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Annotated Bibliography

Should performance enhancing drugs be legal?

Alison Merritt
Professor Malcolm Campbell
English 1103
March 5th, 2015

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Annotated Bibliography
Angell, Peter, Neil Chester, Danny Green, John Somauroo, Greg Whyte, and Keith George.
"Anabolic Steroids and Cardiovascular Risk." Sports Medicine. 42.2 (2012): 119-134.
Web.
The point of this scholarly journal article is to discuss the relationship between anabolic
steroids and cardiovascular diseases as well as other cardiovascular related health
problems. The author states that these illnesses are more prevalent among people that use
these performance enhancing drugs over those who dont. There is also a rise in the
amount of people who are taking these drugs. According to the article, not only are
professional athletes and bodybuilders taking anabolic steroids, but the use has spread to
professionals working in emergency services, casual fitness enthusiasts, and men and
women participating in sports at a lower level. Included in this article was a list of case
study events where cardiovascular risk factors were present among anabolic steroid users.
Some of these events included stoke, sudden death, heat failure, etc. The author then goes
on to discuss other studies and statistics related to cardiovascular illnesses that could be
the result of using anabolic steroids. I would say that this is a reliable source due to the
fact that it is a peer-reviewed scholarly journal article found in the UNCC library
database. One of the authors is a very accomplished professor named Daniel Green, who
is also a human integrative biologist and cardiovascular exercise physiologist. His
research focuses on the prevention of cardiovascular disease. This article contained
credible information, however the view point seemed to change quite a bit. For example,
many illnesses and negative effects of steroids were talked about, but then I also read a
lot about how other factors such as hypertension, diabetes, obesity and a family history of

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premature coronary disease can also be the cause of these health issues. The article even
stated The current data regarding the effects of AS use/abuse on cardiovascular health is
largely contradictory and inconclusive. Some of the information I got from source was
useful, but a lot of the charts and language were hard to understand. I feel like too many
topics were discussed making it a little difficult to comprehend. I was able to get a better
understanding of some of the health risks of using anabolic steroids, however I will most
likely not be using this article as a source when continuing my research on this topic.
Is There a Double-standard over Performance-enhancing Drugs in Sports? Perf. Jeff Passan.
Fox News. Fox News, 20 Dec. 2013. Web. 6 Mar. 2015.
Yahoo Sports MLB Columnist Jeff Passan was interviewed in this news clip by Fox
News. He shares his opinion on what he thinks about performance enhancing drugs and
the athletes that use them. During this interview, he says that he will be voting for Barry
Bonds for the Baseball Hall of Fame and that he only got caught because he had a bad
drug dealer. Passan is not against performing enhancing drugs and does not believe that
athletes such as Barry Bonds and Roger Clemons should be penalized and kept out of the
Hall of Fame because they got caught and the other athletes using steroids didnt. It was
also stated during this clip that many people are more against baseball players using
performance enhancing drugs than the football players in the NFL. Jeff Passans response
to this is that the NFL is bullet proof. They have a massive injury/concussion problem,
but people continue to watch it. According to Passan, there is a big gray area when it
comes to what okay and what isnt because fans want to see the players play to the best of
their ability. Fox News is known to be somewhat biased to favor the conservative view.
This news clip was based solely on the opinion of a sports columnist and not meant to be

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factual. It did provide me some interesting points that have allowed me to ask more
questions about performance enhancing drugs and who supports or does not support the
use of these drugs. This was useful due to the fact that I have more information that I
want to research, but I will most likely not be referencing this particular clip in my later
research.
LeMouse, Mack. "Positive Effects of Steroids." Health Guidance. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Mar. 2015.
This article found on a Healthguidance.org contains a lot of information about what
anabolic steroids do, and the pros and cons of using them. The author mentions some of
the common negative health risks of using these drugs, but unlike most of the other
articles I have read, he also lists many of the positive effects of using them. As
testosterone is the male hormone, it can help with many traits generally associated with
maleness. This may be useful for someone who feels they are overly feminine, feels
that their voice is small and week, or are overly baby faced. Steroids in the correct dosage
can prevent the feel of embarrassment and social withdrawal. I did additional research
and found that the majority of the information in this article is accurate. I have done
research on this website before and have found it to be reliable, however I could not find
much information about the author of this particular article. He was slightly opinionated,
but I like how I was able to get information from the other perspective. There are not very
many articles about the positive effects of steroids. This is very useful and I learned a lot
of new information that is helpful to my research. One important piece of information I
took from this is that that the steroids prescribed by doctors for illnesses (corticoids) are
separate and distinct from anabolic steroids and do not share the same benefits. This
source was definitely a helpful source to use for my research.

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Staller-Conrad, Jessica. "Athletes Look For Doping Edge, Despite Tests And Risks." NPR. NPR,
17 July 2012. Web. 5 Mar. 2015.
This article from npr.org discussed what exactly performance enhancing drugs are, what
they do, and some of the risks people are taking by using these drugs to help their
performance. The author says the steroids give the body a boost. They come from the male
sex hormone testosterone and work by flooding the body with a pumped-up variation on
testosterone's natural muscle-building potential. Basically, they allow you to gain big muscle
fast. But not only athletes participating in power sports like weightlifting are taking them.
Athletes such as baseball players and cyclists are taking them too. There is evidence that
performance enhancing drugs also allow for more intense workouts. According to the article,
the risks outweigh the benefits and many steroid-users are not aware of all of these risks.

The author also discusses a new synthetic form of performance enhancing drugs called
HGH, which also builds more muscle, but does not necessarily make you stronger. Some
of the statistics mentioned in this article were shocking, like the number of athletes that
were to participate in the 2012 Olympics who were going to be tested. Apparently only
about half of the participants would be tested for performance enhancing drugs, leaving at
least 5,000 unaccounted for. NPR is a reliable well-known news source. I also feel that it
is fair and unbiased when reporting information. Jessica Stoller-Conrad, the author of this
article also quoted from credible sources, such as Dr. Shalender Bhasin, a professor at
Boston University School of Medicine. The information was clear and easy to
understand. I thought this news article was useful in many ways. After reading this, I am
more interested in the testing of performance enhancing drugs among professional
athletes, including those in the Olympics. I want to do more research on what precautions

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have been put into place since this article was published in 2012 regarding drug testing.
This was a great source and I will be referencing it in further research.