Let's look at an article on Robert Clapp, perhaps the world's best looking
enhanced grandfather. It is taken from this site, and originally published
in the Arizona Republic. My comments indented and italicized.
Ill effects can't be proven, unrepentant 40-year user says
Kent Somers
The Arizona Republic
Feb. 27, 2005
Before the interview starts, Robert Clapp has a few things to get
off his chest, which ripples underneath a T-shirt hanging by two thin straps.
He's 69, he says, and an anarchist and an atheist. He's done time in prison. He believes in "body sovereignty," which he defines as a person's right to control his body. That includes ingesting anabolic steroids, which Clapp says he has used, safely, for more than 40 years.
OK, 'body sovereignty' is fine. But don't use your insurance coverage to pay for the doctor/hospital bills that you incur as a result of your steroid use. That money comes from our pooled money. If you feel you have 'body sovereignty' then have 'pay as you go' too.
He checks off a list of notes. It's rare, he says, that the
"mainstream media" listens to him, and Clapp doesn't want to overlook
anything.
He lays bare his past so people can get past the messenger and
concentrate on his message: Nearly everything the public has been told about
anabolic steroids is a lie.
A lie? Not really a lie. Perhaps over-stated risks. And, by the way, who has THE TRUTH?
Clapp believes, fervently, in their benefits. In the early 1990s he spent more than two years in federal prison for smuggling, selling and possessing them. That didn't shut him up. The government and medical community are lying, he said, when they say anabolic steroids are dangerous.
Here is this lying again. And again, I wanna know who has THE TRUTH?
For proof, he points to himself. He'll turn 70 this summer, yet
his upper body is still shaped like a "V," and it's so taut that you
could strike a match on it. Clapp says he's suffered none of the side effects
that doctors say come with use.
"I'm supposed to be dead," he says. "At least I
should be impotent and bald."
He is neither, he says.
Well, there is the complete story now. This one guy isn't impotent or bald SO THE MEDICAL PROFESSION IS LYING ABOUT STEROIDS. I love this logic. Good lord are our schools failing this badly in education about scientific method?
A retired teacher, Clapp lives in Phoenix and works part time as a personal trainer. He's the father of three, all conceived while he took anabolic steroids.
Damn. Steroids penetrate to the DNA in the nucleus of the cell. I sure would not want these things to be on-board when I conceive a child. God knows what might happen. We see tons of problems with parents who used alcohol, smoked, or other drugs. Isure would not want steroids in there too.
There are thousands of others like him, Clapp says, guys in their
60s and 70s who have used steroids for years. This is what galls him. All he
hears and reads in the media are horror stories associated with steroids.
Because his point of view is never represented, he has taken up
the crusade. He's written a 16-page "White Paper" outlining his
position and mailed it to numerous media outlets. There is no proof, he says,
that the prolonged, proper use of anabolic steroids causes cancer, liver
damage, impotence, psychological imbalances or any of the other side effects
commonly associated with the drugs.
All science has to do, he says, is study men like himself.
Guys like Clapp don't understand science. They don't understand that although valuable, single case studies are certainly not the gold standard when it comes to pharmacological studies. It is about risk. Not everyone shares the same risk based on genetics, and environmental exposure. And a case of one doesn't prove anything. What is needed is long term double blind placebo controlled studies. And that isn't going to happen with steroidsd soon. Thus some other substitute study needs to be done. Serious scientists will admit that the data isn't in, that is true. However, a lack of evidence doesn't indicate safety.
"When they talk about what's going to happen to these guys
now in their 30s and 40s when they get into their 50s and 60s, the answer is
there for them," Clapp says. "If they pull their heads out of the
ground and look, they'll find us."
There are few, if any, long-term studies of the effects anabolic
steroids have on the body, but that doesn't mean they are safe, said Dr. Linn
Goldberg, a professor of medicine at Oregon Health & Science University.
Studying the long-term effects of steroids is tricky. Many substances are
illegal, and people have taken a variety of drugs in different doses.
|
But there are plenty of studies, Goldberg says, that show anabolic
steroids have numerous negative effects. And what about Clapp, who is nearing
70 and seemingly in perfect health?
"I have patients who have smoked all their lives, too, and
they don't have cancer or emphysema," Goldberg says. "I have other
patients who smoked all their lives and gotten emphysema and cancer, and
they're dead. Maybe he (Clapp) has been on it for a long time with no problems.
That would not make me think, 'Oh, these things are safe.' "
Clapp began taking steroids before hardly anyone knew what they
were. He was a skinny kid who started lifting weights as a teenager. His body
changed a bit, but nothing like it did when he started taking steroids.
Clapp was introduced to them in the early '60s, he says, while
working out in a weight room in the basement of the downtown Phoenix YMCA. A
guy who looked like Adonis came in from California selling "super vitamins"
in little blue bottles, 100 pills for $3.50.
Clapp bought some and was thrilled with the result. Within six
months, he had gained more than 30 pounds while his waist size decreased an
inch.
Over the years, he became convinced of what he sees are the benefit
and safety of anabolic steroids.
In 1991, after he was arrested, he told a reporter that he had
saved enough anabolic steroids to give to his three grandsons.
All three excelled at football. The middle grandson, Nick Clapp,
is a linebacker at Arizona State. And the youngest, Matt Clapp, was one of
Arizona's best players last season at Paradise Valley High School and has
signed a letter of intent with Oklahoma.
Today, their grandfather says he was just trying to provoke
prosecutors with his statement about saving steroids. He advised his grandsons
not to take steroids, he says, because he didn't think they were prepared to
face the scrutiny that he has received.
However, Matt Clapp was among the first signers to a petition in
support of his grandfather's viewpoint on bodily sovereignty.
It also accuses the media of lying about anabolic steroids. The
petition was sent to the media with Robert Clapp's White Paper.
Attempts to reach Matt Clapp for comment were unsuccessful. The
anabolic steroids issue, Robert Clapp says, obscures a more important message:
People should be free to make decisions about their bodies.
"It's a stupid issue, how someone gets a bigger bicep," he says. "In this world filled with problems, it shouldn't be on anyone's agenda."
Fair enough on that point. His opinion.
you are a fucking retard with italic bullshit.
Posted by: nick | 02/19/2010 at 17:06
Robert Clapp knows steroids, and has suffered the repercussions of his beliefs in their health benefits. Who are you going to belive- someone who has studied them and used them or some politician with an agenda? Doctors will tell you that the health benefits outweigh the side effects. The side effects have been grossly exaggerated. The media will publish any kind of story against steroids without any facts at all. Watch the movie bigger faster stronger. Learn the truth. Think for yourself and make your own decisions based on facts.
Posted by: the truth about steroids | 08/08/2010 at 10:35
The media will publish any kind of story against steroids without any facts at all. Watch the movie bigger faster stronger. Learn the truth. Think for yourself and make your own decisions based on facts.
Posted by: chanel 2.55 | 11/02/2010 at 02:10
I just stopped in to check out this webpag.This is really my very first time here , great looking blog.
Posted by: christian louboutin online | 05/19/2012 at 10:58