DANGEROUS BUT LEGAL

Pitcher's death underlines risk of ephedra use

In so many ways, Baltimore Orioles pitcher Steve Bechler was like most
Americans, a little overweight and eager to drop a few pounds.

His zeal to be a better, fitter ballplayer may have cost him his life. The
23-year-old Oriole, who died after a spring training workout this week, had
been taking an over-the-counter dietary supplement that contained ephedra,
an herbal ingredient linked to heatstroke and heart trouble. Toxicology test
results still are pending, but the Broward County, Fla., medical examiner
speculates that the supplement contributed to the ballplayer's death.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association, the National Football League
and the International Olympic Committee all have banned ephedra. The U.S.
military doesn't allow products with ephedra to be sold in base stores. The
American Medical Association wants the product banned. Several states
require products containing the substance to carry warning labels. Yet
products containing ephedra are readily available.

The reason is that the Food and Drug Administration has limited authority to
regulate dietary supplements until the product is on the market and
determined to be unsafe. Young athletes - or, for that matter, any
middle-aged weekend athlete eager to recapture youthful glory - can walk
into a nutrition supply store and purchase products like this. They presume
the product is safe and risk free; it is not.

Athletes from all sports will look for that special something - a new
training regimen, dietary supplement or fitness coach - to exact
increasingly better performances. Some will skirt the rules and use banned
substances as well as legal substances with harmful side effects. But that
is no reason for baseball owners and the players union to delay taking steps
to protect players from themselves. And it is all the more reason for the
FDA to protect the rest of us and ban products that contain the ingredient.
It also is cause for Congress to give the FDA greater authority to regulate
dietary and food supplements.

A legal product isn't always a safe product. Ephedra poses unacceptable
health risks. It must go.