Bosworth Case Indicates Efficiency of Steroid Detection, Two Experts Say

Athletes who take muscle-building anabolic steroids not only risk their health from side effects in areas such as the liver and heart but also risk detection by tests that can spot steroid use months after it stops, two experts said Friday in discussing the Brian Bosworth case.

The delayed detection means that the Orange Bowl suspension of Bosworth for steroid use might make other athletes think twice about taking steroids, even if their sport does not now test for them, said one expert, Dr. Tony Daly, a Los Angeles physician who was medical director of the 1984 Summer Olympics.

Dr. Bob Goldman, chairman of the Amateur Athletic Union’s sports medicine committee, said that with sophisticated detection tests, “we can go back eight months or more now.”

Bosworth, the star Oklahoma linebacker, was barred from the Orange Bowl game against Arkansas on New Year’s Day game because traces of anabolic steroids were found in his system. He said he had not taken steroids since mid-March.

“It’s very possible he might have not taken anything since last March” if he had injected steroids in high enough doses, said Goldman, director of the high-tech fitness laboratory at the Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine.

However, Daly called it “possible but highly unlikely” that steroids would have remained in Bosworth’s system that long.

Daly said steroids are stored in body fat and apparently can be released by stress. So an athlete can test negative one day and positive two weeks later, even without additional steroid use.