Congress watching on stimulant question

Are major leaguers getting around a ban on amphetamines by taking stimulants generally prescribed for attention deficit disorders?

The lawmaker who raised that question at the latest House hearing on drugs in baseball said Wednesday that Congress should keep an eye on whether commissioner Bud Selig follows through on his promise to pursue an answer.

Rep. John Tierney, a Massachusetts Democrat, also said it's about time Major League Baseball becomes more proactive about noticing drug-testing trends and looking into what causes them.

"It's the type of thing that if the league has data like that, hopefully the league will make use of it and get out in front of some of these issues, ask the appropriate questions and get their answers," Tierney said, "rather than just react later on, after a problem arises."

During Tuesday's House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing, Tierney read statistics showing that the number of "therapeutic use exemptions" — which allow players to use performance-enhancing substances to treat certain medical conditions — rose from 35 in 2006, to 111 in 2007.

Of those, 28 in 2006, and 103 in 2007, were for Ritalin and Adderall, stimulants best known as treatments for ADHD, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, in children.

Amphetamines were banned by baseball in 2006.

"When you see the jump one year to the next, it raises a fairly obvious question: What's going on? ... Is it being used for anything other than for what it's naturally intended?" Tierney said Wednesday.

"You look at the numbers, and you want to make sure it's not being used as a way around an issue," he added.

Tierney said the committee asked for the data after noticing in last month's Mitchell Report on doping in baseball that former Senate majority leader George Mitchell's request for the information was rejected.

"I asked for the number of therapeutic use exemptions granted each year for performance-enhancing substances (without identifying the players involved) because therapeutic use exemptions have been a significant loophole in some drug testing programs," Mitchell writes on page 274. "The Commissioner's Office and the Players Association declined to provide that information on the ground that it is considered confidential under the joint program."

According to the baseball data obtained by Congress, 1,354 players were subject to testing last year. That means 8.2 percent received permission from their team physician and Dr. Bryan Smith, baseball's independent program administrator, to take the stimulants usually prescribed for ADHD.

The National Institute of Mental Health estimates 3 percent to 5 percent of children have ADHD, according to its Web site.

Tierney recited some of the statistics to Selig and union leader Donald Fehr on Tuesday, then asked: "Does that have any significance to either of you gentlemen? Is it something that we ought to be looking at? Have we set up procedures to look for anomalies like this and then determine what we're going to do about it?"

Fehr put the onus on Smith, then Selig said baseball is reviewing the matter.

"Trying to break down exactly why it happened and how it happened," Selig said. "Interestingly enough, in my meeting with the trainers, that was one of the major subjects last week: Why? How? And everybody had a different view of it."

Committee staff indicated members will note how baseball deals with the issue.

The new president of the World Anti-Doping Agency, John Fahey, cited stimulants Wednesday when he called on baseball to follow the Mitchell Report's recommendation to transfer drug testing to an independent organization.

"Accountability would ensure that no loopholes would exist to be exploited by management and players," Fahey said, "such as the current system used to get around the amphetamines ban by making attention deficit disorder claims in order to have access to stimulants like Ritalin."