Given that folic acid and vitamin B12 are integrally involved in red blood cell (RBC) development, the endurance athlete benefits most when used in combination with erythropoietin (EPO), which increases RBC. Only vegan, no animal products, athletes are likely to suffer pernicious anemia.

Vitamin B12 injections have been used by professional cyclists for decades (long before the availability of EPO).

Injecting B12 is now a euphemism for illegal ergogenic drugs and procedures (anabolic steroids, EPO, homologous blood doping, etc., and their masking agents), regardless of athlete protestations.

Baseball should take a page out of professional cycling (see http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080109/sp_nm/cycling_passport_dc).

To keep drug testing from the control of baseball, athlete testing should be done by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), which is the drug testing organization for the Olympics and federations of sports that are participants in the Olympics. The agency is independent of sport governing federations.

J.C. Bradbury poses an interesting incentive/disincentive program for eliminating drug use in baseball (NY Times: Let Baseball Players Police Themselves). Penalties for athletes who cheat should, at a minimum, be as in professional cycling (one years salary) or better yet, one years salary for each year of illegal ergogenic drug use. Illegal recreational drug use is controlled by the local and federal police, although I advocate enforcement is ineffective and poor public policy.

Unfortunately, athletes will be tempted by illegal ergogenic drugs as long as athletes are grossly overpaid. This will not change until TV and TV advertising sponsors, companies who employ athletes as spokesmen, and sports fans are willing to pay these athletes. When TV refuses to broadcast sporting events where there is illegal ergogenic drug use and endorsement contracts of druged athletes are recinded, then there athlete behavior may change. I say may, since many Olympic athletes have used illegal ergogenic drugs, and many of these athletes are in very low profile sports that are very low-paying and have almost no commercial value.

Lidocaine is used to numb the area of an injection if it’s a particularly large (> 1-2 mL) injection; most standard shots such as flu shots are 0.5 mL. B12 is rarely given in doses larger than 1 mL at a time, and it’s given monthly. So the B12 ain’t for his joints and it ain’t for B12. Whether Clemens knew he wasn’t getting B12 or is being disingenouous, I don’t know.

NSIL Mike quotes Jose Canseco above. Not sure how trustworthy he is (he’s been pretty on the money so far), but let’s not forget that Palmeiro and Tejada were reportedly both injecting B12; both have been outed in the Mitchell report for using PEDs. And B12 is one of the few medications that might be legally and commonly prescribed that are usually injected (e.g. a reasonable ruse for steroids).

One other thing… Vioxx does not “destroy” your heart, as Roger suggested… there is a slight statistical increase in the number of heart attacks that people on Vioxx had, but a 45 year old pro athlete is unlikely to have a heart attack. By the time Vioxx came off the market people knew of its potential… so if he took it, it was before anyone realized that it slightly increased risk of heart disease. And Toradol (which he made sound like it was a hose tranquilizer) is essentially just very strong Motrin… it’s just that it (like Winstrol and other steroids) is injectable only… so it’s faster acting but alo could be used as a guise for steroid injection.

These guys already make millions. They don’t need any more money. Money would not induce those who choose to do drugs or steriods to quit. Why should it when they can buy or do anything they want as it is already?

You want to clean up the sport? Take AWAY all the big bucks we pay them. Put them all on salaries of $100,00- $200,000 a year. THEN see how many of them do steriods.
1. Saving a $100,000 job wouldn’t be worth the chance of getting caught.
2. These guys might learn the value of a buck and learn some fiscal and social responsibility.

And I blame all the steroid problems in sports on the fans and consumers who generate the players’ grotesque salaries by paying thru the nose for tickets and retail merchandise and 24 hour sports cable channels and the like.

Boycott professional sports till the value goes down as well as the salaries. Perhaps when players see the value of their sport plummet, it might shake them up enough to THEN police themselves.

If it’s true, they may have evidence that mcnamee injected roger with banned drugs.

In that investigation, Palmeiro said he had received injectable, and legal, vitamin B12 from Tejada; Palmeiro said it was possible the vitamin B12 had been tainted and had been the reason for his positive test for steroids. Tejada admitted to investigators that he provided injectable vitamin B12 to Palmeiro and two other unidentified Orioles players during the 2005 season. The congressional report said that the Players Association had tested another vial of vitamin B12 provided by Tejada and it showed no signs of steroids.

B12 may also be slang for steroids, but it is clear that many athletes and non-athletes get actual B12 injections. If Clemens was getting tainted B12 without being aware of it, he would have started failing drug tests. He claims to still take B12.

In the end, nothing will be resolved here. I don’t see how McNamee is going to succeed in suing Clemens. He didn’t have any documents to give to federal prosecutors, so I doubt he’ll produce any in the future. He has no proof that Clemens is lying.

Wouldn’t that be fascinating, if it turns out that B12 helps you hit a baseball?

NSIL Mike, I heard the same thing on WEEI in Boston a couple months ago. Like Ron said, it’s the classic “flaxseed oil” defense… except if the B12 nickname was as popular as Canseco claims, there will be a bunch of guys who take it and Clemens can claim he just never new it really meant steroids. Palmeiro has already used it, saying he thought he was taking B12 from Tejada, and that it must have been “tainted”.