Performance Enhancing Drugs (PED’s)
This issues analysis is about the controversy involved with using Performance Enhancing Drugs in sport and why the use of performance enhancing drugs is banned.
Introduction
Despite the risk of getting caught and disqualified, having health defects or dying, many people in the sporting community still decide to use Performance Enhancing Drugs. The use of PED’s by athletes has been acknowledged as a problem since around the 1960’s. But, the issue has gained quite a reputation in the last 10 years as a result of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative investigation (BALCO) and the Mitchell investigation into drugs in professional baseball (Drug Use in Sports, 2011). BALCO was a California lab suspected of selling…show more content… Performance Enhancing Drugs are able to considerably alter the human body and biological functions. Including the ability to considerably improve athletic performance in certain instances. However, these drugs can be extremely dangerous and in some situations, fatal. The negative effects these drugs can have on one’s body make it crucial as to why no athlete should consider using PED’s for a so-called ‘advantage’. (USADA, 2014)
Side effects of PED use are:
Prominent breasts, baldness, shrunken testicles, infertility and impotence in men.
While women may experience a deeper voice, an enlarged clitoris, increased body hair, baldness, and infrequent or absent periods. (Mayo Clinic Staff, 2012)
Also, both men and women can experience liver irregularities and tumors, drug dependence, aggressive behaviour, heart problems, bad acne, high blood pressure (hypertension) and prostate gland enlargement. (Mayo Clinic Staff, 2012)
Most side effects are reversible if the user stops taking the drugs, but some can be permanent, such as voice deepening in women. (National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIH),…show more content… These drugs can provide significant health benefits if they are used according to the direction prescribed by doctors. For example, steroids can help reduce inflammation resulting from allergies or sickness. But, this only applies in some situations (Health Researching Funding, 2014).
Other points for athletes using PEDs are: gaining an advantage over rivals, a better chance of winning if they use PEDs and having more confidence their body’s abilities.
Points against using P.E.D’s:
The exact health risk of PEDs varies from person to person and the type of drugs being regularly used or abused. For example, a teenager may stop growing if he or she used steroids at a young age. Adults may experience growth of tumors, baldness or aggressive behaviour if they are constantly using PEDs. Furthermore, the severity of health risks associated with PEDS varies depending on the amount of use and its concentration. Regular use of PEDS results in addiction or drug dependence and the risks of hepatitis or other infectious diseases are greater for people using PEDs through needles (Health Researching Funding,
