| Dying to Make It |
17 February 2003
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Steve Bechler, Pitcher, Dead at 23; Congress to Blame?
Steve Bechler was a baseball pitcher for the Baltimore Orioles. He died from presumed heat stroke in Florida where the team has its spring training. Rumor has it he also was using a dietary supplement containing ephedra to help take some weight off. The team doctor is on record as saying ephedra is dangerous, so is the NFL and the US Olympic Committee, while Major League Baseball is silent on the issue. Yet Bechler's untimely death at 23 may be traceable to bad law and bad cultural fixations.
The Food and Drug Administration is supposed to make sure that Americans get pure food, and drugs that have been adequately tested for safety. But a loophole in the law allows "dietary supplements" into the marketplace without any such testing. Ineffective at best, and harmful at worst, dietary supplements account for $16 billion in sales a year. Congress needs to close the loophole and force these products through the same rigorous testing pharmaceuticals now undergo.
However, part of the blame is a flaw in the American national character. It is the belief that problems can be solved through bio-chemistry. Feeling sad? Take som St. John's Wort or a Zoloft. Passed your prime? Have some Viagra or one of its many herbal cousins. Fat? Don't bother with exercise and dieting. Take a pill.
Americans need to develop a more realistic view of the world. A pill can't solve life's problems, and some of them cannot be solved at all. Live with it. Steve Bechler apparently couldn't live with that -- so he died.