RE: How would you answer average Americans wondering how NFL players can achieve the size, strength and speed that they do without performance-enhancing drugs?

PT: Just to add a point (to what Gene Upshaw said), I think what we are seeing in athletics today, not just at our level, but at the youth level also, is specialization. We read about it constantly in the sports pages – parents complaining about the fact that their son or daughter is 12 or 13 years old and all he or she wants to do is play one sport; they want to play football all year, they want to play soccer all year, or they want to play women’s basketball all year. Coupled with specialization goes weight-training and sometimes it’s weight-loss. In wrestling doctors have expressed to me concern about high schoolers losing weight to get down from 185 to the 152-pound division. Then we see people gaining weight through strict weight-lifting programs. Our players are now employed 11 months of the year. Mr. Henderson has a story about his own son that illustrates what perfectly clean, drug-free workouts can do in terms of body-size.

RE: The momentum is building behind the idea of building an advisory committee, is it safe to say the NFL and the NFL PA supports this concept?

PT: We would like to know a little more about what’s going to be done and we’d like to make sure that we’re investing our resources wisely, but we would certainly look forward to cooperating. We think there could be a very powerful statement here and an enhancement of what we’ve tried to do. Of course there are programs out there such as a Partnership for a Drug-Free America and many other things, but we certainly support programs that are positive, through the committee.

Waxman: Your perspective to the extent of the steroid problem in the NFL, and do you believe the problem is under control?

PT: We believe it is. It’s not perfect. We do about 9,000 tests a year. We have very extensive random testing unannounced. We think there is a tremendous deterrent element in there. As you know, we’ve suspended 54 players over the period of years. Fifty-seven others have tested positive and just left the game. So, we’ve had about seven a year. Our experience is very consistent with the USADA. In 2004, USADA tested fewer athletes than we did, 7,600 versus 9,000. They did it in 45 sports. We did it in one sport. They had nine positive tests. On average, we have about seven. We don’t think the low level of positives indicates a weak program anymore than their low level of positives indicates a weak program. We think that the programs are effective. The three difficult areas are those that you’ve identified. One is testosterone when it’s calibrated to be under the new ratio of four to one testosterone to epitestosterone, two, may be human growth hormone, and I say may be because it’s not yet clear that really does accomplish what some athletes would like it to accomplish, but there is no current test for it, and the third is the designer steroid issued that Mr. Courson emphasized of which THG and the BALCO investigation is only one. Our feeling is of which Gene (Upshaw) said, the culture of our athlete, the overwhelming number of our athletes is to stay clean, to play clean, to be as dedicated to the same values of the game as the Vince Lombardi’s, the Bart Starr’s, the Roger Staubach’s and right up through to today with the Donovan McNabb’s, the Tom Brady’s, and we don’t feel that there’s rampant cheating in our sport.

Waxman: Are you doing an investigation of the report done by 60 Minutes?

PT: We are investigating. We do have our security department interviewing those players…(break in TIVO)… and the top official of the FBI, and we’re interviewing those players, cooperating with the DEA, and trying to get to the bottom of that investigation in South Carolina.

Waxman: When you are finished with the investigation we would like to see it.

PT: We would be pleased to share with you the results of our interviews, that and whatever we get from the DEA.

Waxman: Do you think the adoption of a single uniformed steroid testing policy in sports would help eliminate steroids?

PT: I don’t think so. I think that in this area it’s a question of general rules versus specialized programs, both have their place in society. I think that we have a specialized program directed at our sport to deal with our needs which incorporates all the best elements of the other programs. To some extent we’ve set the standard for the other programs. When I go to Europe, they praise the way we govern over our sports. They have major issues in German soccer right now where game referees have taken bribes. I happen to believe that Americans can solve American problems just as well as anyone else in the world. I think when we apply our mind to it we can be the best in the world. If we’ve got to start outsourcing or off-shoring our drug programs then I think we’re in trouble.

Waxman: I wasn’t thinking of that.

PT: That is what the WADA is, it’s outsourcing and off-shoring our drug programs and I think we can do it better here."

Waxman: Don’t you think football should be on the same testing policy as baseball and so forth?

PT: In terms of testing technology, in terms of science, in terms of perhaps test protocols, the more we can do together the better. If we can get ten dollars from ten different sports instead of just five dollars from one sport and invest in science in research then yes, but when it comes to process and other considerations including discipline I think we can deal with our own sport better than a uniformed standard which in many cases will become the lowest common denominator."

Shays: Has nothing but admiration for the commissioner, league, and union for knowing the importance of the issue and being pro-active to the issue relative to Major League Baseball. However, why can a player have "four bites" and remain in the league?

PT: I don’t want to quibble, but I don’t know what you mean by four bites. As soon as a player tests positive…

Shays: What I mean by four bites is that a player has up to four chances to come back and play without being banished from the game.

PT: I can answer in two parts, because it’s definitely worth discussing. First of all, as soon as a player tests positive, or if he refuses to give a test he’s suspended for four games. In baseball that is equivalent to a 40 game suspension, in the NBA that would be a 20 game suspension.

Shays: Baseball has ten day suspension for first-time violators…

PT: Ours is equivalent to 40 games if they had the same policy. Secondly, it works. It’s easy for me as the almighty god on high to be preemptory and say throw them out of the sport. That’s not fair. It works. We’ve had 54 violators and never a repeat. So four games works.

Shays: You really don’t need the second violation set at six games and the third set at one year…I don’t really have a problem with a first pass.

PT: We don’t have a first pass. We’ve had 54 violations and we’ve had 54 suspensions. There were two positives the second time through and those players retired. The deterrent has worked. We’ve never gotten to the second…

Shays: So you’ve had two repeats.

PT: We’ve had two repeats and they’ve retired from the game.

Shays: I mean they were caught the second time

PT: When they were caught the second time they retired. Fifty-two of the 54 players were disciplined once and they have never repeated, so it works.

Shays: So maybe you should consider getting rid of the rule for third and fourth violation?

PT: It’s a fair point. Maybe we can take a fresh look at how these are sequenced, but let me just make another point. We’ve heard this morning about other sports with two-year suspensions, including the WADA. They have a lot of exemptions from that. It’s not actually as advertised. They have a bunch of exemptions all the way down to warnings as exemptions to the two-year policy. If a player can show that what he did was not intentionally designed to violate the policy, he gets a warning, not a two-year suspension. We have absolute liability. I would like to make one further point. In many cases, if we went to something like two-year suspension for the first offense here A, I think it would be unnecessary to deter it, and B it would be the end of the players career. He would go back into the street, and in some cases he’s going to be a young man whose only path out of the ghetto is football, and he’s going to go back and never return."

Shays: I’m not arguing the first offense be two years rather there being the perceived third and fourth bite out of the apple.

PT: We will take a look at that to see if we make it clearer that this is preemptory

Cummings: NFL players are not in danger of returning to the ghetto, they don’t deserve sympathy. The danger is their influence on children and we need to send a message.

PT: Mr. Cummings I think you and I agree on most everything here in terms of discipline. We want it to be stiff. We don’t have repeat offenders. At some juncture I would rather save a life than a destroy it.

Dent: What are the NFL’s policies on betting?

PT: I guess it’s up to me.

Dent: So it’s not like MLB where you’re basically banned for life?

PT: I’m sure I could ban someone for life. It would depend on what he did.

Dent: Do you believe the steroid issue is a more serious issue than betting among professional players?

PT: I think it’s just as serious, but it’s comparing apples and oranges. The way I look at it is - an effective program in this area has to go to five points: one is education, one is strict enforcement of access to these substances - and I think that’s a real, deep, big problem in our society, especially for young people. I’ve been told by experts that you can get some of these substances by going on-line, getting an 800 number, no matter where you live, and calling a call center which will switch you to Bermuda and you can get drugs prescribed that will then be Fed-Exed to you from someplace overseas. Internet pharmacy is flooding in. But with education, enforcement relative to access, effective testing – which is a major deterrent – strong discipline and at some point rehabilitation and giving people a second chance. I think those are the elements and I think that’s what we have. This is as severe as gambling, but I think the challenges for young people here are greater because of confusion about what is a legitimate drug and what is illegitimate. We talked about stimulates this morning and a big part of the issue there is increasing prescriptions of wonder drugs - the ADD and ADHD - so I think this is a little more nuanced than the gambling, but I think they are both important issues and should be addressed severely. I think this is a lot more complicated than gambling. We are in an environment where gambling is going to be a big problem in our society. That’s probably another week of hearings because that’s being condoned in ways that it shouldn’t be, including video poker on ESPN.

RE: There is a lot of testimony about this being a problem all through high school and college. If you are concerned about this, why wasn’t Luis Castillo penalized for testing positive for illegal substances at the Combine?

PT: Under our existing policy, the consequence of a player testing positive at the Combine is that once he signs a contract to play in the league he gets tested 24 times a year. At this point I don’t think we do have a disciplinary component to a pre-employment test. I think we should look at that and whether it would be lawful, but I think that’s the short of it.

RE: After you heard about the 3 Panthers players who tested positive, what were your actions?

PT: We are in the process of doing that. We have been coordinating with the DEA and without interfering in the law enforcement investigation we are doing our own interviews through our security department and we will furnish the results to the chairman as he requested.

Lynch: You referred in your testimony to 54 violations, but on this sheet it comes to more than 109. Why is that?

PT: We had 54 positives where the player was suspended and 57 where the player just retired having been notified of the positive, which suggests to me that player was a marginal player. I think the total is 111.

Lynch: What is the NFL policy on releasing information regarding players who test positive for steroid use?

PT: It’s in the policy itself, which says the confidentiality of a player’s medical condition and testing results will be protected to the maximum extent possible, however, recognizing that players who are disciplined for violating this policy will come to the attention of the public and the media, so we do announce every suspension. We respect confidentiality during the appeal process that Mr. Henderson described, however once a player is judicated a violator its made public and of course he disappears from his team’s squad because he is no longer a part of that team for four games, so that’s well known to everyone.

Lynch: In some cases, such as HGH, there are technological gaps in your ability to monitor the drugs, however there are laboratories overseas that are capable of doing this in some instances. Why haven’t you considered doing that?

PT: We’ve been staying closely on top of this supposed test for HGH. To my understanding there are at least two different kinds of tests and they are still seeking validation of the reliability of the test. There is no testing lab in the United States, should we take blood samples here and ship them to Cologne? It’s an issue we’re looking at. Once the science gets to the point that it’s reliable we will act upon that science and close that loophole. Right now it’s been the absence of reliable testing and testing labs that has been the constraint.

Sweeney: Are you required to wait until a substance is registered as a controlled substance before it’s banned, or do you have an independent mechanism to add products to the list?

PT: We view ourselves as having an independent mechanism. We added THG, as Mr. Upshaw said, as soon as it came to light and our language says "and related substances," so if there was a similar molecular structure that was differentiated in some way, we would consider that to be encompassed in our policy.

Sweeney: Is it a problem that the FDA has not issued the good manufacturing rules for supplements?

PT: It is and it isn’t. We banned Ephedra before the FDA did and we are going to continue to view Ephedra as dangerous and banned for our players despite the recent court ruling in Utah because we feel there is sufficient scientific data and medical opinion that shows that for athletes with the characteristics and the work requirements of ours, this is a dangerous supplement. The FDA in some ways is a broader and different issue focused on the population at large. We presume to have the authority by agreement with the players to ban things that the FDA does not ban.

Sweeney: Is it true that NFL independently contributed money to USADA to expand their testing capabilities?

PT: Yes. We contributed $1.1 million over five years to create a new lab jointly with USADA at the University of Utah to promote research, detection and techniques.

Sweeney: Would the NFL be interested in participating in a nation-wide elementary school education program?

PT: We have it. Through our youth football fund we have published a series, four in number, on young athlete’s health. We have one volume on strength and conditioning without supplements and steroids. We have another volume that specifically addresses dangerous substances, which is what I’m holding up. It’s on our website, it’s on other youth football organization’s websites, it’s available throughout the country and it was done in conjunction with a number of universities and other institutions, including the American Red Cross. We will put additional resources into additional distribution if that served the purpose.

Sweeney: What do you do to protect players from tainted supplements?

PT: We agreed with our players association on a certified supplement manufacturing program, which I will let Mr. Henderson explain.

Ruppersberger: Why does the NFL’s performance-enhancing policy only test for 8 stimulants compared to the 42 tested by the Olympic standard.

PT: It was explained this morning by Dr. Finkel and Dr. Lombardo. We feel those stimulants are the ones that are of principal concern and are the focus of our concerns for football players. The Olympic committee is dealing with many other sports and other blood doping techniques and other things that are of concern there that have not been of concern to us. We are looking at that issue now to see whether we should expand the number of stimulants. I said earlier that one of the key issues for us in this area is prescriptions being given for ADD - Attention Deficit Disorder and ADHD to see whether those are being abused.

Waxman: There’s a lot people of credibility that think there is still a high use of steroids in football, and when I look at the testing results it’s not the case, it’s nagging at me, are they wrong or are we not getting the information…I have no doubt in your good faith in dealing with the problem.