If only answering that question was easy. The test indicates one thing and yet you have people all over the country weighing in with why it might be false or why is definitely positive. I think no matter what happens the damage is done.

What do you think?? Email me: sstricklen@kgw.com

Dr. Goldberg is a wealth of knowledge on doping and told me about all the creative drugs labs create for athletes. The old school way of doing it involved transfusing blood to pump the system full of oxygen carrying cells that could better feed starving muscles. Now there are drugs that do that.

There is also a drug that fits between your cheek and your gum and works for about 2 hours and then dissapears from your system. And there are tons of "designer' drugs out there that no lab can detect because no one knows what to look for. Need proof?? Check this out: http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/steroids/

But you know who makes up A SIGNIFICANT group of steroid users in the country??? Your teen. Numbers from the CDC show that while steroid use and performance enhancing drug use dropped among high school students in the past few years... it is still at an alarming rate. Dr. Goldberg says in 2005 some 550,000 high schoolers did it. In 2003 that number was 850,000. Man. I had no idea. I had always heard you need to talk to your teen about illegal drugs that make you high. I had no idea you also needed to address steroid use.

I snagged this off an OHSU press release. It covers some of Dr. Goldberg's work in this area.

ATLAS (Athletes Training and Learning to Avoid Steroids), a multi-component program for male high school athletes, first instituted in 1993, is scientifically shown to reduce risk factors and use of anabolic steroids, alcohol and other illicit drugs while promoting healthy nutrition and exercise behaviors. Proven results include: new substance use decreased 50 percent; new anabolic steroid use decreased 50 percent; occurrences of drinking and driving declined 24 percent; a lower index of alcohol and drug use; reduced use of performance-enhancing supplements; and improved nutrition and exercise behaviors.

ATHENA (Athletes Targeting Healthy Exercise and Nutrition Alternatives), which began reaching high schools for female athletes in 1997, features the promotion of healthy nutrition and effective exercise training as alternatives to harmful behaviors. The objectives are: reduce young women athletes' disordered eating habits; deter use of body-shaping substances; improve sport performance with guidelines targeting the specific needs of young women. Proven results include: less use of athletic enhancing substances; less use of diet pills; less riding in a car with a drinking driver; greater seatbelt use; less new sexual activity; improved nutrition behaviors and reduced long-term use of alcohol, marijuana and tobacco.

Okay. Responses on the door to door blood testing story...

Karen writes: I would do it. Going to the doctors office for these test can be a pain in the butt. I think the health people coming to your house would be much better. I think that it would be stressfull.

Sue writes: Would I participate in such a poll? Hell, no. The results are anonymous and that's supposed to be of use to me in finding out if I have heart disease or diabetes or too much mercury in my body?

This is a stupid, invasive idea. Somebody got a grant.

What a waste of everybody's time and money.

CT writes: I am against door to door anything. Since they are giving out $45 gift cards, it wouldn't be difficult to get people to go to a clinic to have blood drawn.

Anyone can appear "official" with fake ID cards made on home computers, a yellow vest, and some sort of bag. It would allow people access to someone's home since they would have to come in to draw the blood. It would be an ideal set up for being assulted and/or robbed.

If you want to test this out, make a fake ID, get a yellow vest and a bag, and have someone from the news station go door to door to see how many homes he or she can access. Most people wouldn't know what an official ID card would look like.

An alternative would be to have an official van go to fire stations or have the Health Dept. Drs. go with fire paramedics, door to door, in a fire rescue ambulance and have the people go to the vehicle to have the blood drawn. It would be difficult to fake a fire rescue vehicle and it would not allow the person access to an individual's home.

Dennis writes: My question would first be: Why go door to door? Why not setup the facility in a clinic or hospital setting, with the proper procedures and processes? Why not talk to local Doctors and Physicians and see if they could get the patients currently in their care to submit this type of information during the regular visit to the Family Doctors office?

In this unsettling time of database theft, identity theft, the push for a new forms of identification such as imbedded chips and retinal scans, that every day leads down the path of civil and personal rights violations, why would anyone give up their blood from a stranger at the door? Money?
$45.00 may not seem like a lot to you or me, but to some folks having trouble barely managing to get to work and feed their households, that $45.00 could be the difference between eating and having electricity.

I realize this sounds like a conspiracy paranoia, but that doesn't mean it is not what this is about. We as a country have given away so many rights dealing with privacy, and to have an unknown person show up and take a sample of the blood....well, that just makes this fellow nervous about the entire system.

Regardless of what is said and "promised", too many people have mishandled information, mishandled processing with this information, for anyone to feel secure that their information would not be misused. Look at what happened with the Veterans database system. While that was recovered, that was 30 years worth of information sitting on a CD in a stolen notebook. Now, lets replace SSN with DNA. All it takes is one little mistake.

Yes, this is a bit much. However, in this time of world wars, and identity theft, email scams, credit fraud, where no one in any position of authority seems to be able to get a handle on any of it......Well, I would feel much safer knowing that I was not a willing participant in the next step to making 1984 a reality. Even though, in my opinion, it is already too late.

To paraphrase a cliched statement......They can have my blood by taking it out of my dead body.

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Oh yeah.. remember the picture of the raging fire on the BBQ grill (hint, scroll down to previous post). Well, here is the next one in a series of three. I'll explain how I messed up this recipe soon... come on, you KNOW you want me to cook dinner for you!!!

Email me!! sstricklen@kgw.com