Waxman and Davis request WWE drug testing records

[Greeby]

Normally I wouldn't be posting on this issue in GD but for the Congressional involvement

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/news/story?id=2951586

In a move that significantly widens the impact of wrestler Chris Benoit's murder-suicide case, two congressmen who opened steroid hearings into Major League Baseball have requested that World Wrestling Entertainment provide records pertaining to the WWE's testing policies and practices.

In a three-page letter dated Friday, Rep. Henry Waxman, the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and Tom Davis, its ranking minority member, asked WWE to provide a series of documents intended to give the committee and its investigation a detailed look at WWE's drug-testing policy, including information about the results of performance-enhancing drug tests on pro wrestlers.

"The tragic deaths of World Wrestling Entertainment star Chris Benoit and his family have raised questions about reports of widespread use of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs by professional wrestlers," the congressmen wrote.

"These allegations -- which include first-hand reports of steroid use by prominent former wrestlers -- have swirled around the WWE for over a decade. Investigations by journalists have described a culture of performance-enhancing drug use in professional wrestling, high fatality rates among young professional wrestlers, and an inability or unwillingness of WWE to address these problems."

The letter from Waxman and Davis described WWE wrestlers as "multimedia stars that have an influence on the behavior and attitudes of the nation's youth."

The link below is to the letter Waxman and Davis sent to Vince McMahon
http://oversight.house.gov/documents/20070727154957.pdf

[musette_sf]

1. we'd like to see the WH drug testing records

too.

[brentspeak]

2. Not that I condone the use of steroids to "enhance" athletic performance

But how is Congress going to find the time to squeeze in a steroids investigation when there's so much else that needs immediate investigation? (Bush White House, oil company price-gouging, tainted imports, etc.)

[SoCalDem]

3. Better yet, why not just let them take what they want, BUT

require that the organization "label" the venue for what it is.... a drug-induced FREAK-SHOW.. just like MOST "professional sports".

and they should be required to provide an accounting of all the "athletes" who either died, became ill or totally messed up their lives due to the "medications" they took.

Kids (some kids, anyway) still look up to these idiots, and want to be "just like them".

We might also start paying them rational amounts of money, instead of making them super-rich primadonnas who "play" for a living.

It's the MONEY and the FAME that makes a 12 yr old, who has not had his growth spurt, think that if only he could "enhance" his body, the coach might notice him...or a 16 yr old , who is praying that he'll make the 1st team, or a poor kid who sees sports as the ONLY way he can get to college and then on to the "majors"..
:puke:

I am sick-to-death of the idolization of "sports" in the US.

[Lerkfish]

4. What a waste of time, IMHO. we have more important matters.

let whatever is the equivalent of the baseball commissioner police the infotainment. Its not a sport.

[BearSquirrel2]

5. I'd like to see ...

I'd like to see committees focus on their actual purpose. This is not about government reform. AND ... you'd have to be an idiot to not believe that ALL the WWE actors aren't using steroids.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

6. Oh great.

Congress orders Slim Jims for all night Wrestlemania session.