May 8, 2016

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Sports May 8, 2016

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.

Transcript

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

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.

T.J. QUINN: My pleasure.

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?

QUINN: It’s hard to say. I mean, they make a very strong case, but then so have a lot of athletes who turned out to have cheated. You’ve got three major league baseball players and one UFC fighter, and they’ve all gotten together and said that they are going to compare everything that they’ve done for the last few months of their lives to try to explain why they’ve tested positive for this drug. There is one product on the market that is known to have traces of it and the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency put it on their high risk list, but all these athletes say they didn’t take that drug.

MARTIN: What do you make of this, if you don’t mind my asking? I mean, you’ve been following this closely. You cover this. You’re an investigative reporter. What do you make of this?

QUINN: No, it’s funny. You first hear the denials and you think, right, it’s – you know, everybody’s got the same denial. I don’t know how it got in my body. There are a few things that make this case a little different. One is why this drug when there are so many other, better drugs you could take? One thing that really stood out was the fact that two of those players tested positive during spring training, and that’s the one time they know they’re going to be tested.

Baseball looks at that and says well, that’s because they took the drug long before spring training thinking it would clear their systems and didn’t realize that improved testing was going to catch them. The players say to them, that’s proof that they didn’t mean to do it because who would be stupid enough to take something and then test positive in spring training?

MARTIN: T.J. Quinn is an investigative reporter at ESPN, and he was with us from New York. T.J., thank you so much for speaking with us.

QUINN: Any time.

Copyright © 2016 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

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Business May 8, 2016

In The Midst Of A Downturn, Some In Oil Industry Are Prepping For A Bounce

The plunging price of crude oil is good for motorists but bad for those in the industry. And nowhere is that pain more acute than in West Texas, where many are hunkered down with an eye on the future.

Transcript

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I’m Michel Martin. We’re going to start the program today looking at the energy industry, which we’ve been watching pretty closely. A few months ago, oil reached a 30-year low. The price of a barrel of crude has inched up since, but the domestic oil industry is still struggling. Oil and gas companies, once flushed with cash, have cut exploration and pulled up to three quarters of their rigs from the field. Many companies have gone bankrupt and tens of thousands of people are out of work.

We’ve been interested in the consequences of this across the board – from the decrease in pirate attacks on oil tankers to the traumatic effect on oil and gas boom towns. Yet, in every economic downturn there are survivors who position themselves for recovery. Lorne Matalon of Marfa Public Radio, reports on the recovering strategies from the Nation’s largest producing oil field – the Permian Basin in Texas.

LORNE MATALON: Kenny Scudder is on the road a lot, constant travel from Texas to other energy states like Louisiana, New Mexico and Oklahoma.

KENNY SCUDDER: This is where we’re going…

MATALON: Scudder is VP of Sales at Palmer of Texas. His company makes storage tanks and separation equipment for oil and natural gas producers. Scudder’s calling on some of his customers and their contractors. And right now he doesn’t like what he sees. The energy business – a key driver of the U.S. economy – is hurting.

SCUDDER: I’m with a manufacturing company and pain to us is less bookings, less revenue, less shipments…

MATALON: But Scudder says the company’s adjusted and positioned itself for energy’s inevitable bounce-back.

SCUDDER: You downsize your workforce, you have pay cuts, you diversify into other areas other than oilfield areas. So as a manufacturer, that’s what you do – you look for other avenues to keep your plant open so that when it does pick up again, you’re ready to ramp back up to where you need to be.

MATALON: Palmer has diversified. It’s making filters for aquariums in places like SeaWorld and manufacturing storage tanks for a water reclamation plant near Los Angeles.

SCUDDER: One of the upsides of a downturn is if you have a strong balance sheet, if you’ve made wise investments during the last boom, you can still maintain your business and expand and get ready for the next upswing.

MATALON: Scudder says he’s fortunate in that he can diversify. The company kept cash in reserve and his storage tanks can be tailored to suit multiple purposes. But oil producers only have one product. And for them, there aren’t a lot of options.

DAVID MCDOW: Really painful, a lot of people being laid off.

MATALON: David McDow’s a construction foreman at a contractor of one of Scudder’s customers. His hands speak to a lifetime of work in the oilfield and his face is burnished by the Texas sun.

MCDOW: I’m fortunate that I’m not laid off but I’ve had to come, you know, 500 miles from my home to work. You know, everybody’s hungry. All of our competitors are all hungry too just like we are so, you know, a lot of them will take jobs for nothing. And, I mean, that makes it tough on everybody.

MATALON: McDow says his 40-year career has consisted of peaks and valleys. Now, he says, he can at least visualize the next peak.

MCDOW: You know, if you’d want to drill a well, right now’s a good time to do it. You know, I mean, everything you can get a good deal on it if you’ve got the capital to work with.

MATALON: Distressed companies here in West Texas are selling off assets – or themselves entirely to buyers from China and Mexico anxious to snap up a good deal. Major players like Chevron, Shell and BP are also making huge layoffs, but analysts believe they’ll be stable financially again. Analyst Jordan Goodman says even smaller players with cash in reserve will emerge stronger because of the pain they’re dealing with now.

JORDAN GOODMAN: You can thrive because you’ll be one of the few left over when all your competitors are going under. So in the long run, the strong will get stronger. The weak will go bankrupt.

MATALON: An energy-focused law firm Haynes and Boone says at least 60 American oil and gas companies have filed for bankruptcy since last year. But businesses like Palmer of Texas – and there are hundreds in Texas alone – are hunkered down now with an eye on future profit. For NPR News, I’m Lorne Matalon in Midland, Texas.

MARTIN: This story came to us from Inside Energy. That’s a public media collaboration focused on America’s energy issues.

Copyright © 2016 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

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