The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • Page 362

IOS ANGELES TIMES WASHINGTON EDITION TUESDAY, JUNE 23, 992 A9 SPORTS His Steroid Message Failed to Hit Home Despite Alzado's death, NFL focuses on testing rather than dangers of long-term use Comment ON SPORTS Lucky Were Fans Who Saw No. 13 Play Angels' catcher Lance Parrish may be on his way out, but he will leave as a winner. Associated Press accepted the fact that it (steroids) is bad for a person's health. Huizenga discussed that subject a study with us, but a formal proposal was not made. His research is designed to look backward on a long-term basis.

We have accepted the fact that steroids have negative side effects. Our goal is to eliminate the use of steroids, so our research is aimed toward improving testing." "We are working to educate players and with our year-round testing program are fighting the use of steroids. We use videos, brochures, have team meetings. We tell them why we have the testing program, why they shouldn't be using steroids. We do more than 6,000 tests a year.

We believe it is a strong deterrent." Upshaw also believes that the NFL's testing program has been successful in curtailing steroid use, and praises the educational efforts made by the league. But others question how effective education can be without knowledge of what the consequences can or cannot be. Some criticize the league's steroid testing program, claiming it is easy is beat. In 1989 the NFL began testing for steroids. A year later, Commissioner Paul Tagliabue began random year-round testing.

Between 1989, when testing began, and 1991, the league reports the positive tests have been reduced to one case. "It is so simple to beat their drug test I can tell you in a couple of seconds how to do it," said Dr. Mouro DiPasquale, a leading expert in drug testing. "I'm not high on the NFL or the International Olympic Committee's list because I always criticize how simple it is to beat their tests. They test the ratio of testosterone to another hormone called epitestosterone.

If the ratio is above six parts testosterone to one part epitestosterone or more, the test is positive. So all the athlete has to do is inject epitestosterone to narrow the ratio. They can even put epitestosterone on their tongue." In Courson's book, "False Glory," which chronicles his days on steroids and with the Pittsburgh Steelers, he writes that there are even masking agents such as the mail-order product "Defend" that "you can take three hours before an announced test. The announced test is, of course, one of the real flaws in the system," Courson writes. "Since athletes and their coaches have become so sophisticated in manipulating or masking their drug use, you have to be really stupid or really, really unlucky to get caught." Upshaw disagrees.

"It was the players who created the groundswell to get testing started in the first place, because it creates an unfair advantage," Upshaw said. Steroid education can also backfire, Courson and Huizenga say. In Oregon, a study showed that students who learned about the dangers of steroids were more likely to use them than those who didn't. Short-term effects most frequently associated with steroids are, in men, reduced sperm count, enlarged prostate and development of female -type breasts. In women, deepening of voice, increased facial and body hair, pectoral (not breast) enlargement.

"With some of the short-term effects, when steroid use is stopped, the condition reverses itself," Yesalis said. But some doctors are suspicious that steroid use also causes problems with joints and increases the likelihood of some severe medical problems, such as liver disease, cancer and some reproductive and endocrine functions, as well as deep psychological trauma. "There is such a strong case for knowledge in this area; if we can just show that it hurts players orthopedically, that they have more muscles and joint problems, we can slow this thing down. It is crying out to be done. I don't have to do the study, I just want it to be done." Lyle Alzado comforts Raiders sideline worker Larry Callahan before a Raiders game at Los Angeles Coliseum in 1991.

Callahan had given Alzado a small cross. By MARYANN HUDSON TIMES STAFF WRITER Even as his body was lowered into the ground last month in a cemetery in Oregon, the question remained. What really killed Lyle Alzado? This was a guy who used to bench-press 650 pounds. A man whose presence was so big at Gold's Gym in Venice that his sea of admirers nearly parted when he walked in the door. Within a year, these same people saw Alzado reduced to half his size, lose his hair, his voice, his strength his life.

But during that time, he never lost his message. In most bodybuilding circles and locker rooms across the country, Alzado's belief that his brain cancer was caused by longtime use of anabolic steroids and later, the human growth hormone, was met by doubt and condemnation. But to some steroid users and steroid wanna-bes, the message Alzado fervently preached from the time he was diagnosed in April of 1991 until his death, May 14, 1992, has lingered hauntingly. Could steroids and cancer be linked? So little is known about the long-term side effects of steroids, that doctors say they cannot support Alzado's claim. If his message did nothing more, it reconfirmed to some scientists and doctors that research is needed.

It is estimated that there are more than 1-million users nationwide, nearly half of them high school students, according to Dr. Charles Yesalis, a noted expert in the research of long-term health effects. He also estimates there have been 3-million users in the past 50 years. Yesalis, a professor at Penn State, and other experts say no study on the long-term effects of steroids has ever been done, although Yesalis has tried: Three times federal agencies have denied his grant proposals. "Why don't we just start?" Yesalis asks.

"One-half million kids are current or past users. If they choose to use tobacco, alcohol or cocaine they have an informed choice. If they contemplate using steroids they don't have that information." To Dr. Robert Huizenga, former team internist for the Raiders who treated Alzado this past year, the best group to use for a study is former football players. "They have no medals to lose, they are retired, they are not as wacky as bodybuilders, and their medical history has been meticulously charted by trainers," he said.

But Huizenga, too, is frustrated. In 1990 he drafted such a plan for a study that eventually won the unanimous support of the NFL Physicians Society, a group made up of team doctors. Huizenga said he first submitted his proposal in the spring of 1990 to the NFL Players Assn. and the NFL, an organization where estimates of steroid use among its players range from 30 to 75. He then resubmitted the proposal to both groups in January of 1991.

Despite repeated attempts, Huizenga said neither group has responded to him. "The day Lyle died I fired off a letter to Gene Upshaw executive director of the NFLPA) and Dr. John Lombardo the NFL's drug adviser), asking them to do what is best for the country and specifically for former football players," said Huizenga, who left the Raiders in 1990 and is in private practice in Beverly Hills. "The NFL has been a leader in drug testing, they have done way more than any other professional sport in this area. Others have buried their heads in the sand.

But doesn't the league have any more responsibility to the last 30 years of players? Isn't there a moral responsibility to them?" Upshaw said this week that he had never received a proposal from Huizenga, but did receive his latest letter. He said he hasn't formulated a response, but that the NFLPA usually cooperates and supports Doctors: He Diagnosis: Despite rumors to the contrary, physicians say Alzado's symptoms were those of rare brain lymphoma. By MARYANN HUDSON TIMES STAFF WRITER Once the news hit that Lyle Alzado was suffering from inoperable brain cancer, the rumors began. Splattered across tabloids and whispered in gyms was the theory that Alzado really had AIDS; that he hid behind a claim that he was suffering from brain cancer caused by anabolic steroids because it was viewed as a more macho way to die. That's how it went.

In some circles, that's how it still goes. But doctors who treated Alzado are adamant that he died from primary brain lymphoma not AIDS and were prepared to explain the events that they believed fueled the rumors. Alzado had pneumonia in the months before he died, a common condition in any study worthwhile for its players. "It's a problem, and what happened to Lyle people are still talking about, but we can't let the talking die," Upshaw said. "I know the message he was trying to get out.

We are not going to be opposed to any type of study to find out more about steroids." But the NFL said last week it is not interested in supporting Huizenga 's study, financially or otherwise. Greg Aiello, the league's director of communications, said it never received a formal proposal from Huizenga, but said there was discussion of the study. He said the NFL does not believe steroid research would further its aims of stopping the use of steroids. 'Nobody wants to put forth any effort, instead, they curse the darkness and light a candle," said Steve Courson, former player for the Pittsburgh Steelers who was an avid steroid user. "How deadly these drugs are and the long-term effects, we don't know.

We know some of the short-term effects, stunting growth, high blood pressure, oily skin. We do know, however, that mortality is extremely rare. In a study done for the National Institute on Drug Abuse, only five deaths were found to be associated with these drugs." Courson, 36, has dilated cardiomyopathy, an enlarged heart in which muscle fibers are lost over time. He is on a list to receive a heart transplant. But he does not believe that steroids caused his problem he attributes that to his heavy use of alcohol.

What he does believe is that steroids allowed him to train harder and longer, recuperate faster and therefore could have contributed to his heart problem by masking the condition. "But just because we do not know the long-term side effects doesn't mean there aren't any," Courson said. "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." By Mike Downey Lance Parrish, 36 last week, is scheduled this week to lose his job. He is to be put on waivers by the Angels, who intend to use younger catchers. The least I can do is take a few minutes out of my life and a few paragraphs out of this page to thank Lance for everything he has done, behind the plate and behind the scenes.

This is one damn fine guy we have had the pleasure of knowing and watching here. He is an eight-time Ail-Star. All I can really add to that is, for a few seasons there, Lance Parrish was as good a catcher as any I ever saw, and I dare say he belongs on any list of baseball's best 10 catchers ever. I have no notion what is next for Lance. He could give some second-half contender a heck of a pickup.

Or he could make some broadcast network a heck of an analyst. Maybe his body can't take any more baseball. Lord knows, it has taken a beating. Funny thing is, that was the first thing that attracted attention to Lance back when he broke into the big leagues with Detroit his body. Long before men and women wore Gold's Gym tank tops and strutted around looking like baby Terminators, Parrish was the one of the first to introduce bodybuilding to baseball, a sport never famed for its physical specimens.

In his own way, Parrish was as much a ground-breaker as Richard Simmons or Jane Fonda, and probably should have produced his own line of exercise videocassettes. Parrish confounded his manager, Sparky Anderson, who preferred his players muscular, not muscle-bound. It was Anderson's harshly expressed 'Lance Parrish was as good a catcher as any I ever saw, and I dare say he belongs on any list of baseball's best 10 catchers opinion that Parrish was endangering a potentially superlative career actually, I think the way Sparky put it was: "He ain't doin' nobody no good" by lifting so many weights that his limbs lacked flexibility. Parrish made Anderson a bet. Before the 1983 season, Lance put his torso where his mouth was.

He promised to quit lifting weights if Sparky allowed him to play one more full season, conditioning himself. A poor season, Parrish would concede. A good season, Anderson must relent. He hit 27 homers, 42 doubles, three triples, played in 155 games, batted 605 times, had 163 hits and 114 RBIs. True to his word, the manager left the catcher to his own devices.

Anderson said at the time: "I kept wanting him to be the next Johnny Bench. All he wanted to be was the first Lance Parrish." The next season, Detroit won 35 of its first 40 games and, by the time the World Series was over, had won 111. Parrish won a Gold Glove award, a Silver Slugger award, hit 33 homers and caught a Jack Morris no-hitter. But he did more than that. Lance Parrish was then, as he remains now, a presence of dignity and civility in a sometimes crass and unpleasant setting.

After a game, win or lose, he was considerate and polite. I never saw him duck anyone carrying a pencil and scrap of paper, whether that person was seeking an autograph or an interview. If ever I ran a team, Parrish would have been captain. "I love the guy," Morris said. "He's got so much more class than I do at times." Having fun around Lance was easy.

Everybody on the club called him "Big Wheel," because he made the team go 'round. Our photographer and asked him during spring training to pose, shirtless, hugging a baby tiger from a Florida zoo. Lance did. He looked like Jim Fowler on an expedition with Marlon Perkins. Lance has been a total pro.

I know the distraction he has faced, not only from nagging injuries but from a serious illness that his terrific wife, Arlyne, has bravely fought. No matter what, he always gave the Angels his all. Thanks, Lance. Thirteen cheers for When he was the Raider team doctor, Huizenga used to argue with Alzado about steroids. Those debates began in 1982, nine years before the possession of steroids for non-medical purposes would be ruled illegal and seven years before the league initiated drug testing! "Then it was like talking to a patient about not smoking tobacco, there was little more you could do about it than appeal to them," Huizenga said.

In 1990, when Alzado tried to make a comeback with the Raiders, Huizenga gave him a somber speech about how the league had tests now that could detect such drugs. When he finished speaking, Alzado winked. Then Alzado passed his test. "I think he had hired an East German coach to make sure he passed," Huizenga said. But even before Huizenga diagnosed Alzado's condition as primary brain lymphoma, his passion for steroid research for football players was strong.

"When I gave the NFL a formal proposal, they said they would have their guy, Lombardo, review it," Huizenga said. "And ostensively, that is where the proposal has been sitting, on the drug adviser's desk. I know the U.S. government will fund it, the study would only cost $300,000. All I want is a letter of support from the NFL and the Players Assn.

saying they will cooperate. Without that, there is a high chance the study would not get funded." The NFL would not allow Lombardo to talk to The Times. But speaking on Lombardo's behalf, Aiello said the league is not a funding agent for medical research. He also said that Lombardo would respond directly to Huizenga regarding his recent letter. "He Lombardo) did not think the study would help," Aiello said have However, on Alzado's death certificate, DeLoughery listed the cause of death as B-cell lymphoma.

"The pathologist at UCLA examined the tissue and said it was T-cell lymphoma, and then when Lyle went to Oregon, the pathologist there examined the same piece of tissue and called it B-cell," Huizenga said. "In either case, B-cell or T-cell, Lyle was tested for HTLV-3 the AIDS virus and HTLV-1 which is an AIDS-related, lymphoma-causing virus at UCLA and doctors found nothing and I believe doctors in Oregon continued to test him once he got there." DeLoughery said he and other doctors at Oregon Health Sciences University were prepared for the barrage of questions after Alzado's death. "We went overboard in AIDS testing with Lyle because we knew these questions would arise," DeLoughery said. "At the press conference I was asked all these questions. "He Alzado clearly was not infected with HIV.

His T-cells were inflamed, but his malignant cells were B-cell lymphoma, but he didn't have AIDS. He continued to test negative until his death." Died of Cancer, Not AIDS AIDS patients, but also a typical complication of chemotherapy, said Dr. Thomas DeLoughery, a blood-cancer specialist at Oregon Health Sciences University, who treated Alzado in the final months before his death. "Lyle's pneumonia was caused by bacteria, not by the unusual organisms associated with AIDS," DeLoughery said. Alzado no longer had pneumonia by the time he left the hospital, DeLoughery said, about six weeks before his death, May 14.

Then, Alzado was buried the day after his death, fast for anyone, especially for someone of celebrity status, raising more eyebrows. Kathy Alzado said it was held fast because that's the way she and Lyle wanted it. DeLoughery and Dr. Robert Huizenga, who treated Alzado at UCLA before he went to Portland, have staked their reputations on the cause of Alzado's death as primary brain lymphoma, a rare form of cancer. And that too, has raised questions.

Huizenga said in January that Alzado had T-cell lymphoma, not B-cell, a condition associated with AIDS patients. I LARRY BESSEL Los Angeles Times Lyle Alzado, shown at a Raider game in September of 1 99 1 believed that his brain cancer was caused by longtime steroid use. you..