Ethics

Brain Versus Brawn in the Enhancement Debate (Reiner)

By Adam Kolber

Dr. Peter Reiner at UBC writes in to the Neuroethics & Law Blog with the following interesting observations:

The enhancement debate in professional and amateur athletics has primarily focused on the use of performance enhancing drugs, in particular anabolic steroids, growth hormone, and erythropoetin. As the New York Times reports, at a meeting of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform earlier this week, Representative John F. Tierney appears to have changed the focus to psychostimulants when he asked a pointed question about the number of professional baseball players that have recently been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder: 103 players had the diagnosis this past season whereas only 28 suffered the malady in 2006. Remarkably, representatives of major league baseball including commissioner Bud Selig were caught off-guard by the question, and have been scrambling to provide explanations ever since.

The concern rests on the fact that a diagnosis of ADD allows professional baseball players to get prescriptions for and use psychostimulants such as Ritalin and Adderall, potentially enhancing their performance via increased concentration rather than brute strength.  It is hardly surprising that players might want to get some help focusing their attention when they are trying to hit a ball traveling 90 mph in a cavernous room filled with tens of thousands of screaming fans.  The pithy quote came from Dr. Allan Lans, psychiatrist for the Mets from 1985 ? 2003.

?The No. 1 drug use of sports is really amphetamines,? he said. ?Amphetamines are the real performance-enhancing drugs that people should always have been worried about.?

In the blink of an eye, neuroethics moves to center stage in the enhancement debate in sport.

Full post as published by Neuroethics and Law on January 23, 2008 (boomark / email).