INSTITUTIONAL HEALTH.(The Talk of the Town; ethics)

Publication: The New Yorker

Publication Date: 01-DEC-03

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COPYRIGHT 2003 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.

Several months ago, an anonymous track-and-field coach sent a vial of clear liquid to the drug-testing laboratory at U.C.L.A. Inside the vial, the coach said, was one of the sporting world's dirty little secrets--and, sure enough, after months of chemical analysis the lab found an anabolic steroid called tetrahydrogestrinone, or THG, which had been cleverly engineered to evade standard drug testing. Since then, the governing bodies of the sports world have been going back and, one by one, re-analyzing the urine samples they have on file--and discovering that some athletes they thought were clean are not. Last week, the scandal spread to professional football. According to news reports, at least four members of the Oakland Raiders--Dana Stubblefield, Chris Cooper, Barret Robbins, and Bill Romanowski--tested positive for THG. The Raiders' coach, Bill Callahan, faced reporters and admitted that the controversy had left his team shaken. The media were barred from the Raiders' locker...

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