Over the weekend, the NFLPA issued a warning regarding a vitamin B supplement that, as the FDA discovered, contains two steroids. We mentioned in the corresponding article that the NFL and NFLPA have an approved list of clean supplements.
More accurately, they had an approved list of clean supplements.
While as of Monday afternoon the NFLPA website still contains a live link explaining the certification program, a source with knowledge of the situation tells PFT that the program expired in 2011.
As a result, players now take any and all supplements at their own peril. Although we’re told that the NFLPA has partnered with Aegis Laboratory to develop a smartphone app that scans supplement ingredients to check for banned substances that appear on the label, supplements still may contain banned substances not listed on the label. If they do, and if the player tests positive, the player is subject to a four-game suspension.
Apart from the difficulty this approach creates for players who want to take supplements containing permitted substances for muscle growth and recovery and other desired characteristics, it gives players who test positive cover to simply say they took a supplement that was spiked.
And all players who test positive because they cheated will say that, since precious few cheaters are committed to honesty.
