NFL Pillgate: Court Files Show NFL Team Doctors May Have Broken Prescription Drug Laws To Keep Players On Field
Newly released court documents show that National Football League teams violated federal laws regarding the many prescription drugs NFL team doctors fill their players with in order to keep the football players on the field.
NFL players get banged-up and hurt all the time, and sometimes the NFL players are out for a few games and other times the players are out for maybe just a few plays.
It’s amazing sometimes to see an injured football player, that we thought would be out for weeks, walk back onto the football field just a few plays later. We always wondered if NFL teams had their own Mr Miyagi hidden away in the locker room to magically heal their players, or if they pumped them full of pain killers, and now we know the truth
Now we know that the NFL team doctors probably don’t do much other than fill the NFL player with drugs, and send them back out on the field.
Just another reason to drop the NFL from your life, and watch another sport that doesn’t employ criminals, or fill their employees with drugs to fill the field of players.
National Football League teams violated federal laws governing prescription drugs, disregarded guidance from the Drug Enforcement Administration on how to store, track, transport and distribute controlled substances, and plied their players with powerful painkillers and anti-inflammatories each season, according to sealed court documents contained in a federal lawsuit filed by former players.
The sealed material, which was reviewed by The Washington Post, provides a rare look into the league’s relationship with drugs and how team doctors manage the pain inherent in a bruising sport to keep players on the field.
Federal law lays out strict guidelines for how teams can handle and dispense prescription drugs. The sealed court filing, which includes testimony and documents by team and league medical personnel, describes multiple instances in which team and league officials were made aware of abuses, record-keeping problems and even violations of federal law and were either slow in responding or failed to comply.
The filing, which was prepared by lawyers for the players suing the league, asserts that “every doctor deposed so far . . . has testified that they violated one or more” federal drug laws and regulations “while serving in their capacity as a team doctor.” Anthony Yates, the Pittsburgh Steelers’ team doctor and past president of the NFL Physicians Society, testified in a deposition that “a majority of clubs as of 2010 had trainers controlling and handling prescription medications and controlled substances when they should not have,” the filing states.
At times, team medical staff displayed a cavalier attitude toward federal guidelines that govern dispensing medicine. In August 2009, for example, Paul Sparling, the Cincinnati Bengals’ head trainer, wrote in an email: “Can you have your office fax a copy of your DEA certificate to me? I need it for my records when the NFL ‘pill counters’ come to see if we are doing things right. Don’t worry, I’m pretty good at keeping them off the trail!”
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