Ankiel linked to human growth hormones

[mizzoupacers]

Oh boy. Here it is, straight from the horse's mouth:

NY Daily News story

Key statement:

Ankiel, 28, has not been accused by authorities of wrongdoing, and according to the Signature records obtained by The News, he stopped receiving HGH just before Major League Baseball officially banned it in 2005.

So if this story goes no further, Ankiel is not in any trouble from the U.S. judicial system, or even from MLB because the Daily News story has disclosed no laws or MLB rules that he has broken.

However, because he is linked to a shady Florida pharmacy and physician, and with baseball being the competitive undertaking that it is, Rick may not fare so well in the court of public opinion.

What are we to make of this? For myself, I'm still trying to decide. Controversy exists as to whether HGH should be a banned substance: does it really do anything to improve baseball performance? More to the point, does it really have harmful long-term health consequences for athletes? I guess I believe that if the answer to the second question is "yes," then HGH should most certainly be banned; if it is "no", then it shouldn't be banned even if the answer to the first question is "yes". But so far as I can tell, not enough is yet known about the consequences of athletes taking HGH: here are a couple of further articles about it.



http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/growth-hormone/HA00030

That is what I would assume is an objective assessment released by the Mayo Clinic.

And courtesy of bigboy, here is a link to another reputable news source that clearly questions baseball's stance of banning HGH:

http://www.slate.com/id/2162473/nav/tap1/

Discuss?

[Cyborg21]

for some people, there goes the comeback story.

[Ex-hippie]

New nickname for Ankiel: "The Unnatural."

(Obvious)

[Cyborg21]

ah, its BS, jut trying to **** up his comeback, hes denying it all and should, ny daily news is ****.

[ccvle]

I didnt know it was the dailynews that ran the investigation.

[mizzoupacers]

I didnt know it was the dailynews that ran the investigation.

The investigation is being conducted by the district attorney in Albany, New York. Under investigation are illegal Internet prescription transactions. The Daily News is just doing its job in reporting what the DA is investigating.

Here is the Daily News follow-up story:

link

Ankiel has not been accused by authorities of wrongdoing and if law enforcement officials believed the prescriptions written to him were not justified, they would go after the doctor, the clinic and the pharmacy, not the patient, law enforcement sources said.

MLB officials said that while they want explanations from Ankiel, they don't believe they will be able to take any action. According to records, Ankiel stopped receiving HGH just before MLB officially banned it in 2005. MLB does not test for HGH...

Officials said they thought it was odd that Ankiel would get prescriptions from a doctor associated with an anti-aging clinic, rather than receive all his medical care from the Cardinals organization.

Sounds from this as though Ankiel is off the hook regarding official sanctions against him.

But it also sounds like it's going to be next to impossible to quiet public suspicions, as the whole thing sounds pretty fishy. You have a doctor with a bad reputation involved. You have a suspicious path toward acquiring a prescription. And you have the question of whether rehabbing from injury is a valid reason for ordering HGH in the first place.

It's starting to make me feel a bit sick to my stomach.

[pacerfan]

It's starting to make me feel a bit sick to my stomach.

I'm sticking with Ankiel until proven otherwise.

With all that Rick went through, I understand why the kid would have made a decision to give HGH a try. What he injected was not illegal or banned by baseball. The key is whether he continued to take the stuff after the substance was banned and more was known about its effects.

From what I read, the continued use does not be appear to be a problem.

Would you or I have had taken HGH in the first place. Probably not. But that Rick chose to do so, should not tarnish his story one bit. We don't know what we would have done, if we had walked in his shoes. Rick deserves the benefit of doubt from fans.

[mizzoupacers]

I'm willing to stick by Ankiel if this is all the further the story goes, but he's probably in for a rough time from fans of other teams. That's what makes me sick. Lots of people out there hate the Cardinals, and lots of sports columnists have axes to grind, and they are going to jump all over this and blow it all out of proportion. I'm just tired of my teams going through these sorts of unwanted controversies. I've had more than enough of that kind of fun already with Stephen Jackson and Ron Artest.

It's tragic that Ankiel could be so stupid. Now unless there is more to the story than what has been reported he is not going to get in any legal trouble or trouble from MLB over this, but even so it sure looks to me like he went through furtive channels to get a drug that a reputable doctor would not have signed off on. I wonder if the Cardinals organization knew that he was doing this. I sure hope not.

I do think, though, that what Ankiel is doing on the field this season, he is doing on his own merits. I can't see how any competitive advantage could be gained from having taken HGH three years ago, when its questionable whether HGH does anything much to boost performance in the first place. So unlike McGwire, for instance, I don't think that Ankiel's home runs are tainted.

[pacerfan]

I have not read much on this subject, but is the argument plausible that HGH was used only to help athletes recover from injury and surgery? And that the use of HGH was all about healing and not performance enhancement?