In mid March, Sports Illustrated ran a three-part series titled “Steroids in America,” which chronicled the “the culture of personal physical enhancement” through past, present, and future. The third article was about what might be the next big thing – gene therapy – a “technology that will make even today’s most inventive doping methods look primitive.” Like steroids and human growth hormone, gene alteration has gainful medical applications, but, in the words of SI reporter David Epstein, who wrote the piece, it will allow athletes to literally change the “blueprints for their own muscles.” CJR‘s Michele Wilson talked to Epstein about getting science into a sports magazine and the media’s coverage of performance-enhancing drugs in general.
Michele Wilson: Why did you want to write this very scientific article for the Sports Illustrated package about steroids?
David Epstein: We knew people were paying attention to this, with the Roger Clemens news. We wanted to do a present story, a past story and a future story. I knew the future story would have to be pretty science-based. It couldn’t be too narrative – from the personal angle of an athlete – because nobody is in the future. People aren’t getting caught doing [gene therapy] yet, so I knew it had to be pretty science-oriented.
MW: How did you know gene altering was the right topic?
DE: I have a background both in sports and in science. I had heard about this stuff years ago. I knew there were studies of this German baby who had genetic mutations that caused him to be more muscular. Some athletes would contend, when they were caught and when they tested positive for drugs that, like the baby, they had genetic abnormalities that could’ve made them the kind of athletes they are. So I knew this stuff was out there, but I never delved into it to find out how plausible it was, where it was right now. By keeping up with the science news, I knew where the next frontier would probably be. I started calling my sources and they told me that that frontier is closer than I had anticipated.
MW: Why has the press steered away from covering the science of gene doping?
DE: It can be a little technical. I always read through peer-reviewed literature. I think it’s really important to do to get a sense of how unsure some of this research is. It’s not really as black and white as sometimes it needs to be. When you read through those articles, they’re very difficult to get through, extremely difficult if you don’t have somewhat of a science background. So I think that’s one hurdle, that the primary sources are just difficult to understand.
Also, it’s really cutting edge, and no one’s gotten caught yet. Most of the steroid stories that have come out since I’ve paid attention have been based on some kind of law enforcement action, like Balco, where they raided a physical location; they had a trial that people could go to. No one’s gotten caught for this, so it’s harder to generate a news hook. One of the luxuries of being at a place like SI is that they tolerate something a little more expansive and nuanced, where it didn’t take someone getting caught for us to start writing about. You have to put some faith in your readers that they’ll be interested in reading about it.
MW: Se-Jin Lee, one of the scientists in your article, has been quoted-albeit briefly-in several places. How did you get different information than what’s already been written?
DE: When I first contacted him, he said, “I don’t do sports interviews anymore” [because reporters focused on the athlete angle rather than the science]. But he had been a Sports Illustrated reader for awhile, and he said, “If you promise me you’ll explain that my work is not to enhance athletes, we can do it.”
I think the challenge with any magazine reporting is that we’re often not completely breaking something. You have to find a way to do something new. Since I’ve been at SI, I’ve learned that interviewing for magazines has to be so much more detailed. You have to demand more time from people. I probably read fifty peer-reviewed science journal articles before I talked to Lee, and I interviewed other people, so I really had a good feel for the landscape. Like any interview, we hit it off. He was a big sports fan, so he was as happy to talk to me as I was to him. Se-Jin Lee discovered myostatin (the protein that tells muscles when to stop growing). He’s the man. He kind of started this whole thing.
MW: What effect did you want your piece to have?
DE: I was hoping first and foremost, that it would be interesting to sports fans, to people who care about sports, because that’s what we do. Secondly, I think it’s great when we can impart a little science knowledge on people who are intelligent but who might not want to be spending their disposable income on reading about science otherwise.
I was hoping that this would get the discussion going before we’re in the middle of the mess, the way that it happened with steroids, and before the government has to swoop in and start regulating, before people are sent to jail and deported. I hope it adds a little bit to the discussion so we can talk about some of the issues before they hit us in the face.
MW: What reaction have you gotten?
DE: People are little worried. They know that this technology potentially could change the way human beings age, if we can prevent our muscles from breaking down. They are really curious about it too, and they know that athletes will use it before they do. People contacted me with more questions about the technology. They also wrote in to SI to express their concern: “How will we ever get back to what we love about sports? We don’t want to see guys who can lift 3,000 pounds. We want to see fair competition.” That’s the kind of discussion I wanted to prompt.
MW: What’s your opinion about the media’s treatment of performance-enhancing drugs?
DE: I wish there were more coverage of it outside of sports, but I don’t really fault sports reporters for that. I think people do a good job of bringing this up now. With steroids, we were way behind. Steroid culture was kind of entrenched by the time people were covering it.
If anything, I wish people would take time to note a little more about what’s unknown about these drugs, not what’s known. Any drug can kill you if you take it the wrong way. I just wish there was more talk of really how little is known. In every article, you see the list of side effects. For human growth hormone, people always report side effects, from better eyes to better skin, but nobody really knows. That stuff has zero clinical verification because there are no studies about it.
There’s a feeling among some people in the journalism world-and maybe they’re right-that readers are kind of tired of this, they’re kind of over it. Personally, I think it’s important to cover. I think it’s damaging to patients who legitimately need some of [this therapy] when it gets a bad reputation from abuse by athletes. I don’t think it’s just bad for the integrity of sports.
Michele Wilson is a freelance writer who lives in New York City.