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Senate Arrogance

November 9, 2005 07:58 AM

Senators McCain and Bunning, respectively, the would-be President and the former big league pitcher, have toned down their bill mandating steroid testing in professional sports and expect to get it through the Senate soon, according to the AP (they probably got this right, but failed to note any opposition to the bill of which there must be some).

The evidence before the Senate consists mainly of the farcical hearings titled "Restoring Faith in America's Pastime." The opening statements made by Bunning and the committee chair are empty repetitions of rumor and innuendo. There isn't a shred of evidence that steroids have had any effect on major league home run hitting in the Hearings. In fact, there has been no change and I document that evidence in my paper on home run hitting which you can read under the research link at the top of my page.

If this thin gruel of opinion, rumor, and outright ignorance of the statistics of home run hitting is a sufficient basis for the bill to go through, then we can only hope the courts will overturn this flawed bill. And, we have a view of the junk legislation based on junk science that suffices for a grandstanding Senate. McCain has lost any chance that I would ever vote for him both on the serious nature of this flawed legislation and on grounds of his clear disregard for personal freedom. And just plain arrogance.

Any one who has ever played baseball at a high level has had steroid injections to combat injury and inflammation. Are players to be denied this effective treatment in order to protect their careers? Are they not to take supplements that may contain trace amounts of steroids or their precursors? Many if not most protein and other legal anabolic supplements contain trace amounts of steroids or their precursors.

And what about the false readings? We don't know the false positive rate of the tests. Nor is there much evidence about the use of illegal steroids. Both these rates must be known before we can judge what it means for a player to test positive. Nor do we know how long legal and necessary steroid injections may affect the test results.

To illustrate with a simple, but constructed example. Suppose that 5 percent of players take illegal steroids and that the test has a false positive rate of 10 percent. Take 100 players that have been tested. Then 5 should show positive because they are taking illegal steroids and 10 should show positive even if they are not using them. Ignoring overlap of the test error and actual use, 15 would show positive. What is the probability that someone testing positive is actually taking illegal steroids? It is 5 out of 15, or just .33.

No body would accept these odds in invoking the death penalty against someone. Would you want to be on death row because there is a 33 percent chance that you did the crime? Nor should we accept them in invoking what is almost a death penalty to a player's career by banning their play for a year and stigmatizing them forever. The interests of the players are not protected in this bill. Nor are the interests of the fans.

The Senate is not protecting baseball, they are stigmatizing it and promoting their own interests against the players and the fans. And they are riding roughshod over the individual rights and freedoms of the players. Throw the bums out.

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Comments

Posted by: Flower Online [TypeKey Profile Page] at September 11, 2006 2:18 PM

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