The Tour de France is taking place this month. (I guess Tour de France and Nearby Countries is too long a title for this event.) I am a pretty casual fan when it comes to cycling, but I do try to keep track of what occurs during the Tour de France. I even watch some of it. It's amazing to me to see such singular focus for hours. Never stopping even to eat or drink. Able to captivate in spite of the somewhat monotonous task at hand. But … enough about the announcers. The cyclists themselves are quite remarkable.
Unfortunately, despite the natural abilities of the participants, this race always seems to center on the debate about performance enhancing drugs (PEDs).
I don't think there is a champion of this race in recent decades who has not been found guilty of using, or been suspected of using, PEDs. I've become somewhat weary of these discussions. The debate seems to revolve around the fact that these drugs provide an unfair advantage to the athletes who use them and therefore the integrity of the sport has been violated. Rules have been broken. Records have fallen illegally. I'm still confused about whether it's illegal to use the drugs or provide them, and about which is the bigger wrong. It does seem that using PEDs is a greater breach of the rules than, say, corking your bat (Sammy Sosa), stealing signals (New England Patriots), or improving your lie (Sam in my Saturday foursome).
Maybe it's time to legalize PEDs? Of all the entertainment options we have, watching professional sports is huge in our society. Why do we care how our athlete entertainers enhance themselves? Apparently they themselves don't care. Or care about themselves. Lyle Alzado's plea years ago, while he was dying of a brain tumor that he felt was due to his 30 years of steroid use, certainly has had little effect on a professional or top amateur athlete's desire to stop at nothing to win and gain fame and fortune.
I know that as a health care provider, I should be more concerned about the health implications of using PEDs. I am concerned—but why worry about athletes when society as a whole seems to have a death wish? If we don't have a death wish, why is obesity such a huge and growing problem, with its associated conditions of heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, joint disorders, and some cancers? Then there are the lung, heart, and vascular diseases, and cancers, that result from the decision to smoke. And let's not forget the liver, heart, brain, and social damage caused by excess consumption of alcohol.
I've always believed that sports are good preparation for life, as sport can mimic life. An athlete's use of PEDs is a conscious decision, no different from choosing to eat the whole bag of chips or to light up another cigarette. There are consequences. We should observe how the debate over PEDs goes, and we can hope that sport finds a way to rein in the use of these agents. If they do, it just may help us find a better strategy for dealing with the many self-inflicted health problems in our society. We need more than legislation. We need a change in what we believe is acceptable behavior.
Steve Wilson practices in cardiothoracic surgery at Peninsula Regional Medical Center, Salisbury, Maryland.