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The rage for steroids has persisted despite growing indications that the drugs can have harmful and even disastrous side effects. In men, balding, . acne, shrinkage of the testicles and infertility are among the most immediate consequences, though all of those except balding may be reversible. In women, who normally produce very low levels of testosterone and therefore gain relatively much more from steroids, prolonged use can cause irreversible effects like facial hair, deepening of the voice and an abnormally enlarged clitoris. Injuries among users can be more serious than usual, since they often involve connective tissues like tendons that have not grown strong enough to support the increased muscle mass.
Although the research is again skimpy, liver, prostate and testicular cancers have been linked to steroid use, as has the hastened onset of atherosclerosis -- obstructed arteries. "In my opinion," says Dr. Tennant, "young athletes who take heavy doses of anabolic steroids for 60 to 90 days should expect to die in their 30s or 40s."
Growing evidence also points to the conclusion that steroids, which appear to be addictive, can harm the mind. Dr. Harrison Pope, a psychiatrist at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass., has documented such effects -- popularly called " 'roid rage" -- as mania, wild aggression and delusions in some steroid users. One of his subjects had a friend videotape him as he deliberately drove a car into a tree at 35 m.p.h. Says Pope, ominously: "It appears the serious psychiatric effects are far more common than the serious medical ones."
Despite the possible harm, the use of steroids shows no sign of abating. It is illegal to obtain them without a prescription, but whether they are stolen from pharmaceutical manufacturers or imported from Mexico, a major producer, they are widely available. Some users receive them from willing doctors. The great majority rely on dealers, who frequent university gyms and health clubs. Some athletes have a hand in distribution: Alexander Kurlovich, the Soviet super heavyweight who won the gold medal just last week in Seoul, was convicted in Canada in 1984 of importing steroids with an intent to sell and was suspended from international competition for two years.
Urinalysis, expensive at about $100 a test, is common only in topflight sporting competition, but even there, as Ben Johnson showed, abuse persists. The only surefire approach, sports officials say, is random testing during the year -- a course that many object to as an infringement on civil liberties. Advocates see the Johnson case as supporting their call: the surprise, after all, is not that he used them, but that he got caught.
He apparently did so because of ignorance about advances in testing. According to SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, the doctor who allegedly gave him the steroids, George M. Astaphan, did not realize that stanozolol can now be detected. Until last year, stanozolol was hard to observe -- a fact that may explain why three of the Seoul disqualifications were for that particular steroid. There was no question about the veracity of the test: in Johnson's sample, said Jong-Sei Park, chief of the Olympic drug testing lab, "we saw the stanozolol itself and the breakdown products" it leaves in the body.