Performance
Enhancing Drugs in Sports
Articles
"Next
Generation Cheating" Zorpette, Glenn. Current Issues in
Biology.
Scientific American, Inc. September 2004. 64-75.
This article details the abuse of
performance enhancing drugs. It
focuses on the newer drugs that are harder to detect. Most of
these
drugs have yet to be identified, so there is not a test for them
yet.
The article also explains the use of testosterone as a muscle
builder
and it details blood doping, what it is and how it is abused.
Scientists are concerned that molecular advances are going to make
newer drugs that are easier to use and harder to detect. This
article
is
followed by a short quiz and critical thinking questions.
Articles
in
"Taking Sides"
"Should
Performance-Enhancing Drugs Be
Banned from Sports?" Levine,
Carol. Taking
Sides:
Bioethical Issues, eleventh
edition.
Issue Summary:
- YES: Social psychologist Thomas H. Murray contends that
performance-enhancing drugs affect the individual athlete's
integrity
because using banned substances is a dishonest behavior and
corrupts a
victory. (from "Drugs, Sports, and Ethics", Project Syndicate, July
2004 ).
- NO: Philosopher Julian Savulescu and research colleagues
Bennett
Foddy
and Megan Clayton argue that legalizing drugs in sport may be
fairer
and safer than banning them. (from
"Why We Should Allow Performance Enhancing Drugs in
Sport", British
Journal of Sports Medicine, December 2004).