Fred Grimm: Focus on pro baseball ignores real doping crime: Kids on steroids

In a considerable mischaracterization, the Biogenesis scandal has been painted as an outrage against the integrity of Major League Baseball. Were told to revile the now-defunct anti-aging clinic in Coral Gables because it tempted sports heroes with performance-enhancing drugs and further sullied the reputation of the corporate conglomerate formerly known as Americas pastime.

Biogenesis not only implicated the likes of the Yankees Alex Rodriguez and the Brewers Ryan Braun along with 18 other professional baseball players in its doping racket, but to our collective horror did it after baseball Commissioner Bud Selig had declared doping virtually nonexistent and clearly a thing of the past.

Revelations seeping out of Biogenesis showed Selig to be a fool. And Major League Baseball, in league with the nations sportswriters, went after the players with such a fury that no one much noticed the real crimes perpetrated down at 1390 South Dixie Highway. Not even the Miami-Dade state attorneys office. Not even the local cops.

According to whistleblower Porter Fischer, Biogenesis of America was doping children. Injecting high school kids with illegal and dangerous amalgamations of anabolic steroids and human growth hormones. Along with professional and college athletes, the patient list at the storefront clinic included Miami-Dade high school ball players, come to emulate their pro heroes and cheat their way to stardom.

That should have been cause for outrage. But as Miami Herald reporter Julie Brown reported last week, these felonies were simply shrugged off by local law enforcement. Brown interviewed Fischer, the former employee and investor in Biogenesis turned whistleblower who, armed with incriminating documents filched from the clinic, ignited this latest pro baseball scandal.

But Fischer also offered up evidence of criminal medical procedures involving children. He told Brown that he had notified authorities that young athletes, mostly baseball players, from Gulliver, Columbus, St. Brendan, South Miami and other South Florida high schools had also been juiced at Biogenesis by Anthony Bosch, the clinics counterfeit doctor, who prescribed his pharmaceutical concoctions without the bother of a medical degree.

You want the stuff of outrage? Consider this quote from Fischers lawyer: I dont know why law enforcement hasnt gotten involved, to be honest, Raymond Rafool told Brown. We really cant figure it out. Porter is very upset. Youre talking about high school kids getting this stuff from this clinic. For kids who havent even given their bodies the opportunity to grow to be doing this was really disturbing to him.

Disturbing to him. Not to law enforcement. Not to the Miami-Dade state attorney.

Bosch got off with a $5,000 fine for practicing medicine without a license, levied by the Florida Department of Health pocket change in the highly profitable, ethically bankrupt world of anti-aging clinics.

Why no interest from local cops? Probably because the client list, as Brown reported, also included local cops (along with some lawyers and at least one judge.) It would be like expecting elementary schoolchildren to shut down Cold Stone Creamery.

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Fred Grimm: Focus on pro baseball ignores real doping crime: Kids on steroids

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