The questions in this group are based on the content of a passage. After reading the passage, choose the best answer to each question. Answer all questions following the passage on the basis of what is stated or implied in the passage.
Although hard statistics are difficult to come by, there is substantial anecdotal evidence that use of performance-enhancing drugs, or doping, is rampant in professional sports. Of perhaps greater significance to society are the estimated 1.5 million amateur athletes who use steroids, either to improve their appearance or to emulate the performance of their favorite professional athletes. This chemical epidemic is a pernicious threat to both the nation’s health and our collective sense of "fair play."
Nonprescription anabolic steroids have been illegal in the United States since 1991, and most professional sports leagues have banned them since the 1980s. These bans are partly a matter of fairness—a talented athlete trained to the peak of their ability simply cannot compete with an equivalent athlete using steroids—but also based on issues of health. Anabolic androgenic steroids ("anabolic" means that they build tissues; "androgenic" means that they increase masculine traits) have been linked to liver damage, kidney tumors, high blood pressure, balding, and acne. They function by increasing the body’s level of testosterone, the primary male sex hormone. In men, this dramatic increase in testosterone can lead to the shrinking of testicles, infertility, and the development of breasts; in women, it can lead to the growth of facial hair and permanent damage to the reproductive system. Steroids have also been linked to a range of psychological problems, including depression and psychotic rage.
The punishments for getting caught using steroids are severe, and the serious health consequences are well documented. Despite this, millions of professional and amateur athletes continue to use performance-enhancing drugs. Why is this?
One clear pattern is that many athletes will do whatever it takes to get an edge on the competition. Since the 1950s, Olympic athletes have played a cat-and-mouse game with Olympic Committee officials to get away with doping, because the drugs really do work. Athletes who dope are simply stronger and faster than their competitors who play fair. Professional athletes in football and baseball have found that steroids and human growth hormone can give them the edge to score that extra touchdown or home run, and in the modern sports market, those results can translate into millions of dollars in salary. For the millions of less talented athletes in gyms and playing fields across the country, drugs seem like the only way to approach the abilities of their heroes in professional sports.
The other clear pattern, unfortunately, is that it has been all too easy for abusers to get away with it. Steroid abuse is often regarded as a "victimless crime." One of the favored ways to trick the testers is to use "designer" steroids. There are thousands of permutations of testosterone, such as THG, that can be produced in a lab. Chemists have discovered that they can create new drugs that produce androgenic effects but do not show up off the standard drug testing charts. Other methods have been used to hide the steroids but stop a few weeks before testing, to use other chemicals to mask the traces of steroids, or to switch in a "clean" sample of urine at the testing site. Other athletes use steroid precursors, such as androstenedione, that have androgenic effects similar to those of steroids but are not illegal because they are not technically steroids. The sad fact is that unless the government and professional sports organizations are willing to get tough on the steroid problem, the use of performance-enhancing drugs in sports is not going to end.