth of a performance enhanceing drug from a defrocked dentist who runs a anti-aging clinic to heal a medical condition that you can't prove exists.

quote:

Originally posted by deldad:
What you can't do is buy years worth of a performance enhanceing drug from a defrocked dentist who runs a anti-aging clinic to heal a medical condition that you can't prove exists.

deldad, as I posted in another thread, the Indians and Paul Byrd just suggested that approach is contractually fine to the tune of $7,500,000.
I think your view is the correct one, though.

I guess I was looking to even further down the road into the potential shoot-offs of in the areas of stem cell research and so on. Sports as we know it today may be really turned upside down, and records may be broken into "eras" rather than looked at as a "whole" as a result.

I think I sit in the same boat as most on this site and am not am not a future "nut". I don't look much further ahead than my next meal. But, I do watch a lot of Discovery Television and while I try to blow a lot of it off as nonsense, it seems to me the next decade will be "eye-opening" as far as what science will have to offer. Everyone says the game has evolved but I'm afraid we've seen nothing yet .

rz1, I agree. Where I work, there are very brilliant people looking into genetic engineering to cure disease, regenerative technologies (using stem cells to "regenerate" diseased or injured organs) and the lab that I work in specifically works on the "brain-machine interface". The research is directed toward people who have traumatic brain injury or disease causing paralysis, and will help those folks be able to use their limbs again, or operate a computer just by thinking. On a very basic level, this has already been done. But if these technologies were applied to athletes to improve their performance rather than to help sick or injured people, well, it's kind of scary to think about.

Rz1-I think that once we can manipulate genetics in a manner to extend and enhance life all bets are off. Can you picture a world where a DNA sample is taken from your child at birth, it is stored and under the liklihood that your child should wish to play in one of the international athletic leagues, his DNA must match perfectly to his birth sample.

Can you imagine the intellectual pygmies in Congress dealing with these issues in the future.

Lets face it, rz1 is on the right track.

MLB and the entire sports world needs to do much more in the way of making pre-emptive decisions about drugs that are or may be available to athlete's in re-hab or athlete's with pain!

In my view, if a drug exists or will exist that can allow a player to perform sooner (or even better) without any debilitating effect, then they should put an "approved" list of drugs out there for all to know.

I think that rz has brought up a good topic for thought and soxnole makes a great statment.

Did you all know that very shortly a new experimental procedure is going to be perfomed to see if those with spinal cord injuries will be cured? Amazing.

I just saw a commercial the other evening about a new Rx for knee pain.

Medicine has made huge advancements, I just think that many doctors are stuck in the same old patterns of traditional medicine and theapies. If anyone has ever used accupuncture, it is a safe and effective way to alleviate pain, not sure why it's not often recommended for athletes.

quote:

Medicine has made huge advancements,

I see the commercials everyday,( You to can live life Large ).

Am I cheating if I use one of these products??
And how about those who do use the product's.
Are they only fooling themselves??
Are maybe they have an advantage over the Average Particapant.
Is this unfair??

I'm confused.
EH

Imagine this...

...you are an Olympic athlete who has come down with nasal congestion that turns into a cold...and there are plenty of over-the counter remedies that are legal that will help your condition and allow you to sleep and compete....

...you are an Olympic athlete who has been fighting asthma since early childhood and are in the midst of an attack and have access to the prescription the physician recommended...

In both cases, the remedies are banned by the IOC. My point is that even WHEN (not if) rz's scenario comes to pass, the sports regulating bodies have every right to ban them...and surely will.

JT,
My daughter's boyfriend was a swimmer in college, and competed for the Olympic, he used to walk around with a list of over the counter remedies that were banned for competition. He was disqualified in one race because he took something he wasn't supposed to. I think it becomes a different animal when it comes to individual competition.

Also, when DK was trying out for team USA, we had to have a doctor's certified letter that he was an asthmatic and his medicine was legally prescribed.

The impression that I get, in college and in milb, you don't take anything unless it is prescribed by the team or approved doctor. When DK sprained his ankle this summer and in pain, he was only allowed to take over the counter pain relief medication, which didn't help very much but as the saying goes, oh well.

This is why the NFL has an approved list of supplements...that will not result in a positive test.

MLB has one too, if anyone bothers to reads it.