Why You Might Be Hearing About A Thing Called Turinabol

Turinabol is an oral steroid commonly given to East Germany's young athletes competing in the 1970s and '80s, many of whom suffered devastating health consequences later. As ESPN's T.J. Quinn explains, drug is making a come back in Major League Baseball.tbol dosage

Now it's time for Words You'll Hear. That's where we try to understand stories we’ll be hearing more about by parsing some of the words associated with them. Today, our word is Turinabol. That’s an oral steroid. You might remember hearing about it after the end of the Cold War, after it became known that it was commonly given to East Germany's young athletes who were competing in the 1970s and the 1980s. Many of them suffered devastating health consequences later.

It turns out it's making a comeback in major league baseball. Three players have been suspended in recent weeks for taking the drug. We wondered what's behind this and if there’s more to come, so we’ve called ESPN's T.J. Quinn, and he's with us from New York. T.J., thanks so much for joining us.

MARTIN: Could you start by telling us a little bit more about Turinabol? How does it work? Why would you take it?

QUINN: You take it because it does everything you want an anabolic steroid to do - you get bigger and stronger and faster. It became popular in part because it didn't have some of the awful side effects that other drugs did when they were - everybody was experimenting on themselves and their athletes in the '70s.

MARTIN: You raised two questions that I wanted to ask you about. One is - first of all, I remember the stories when the extent of the East German doping system became known. And the stories about the kinds of health consequences that appeared later are still very disturbing. I mean, you're talking about kidney failure, chronic joint pain, sterility, impotence, not to mention for women particularly, changes in their physical appearance which are irreversible. So in East Germany, it is understood generally that these kids were forced to take them. Why would anybody still take this, and why would you take it knowing that it's easily detected?

QUINN: There seems to be this everlasting strain of thought that somehow, it’ll be different for me. And usually, when you've got someone who’s taking a drug like that someone is suggesting that they take it. There's usually somebody in their ear explaining to them why they won't get caught right up until the time that they are.

MARTIN: The suspended athletes say that they did not know that this is what they were taking. Is it possible that this is a substance that could appear in a legal product without your knowing about it?