RockyMountainSaint

Total and complete BS posturing on both sides.
Player safety my ass.

Report: HGH use increasing | ProFootballTalk
The one we continue to know about the honor system is that the honor system doesn’t work.

The NFL bans HGH use. The NFL still has no test in place to determine whether players are complying with this rule. Not surprisingly, players still ignore the rule.

Dan Patrick mentions from time to time that a starting NFL quarterback privately told Patrick within the past two or three years that 60 percent of the league uses HGH. Tyler Dunne of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that HGH use is “rampant.”

“It’s like clockwork nowadays,” an unnamed NFC starter told Dunne. “Not tested and it’s easy to get. Nowadays, dude? In 2013? [Expletive] yeah. I’m just being real.”

The unnamed player estimates that 10-15 players per team use the substance, which puts the percentage in the range of 18-28.

The NFL and NFLPA agreed in 2011 that blood testing for HGH will be implemented. Two full football seasons later, blood testing for HGH has not yet commenced, due to a lingering impasse regarding the manner in which testing will happen.

Periodically, members of Congress huff and puff regarding the perception that the NFLPA is dragging its feet. But the NFL is, too. Indirectly. Subtly.

With a battalion of high-priced lawyers at the league’s disposal, the failure of the NFL to pursue a lawsuit or a grievance or some other device to compel the players to honor their agreement suggests that the NFL doesn’t really want to push the issue. On one hand, the league likely doesn’t want to try to force its players to have their skin pierced with a needle and blood drawn. On the other hand, the league possibly isn’t interested in having those predictions of rampant HGH use come to fruition — or in having the players who use HGH quit cold turkey and suddenly become unable to return from injuries.

So players can continue to use it, and there’s no way to determine it based on the contents of their blood. (If they admit to using HGH or otherwise are caught buying or possessing it, the NFL can take action.) But if HGH use really is rampant, won’t a former player eventually shed the cloak of anonymity and pen a Jose Canseco-style book, blowing the whistle on the issue?

Maybe not. The book likely wouldn’t sell. After all, most fans assume NFL players are using something to get that big, to stay that big, and to return so quickly from the injuries that happen when large bodies collide.

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hagan714

then these are the same players that will be screaming for money later down the road for health issues. sorry many picked to open a Pandora's box.

shame is lawyers are keeping it open on both ends. they make money on this. do you really think most of them really care beyond their wallets?

TheOak

HGH is relatively benign in the side effects department.
Possible side effects of HGH use include:

*nerve, muscle, or joint pain
*swelling due to fluid in the body's tissues (edema)
*carpal tunnel syndrome
*numbness and tingling of the skin
*high cholesterol levels

Possible side effects of caffiene:

*stomach pain, tenderness, bloating,
*constipation or diarrhea;
*green-colored vomit;
*blood in the stools;
*unusual weakness;
*seizure (convulsions);
*twitching or uncontrolled muscle movements; or
*fever, fast or slow heart rate.

RockyMountainSaint

The issue is that human beings are not meant to be this big, fast and strong while colliding with each other.

For the record, the long term effects of HGH are unknown. No one is monitoring dosage and purity.

When my physician administers a medication to me, it is started in small doses along with lab tests to monitor the effects on my body.

So, your "Bro-Science" argument is invalid.

TheOak

Didn't realize you had a PhD in pharmacology. Side effects were pulled from WebMd, perhaps you should suggest some changes?


Dosages are typically administered according to body mass for most pharmaceuticals.

Also with long term side effects being unknown, they are just that.... "Unknown". Which is neither negative or positive.

PS. The human body was not "meant" to collide with anything.

WillSaints81

I'm going to guess who the NFL starting qb is................
Cutler

homerj07

Drugs are bad - Hmmkay?

Crusader

I read an article in a Swedis magazine a while back, I am trying to find it again but it said something along the lines that if you are unlucky it can in rare instances cause your chin, ears and nose to start growing, also your inner organs. It has also been tied to the development of Hodgkin's lymphoma.

RockyMountainSaint

League wants HGH testing, needs players to want it, too | ProFootballTalk
In a recent blurb regarding the reported increase in HGH use among NFL players, we suggested that the league isn’t using available legal avenues to compel the NFLPA to honor its 2011 agreement to permit HGH testing perhaps because the league doesn’t really want HGH testing.

Our comment sparked a back-channel discussion with the powers-that-be at 345 Park Avenue, which culminated in a Friday telephone interview with NFL Senior V.P. of Labor Law and Policy Adolpho Birch.

“There is no vehicle we could use that is anything beyond pointless,” Birch said regarding the use of litigation or arbitration to compel the players to honor the existing deal.

Birch explained that the Collective Bargaining Agreement doesn’t specifically mandate testing; it requires negotiation as to the procedures that will be used. At most, then, a grievance filed under the labor deal would result in a ruling directing the NFLPA to negotiate in good faith — something the NFLPA surely believes it’s doing.

Litigation in court isn’t an option, Birch said, given the specific terms of the labor deal.

He suggested that the NFL could file an unfair labor practices charge with the National Labor Relations Board, but Birch pointed out that the process could take longer than it would to negotiate an HGH testing agreement without government involvement. Moreover, compelling the players to submit to testing isn’t the way the league wants to proceed.

“The root of it is that, even if we can force the issue, that is not going to work,” Birch said. “The cornerstone of this policy from 1989 forward has been that the players have understood, appreciated, and bought in to what we’re trying to do. At the end of the day, it’s going to have to be negotiated.”

The problem is that, in the 21 months since the labor deal was signed, little if any negotiation has occurred regarding HGH testing. From the league’s perspective, it’s unclear precisely what the NFLPA wants in return for a commitment to submit to HGH testing.

“A year ago I would say one thing, three months ago I would say another thing, right now I’ll tell you I have no idea,” Birch said.

So we asked the NFLPA what the players want at the present time.

“They will never say it publicly, but they have admitted in their correspondence
with us that the recent ruling by the Court of Arbitration for Sport poses
legitimate problems,” NFLPA spokesman George Atallah told PFT via email, referring to an arbitration ruling that supposedly raises questions regarding the legitimacy and reliability of HGH testing. “We have maintained from the start that a test will be agreed to when there is transparency and reliability of the test and a fair due process to match. We are working to achieve that.”

Some think the NFLPA wants even more, using HGH testing as leverage to secure, for example, outside arbitration on all player discipline issues, and other concessions. Regardless, HGH testing won’t happen until the players decide to embrace HGH testing. The NFLPA ultimately needs to secure buy-in from the players. In turn, the NFL ultimately needs to give the NFLPA enough bells and whistles to allow that to happen.

In theory, the impasse could continue until the current labor deal expires, in 2021. As a practical matter, the players could get more serious about embracing HGH testing if Congress ever does anything more than huff and puff about holding hearings and questioning players about HGH testing, HGH use, and the ways in which players get it.

If that happens, everyone could end up with mud on their shoes. Once players and trainers and doctors and others are placed under oath before Congress, the NFL and the NFLPA lose all control over the final outcome.

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