Don Fehr Turns the Tables, Blames Congress

We've already talked about Donald Fehr's dilemma -- he's both responsible for protecting the players' interests yet expected to help rid the game of PEDs. But when meeting with Congress yesterday, he turned the tables and blamed the government for sharing some of the culpability. From the New York Daily News:

As the hearing on the Mitchell Report wound down, the MLBPA chief executive acknowledged that while juiced ballplayers had made steroids appealing to America's youth, Congress has played a role, too, thanks to the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994.

The law, better known as DSHEA, allows supplement manufacturers to sell their products without the expensive and lengthy safety testing required for prescription medicines and over-the-counter remedies.

As a result of the deregulation of the industry, supplements that promise to make people slimmer, stronger and sexier became staples on the shelves of thousands of pharmacies, gas stations and convenience stores - and many of those untested, little-regulated products are targeted at teen-age athletes and other kids.

As the article goes on to explain, some of the supplements that are able to escape the FDA's watchful eye either end up being discovered to be potentially harmful (such as ephedra and androstenedione) or actually tainted with other regulated substances. Rep. Henry Waxman, who led the proceedings yesterday, actually agreed with Fehr and called for the DSHEA bill be re-examined. It'll be interesting to see what actually comes of this, but either way it's a good example that baseball's PED problem is far more complex than just a bunch of greedy ballplayers.