Senate hears testimony about steroid abuse

(13 Jul 2004) SHOTLIST
1. Wide shot from back of committee hearing room
2. Witness table
3. Senator Charles Grassley
4. Witness table with Don Hooten
5. Still photograph of Taylor Hooten
6. SOUNDBITE: (English) Don Hooten, Son died after Steroid use:
“I did a quick search for steroids on the Yahoo search engine and it yielded over 2 million sites where information, accurate and inaccurate, can be found. When I put three words into the Google search engine: ‘buy, steroids, online,’ over three hundred thousand sites popped up. Senators, all our kids need are a credit card number or a money order to have hard core prescription anabolic steroids shipped right to their doorstep.”
7. Senator Charles Grassley
8. SOUNDBITE: (English) Curtis Wenzlaff, former user and convicted dealer of steroids:
“Frankly, in my opinion, most steroid users, particularly those who are experimenting, are virtually clueless regarding steroid use. I would project that nine out of every ten users is taking whatever he or she is able to get their hands on even though the individual may have had the intention of obtaining a completely other steroid.”
9. Committee room with witnesses
10. SOUNDBITE: (English) Senator Joe Biden, Delaware:
“Three quarters of the kids who believe that they want to emulate the Joe DiMaggios (famous American baseball player) of the world and half of those kids believe that their specific hero uses steroids and uses performance enhancing drugs to win. Now, you guys do this for a living, trying to deal with this. To me, as a plain old politician, that is a devastating idea.”
11. Senators Grassley and Biden
12. SOUNDBITE: (English Terry Madden, US Anti-Doping Agency:
“And it gets down base situations of money, medals, fame. That’s what our athletes want. The vast majority, the large majority of our athletes are clean, but there’s a group of athletes that will do anything to be successful.”
13. Senators Grassley and Biden
14. Committee room with witnesses
STORYLINE:
Steroid use in the United States is a national health crisis, according to witnesses who testified before members of a Senate committee on Tuesday.
Witnesses said steroids are used not only by some Olympic athletes, but also high school students and children as young as ten and eleven.
Don Hooten told the story of his 16 year old son, Taylor, who was told by his baseball coach that he needed to gain 20 pounds in order to be starting pitcher (an important position on the team).
Taylor took steroids and then stopped. The result was a depression that his father says drove his son to suicide.
Another witness, a former user of steroids, testified that many juvenile users don’t know that they’re using fake drugs.
Members of the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control have introduced new legislation that declares some anabolic steroids and steroidal supplements as controlled substances and illegal for sale over the counter or over the internet.
Anabolic steroids refers to muscle-building drugs while steroidal supplements are often classified as “dietary supplements.”
Much of the advertising of these dietary supplements stresses that they are legal, implying that the supplement is medically safe.
The legislation these Senators are proposing prohibits some dietary supplements from being sold in nutrition stores or in other outlets.

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