essay

Ms. Stringer

English 1302

20 April 2017

Annotated Bibliography

“35 Surprising Doping in Sports Statistics.” healthresearchfunding.org, 4 November 2014, http://healthresearchfunding.org/35-surprising-doping-sports-statistics/

This article presents the argument that professional athletes are under an immense amount of pressure to succeed, and therefore feel that they need to use doping substances to enhance their abilities. However, the interesting perspective that this article gives is how athletes try to use doping substances to fix all their problems, but ironically doping doesn’t fix anything. It can either enhance one’s abilities or do nothing at all. The article helps prove the claim that the other that doping is not a solution to one’s performance problems, in fact doping can make one’s performance worse instead of better. This article shows that doping can not only hurt one’s career, but it can hurt the very performance that they are trying to improve, which is an interesting voice in this conversation.

Baron, David A., Martin, David M., and Samir Abol Magd. “Doping in sports and its spread to at risk populations: an international review.” NCBI, June 2007, ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/

Baron, Martin, and Magd discuss the fact that the media’s infatuation with being famous, having money, and winning sports titles has incidentally created a market for doping. The article puts forth the idea that young adults see their favorite professional athletes using performance enhancing drugs and they have no consequences; they still play professional sports, they still win championships, and they still obtain immense amounts of money. Therefore, this helps perpetuate the idea that teenagers believe that they can use performance enhancing drugs because their icons do it and get away with it. The author’s point of view is interesting because they examine how performance enhancing drugs affect teenagers and young adults who watch their favorite sports athletes use these drugs. This perspective is essential in understanding the many problems that doping causes.

Chwang, Eric. "Why Athletic Doping Should Be Banned." Journal of Applied Philosophy, vol. 29, no. 1, Feb. 2012, pp. 33-49. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1111/j.1468-5930.2011.00547. x.

Chwang provides that professional sports institutions “shouldn’t allow their athletes to take performance enhancing drugs” (39). Most athletes who take performance enhancing drugs do it to get an advantage over their competition. Therefore the article clearly and adamantly argues that the use of athletic doping should be banned because no one should be allowed to use drugs to get an advantage in sports, people should rely on their own abilities and work hard to become great athletes. The article explains that any and all forms of athletic doping should be banned, and having this stark perspective is an important voice to have when discussing the problems with doping.

Denham, Bryan E. “Performance-Enhancing Drug Use in Amateur and Professional Sports: Separating the Realities from the Ramblings” Culture, Sport, Society, vol. 3, no. 2, Summer2000, p. 56. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx? direct=true&db=a9h&AN=6903173&site=ehost-live.

Denham’s article is revealing in that it proves that trainers and coaches are among the first to tell athletes to use steroids instead of physicians. Thus, as Denham posits, most athletes aren’t informed of the side effects of their doping because they receive the steroids from people who have no knowledge of the drug. This helps prove how doping needs to be discussed more so that it can be disbanded once and for all. Denham examines how steroids are used among athletes without knowledge of how the side effects that may or may not affect them. This perspective is interesting because many people assume that athletes know exactly what they are doing when they take performance enhancing drugs, when sometimes they are victims themselves. This all helps prove that doping is a wide spread problem that affects young people, athletes, and sports as a whole.

“Effects of Performance-Enhancing Drugs.” usada.org, 2017, https://www.usada.org/substances/effects-of-performance-enhancing-drugs/

This article discusses that there are many different types of performance enhancing drugs or PEDs. One PED an anabolic steroid has gender specific side effects and side effects that can affect anyone. Anabolic steroids can severely damage one’s body or even cause death and should never be taken for any reason. The USADA or United States Anti-Doping Agency wrote this article to inform people about the effects of PEDs and to help people understand that PEDs are very dangerous and should never be used. Thus, it is important to have a purely scientific, factual, and statistical source to help break down the medical problems with these drugs.

Gandert, Daniel and Fabian Ronisky. "American Professional Sports Is a Doper's Paradise: It's Time We Make a Change." North Dakota Law Review, vol. 86, no. 4, Dec. 2010, pp. 813-844. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx? direct=true&db=a9h&AN=74205157&site=ehost-live.

Gandert and Ronisky discuss the problems with doping in professional sports regarding the loopholes and conflicts with regulating performance enhancing drugs. The article examines that the National Football League, or NFL, have the best anti-doping regime compared to the National Basketball League, or NBA, and Major League Baseball, or MLB, but America still falls short from addressing doping. Doping needs to be banned in all sports; if they punished athletes severely for using performance enhancing drugs then they could tremendously cut down doping. This article provides that the approach toward anti-doping needs to be changed to clean up American sports. This article is an important adage to the conversation because it provides both the proof that doping is an extensive systematic issue in sports, but also provides an optimistic plan in how doping can eventually be eradicated in professional sports.

Gottlieb, Bryan. "Avoiding Contractual Liability to Baseball Players Who Have Used Performance Enhancing Drugs: Can We Knock It out of the Park?" Albany Law Review, vol. 77, no. 2, Apr. 2014, pp. 615-637. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx? direct=true&db=a9h&AN=96160675&site=ehost-live.

Gottlieb mentions that Major League Baseball doesn’t seem to care about the problem they have with players taking PEDs. MLB has little punishment for players caught using performance enhancing drugs other than a mild suspension. Gottlieb explains that if the MLB wants to stop their players from taking PEDs then they need to increase the punishment for PED usage. The MLB needs to stop the spread of PED usage by not only suspending players from all baseball activities but also taking that players guaranteed money. This article adamantly argues that players do not deserve to be paid to cheat by using performance enhancing drugs. This article provides an argument that MLB needs to be stricter on their athletes and put an end to PED usage altogether. This perspective is interesting because it shows how some people are completely fed up with doping and want a harsher punishment system to be put in place.

Kayser, Bengt, Mauron, Alexandre, and Andy Miah. “Current anti-doping policy: a critical appraisal.” bmcmedethics.biomedcentral.com, 29 March 2007, https://bmcmedethics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1472-6939-8-2/open-peer-review

Kayser, Mauron, and Miah emphasize that doping is unfair by stating that “all athletes should compete equally on a ‘level playing field’” yet some athletes perform better because of genetics. All athletes should follow the fair-play concept and abide by the rules of the game. One cannot pick their genetics, proving that genetics could make someone better at sports, but that doesn’t make it ok for people to use drugs in order to perform better. The authors perspective is intriguing because they imply that doping is wrong because it is not fair but also mention that having certain genetics makes sports unequal while “neither is ‘earned’ by the athlete…, genetics is ‘natural’… whereas doping is unacceptable.” This is a unique and different perspective in the discussion on banning doping that makes one think.

“Performance enhancing drugs in sports: fast facts.” taylorhooton.org, 26 May 2015, http://taylorhooton.org/performance-enhancing-drugs-in-sports-fast-facts/

This article is another statistical source that provides evident that anabolic steroids, stimulants, and human growth hormones are all different types of performance enhancing drugs. The article breaks down how each drug effects one’s body in different ways. Some performance enhancing drugs build one’s strength or boost one’s energy, but all performance enhancing drugs are dangerous and can damage one’s health. Performance enhancing drugs can ruin a professional athletes career if they are caught doping. This article provides crucial information about how certain performance enhancing drugs stimulate one’s body and examples of how performance enhancing drugs effected some professional athlete’s lives and careers. Again it is important to have factual sources in this conversation because it helps prove the medical and professional consequences of using PEDs. This article pairs nicely with the USDAA article.

Tynes, Jarred R. "Performance Enhancing Substances." Journal of Legal Medicine, vol. 27, no. 4, Dec. 2006, pp. 493-509. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/01947640601021113.

Tynes discusses the attempts to stop doping in professional sports by the U.S Congress and the exposure of performance enhancing drugs in Major League Baseball, or MLB. Congress regulates steroids because of the health risks. Major League Baseball has not been very effective in stopping performance enhancing drugs throughout the years. Congress should ban performance enhancing drugs nationwide with possible criminal charges for those who continue to abuse steroids. MLB should ban players for life if they are caught using performance enhancing drugs of any kind. Tynes argues that the MLB must take away any records held by players who have used PEDs because “cheaters” shouldn’t be allowed to hold any kind of record. The article considers that performance enhancing drug use should be stopped at all cost by passing laws in Congress and by improving the policy in the MLB to make it harsher. This article serves as a companion piece to the Gottlieb article.