Carolina Panthers players accused of steroid use. « Expertise's Politics and Sports Blog

Tuesday, March 29, 2005

Carolina Panthers players accused of steroid use.

Just when I thought we got over the hurdle with the Rae Carruth murder, now we have this happen:

Carolina Panthers Todd Sauerbrun and Jeff Mitchell and former player Todd Steussie had steroid prescriptions filled by a West Columbia, S.C., doctor now under investigation by federal authorities, according to a ``60 Minutes Wednesday'' report.

In a release Tuesday, the CBS News show said the players all had prescriptions for testosterone cream filled within two weeks of the Panthers' appearance in the 2004 Super Bowl.

According to CBS News, they'd been getting prescriptions filled from Dr. James Shortt for over a span of eight months, which pretty much since the beginning of training camp. Sauerbrun - a punter, of all players - was also injecting the steroid Stanozolol as well as using the testosterone cream.

It's real simple; John Fox should cut all three. In fact, they should have been cut yesterday. It's one thing to simply come up positive, but there's evidence that these guys constantly did steroids throughout the year. The Panthers organization needs to cut their losses with these guys immediately.

And don't think those guys will be the only ones busted:

The Panthers have been cooperating with a federal subpoena that sought contact information for several players as part of the probe of Shortt.
Hurney has stressed that none of the team's players have tested positive for steroids.
According to a report last month in The State of Columbia, Shortt has been under investigation since May.
In September, authorities raided Shortt's Health Dimensions office and Congaree Pharmacy near the Columbia Metropolitan Airport. State and federal agents seized computer data, at least 21 boxes of patient and medical records and 256 audio cassettes, the paper reported.
The ``60 Minutes Wednesday'' report also includes an interview with a former employee of Shortt, Mignon Simpson, who says she personally shipped human growth hormone to NFL players and that possibly a half-dozen players received hGH from Shortt.
There is no reliable test for hGH.

Also, Todd Steussie is now an offensive lineman for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Could it be that he send some of those guys to South Carolina to go roid shopping?

More on this James Shortt guy. Shortt is an orthopedic doctor outside of Columbia, South Carolina. To put it plainly, he's a quack. And a very dangerous quack at that. CBS News found out about the Panthers players due to an expose' on Shortt for injecting peroxide into his patients as an alternative treatment. Before this federal investigation on steroid trafficking, as autopsies of two of his patients pointed to peroxide poisoning. One patient took the trip from Minnesota to South Carolina to take the peroxide injections to treat multiple sclerosis. Less than a week after the first treatment (she went twice), she was dead.

Another patient's tale was even worse. Shortt told a patient that he had Lyme Disease, and told him there was a risk that he could pass it on to his wife through sexual contact (which was a lie). This couple paid Shortt over $26,000 over eight months to treat him with the peroxide injections and also gave him testosterone cream at the same time another doctor was giving him medicine to lower his testosterone levels. All of it was in vain because doctors tested him before he died and neither him or his wife had Lyme disease.

The SC medical board recommended to a state judge that his medical license be revoked. However, the judge ruled against the state board due to procedural violations, as he wasn't given a full hearing in front of them. The incompetence of the SC judicial system allowed him to continue to practice medicine to this day.

CBS did the Shortt story in January, so I'm almost sure that they got his patient list and knew about the Panthers players last year. Why didn't they come out with this earlier? Were they waiting for sweeps?

A lot of people call this "Balco East". But the difference is that these guys weren't taking steroids that could beat the drug tests, or from all accounts they shouldn't. Now questions will arise about how effective these NFL drug tests are. On the surface, it doesn't look like it is. Suddenly, the NFL is starting to look like the old ESPN drama "Playmakers".

Posted at 11:13 pm by Expertise


	Jeff March 30, 2005 12:13 AM PST The attorneys on both sides in the med-mal case involving the H2O2 injections agreed not to discuss the names of patients of Shortt's that they obtained from the pharmacy but instead only mentioned the scripts.