Major league pitcher admits to use of hGH

Paul Byrd, a major league pitcher for the Cleveland Indians, recently admitted to the public of his past, extensive use of human growth hormone, hGH. To date, eleven major league baseball players have been found to have used hGH, including Byrd. Byrd reportedly spent $24,850 on more than 1,000 vials of hGH and many syringes, consuming the drug from August 2002 through January 2005. Byrd tells the public that his use of hGH was strictly medical, as he has had a growth-hormone deficiency. In spring of 2007, doctors found a brain tumor on Byrd’s pituitary gland, which could have relevance to why, in the past, he had a growth hormone deficiency. However, his purchase of 1,000 vials of hGH equates him to of having injected one vial a day during the time he claims to have used the drug. Byrd claims that he did no wrong because the hGH he received was through prescription. He leaves out that he received the prescriptions for hGH from a Florida anti-aging facility and a dentist, whose license was suspended in 2003 for writing illicit prescriptions, not involving the prescriptions he gave to Byrd. Byrd also claims his innocence by stating that he is a devout Christian and that God has control of his life.

Unknown Terms: pituitary gland

· The pituitary gland is located at the base of the brain and secretes hormones that induce growth in humans.

I think it’s clear that Byrd had more than one intention when he used the hGH. He may have had a growth hormone deficiency, but I think that injecting a vial of growth hormone each day is excessive. Also the places that he received his “legal” prescriptions seem sketchy, the Florida anti-aging facility sounds like a day spa and the dentist who prescribed him additional hGH has had his license revoked for writing prescriptions not medically needed for his patients, which did not involve the prescription the dentist wrote for Byrd.

Bob Dutton. Knight Ridder Tribune Business News. Washington: Oct 22, 2007.