The NFL’s Miami Dolphin announced that they will implement the NFL ATLAS & ATHENA anti-steroid education program at six local Florida high schools. While the programs do have some empirical support for reduce teen steroid use, the researcher behind the program, Dr. Linn Goldberg, has been known to argue a causal connection between anabolic steroids and paranoia recently stating that steroid use ”makes you paranoid.” Goldberg defended the statement at Steroid.com.

It is not that steroids MAKE you anything, it promotes changes in neurochemistry that make the susceptible more likely to suffer these effects. To believe that powerful hormones don’t cause these changes are to deny both behavioral evidence and evidence of neurochemistry. It is causal! It just requires the susceptible individual. (Emphasis added)

The USA Today originally reported that the NFL gave OHSU a $1.4 million grant but the Miami Dolphin press release places the figure at $2.8 million.

This local opportunity was created as a result of a $2.8 million grant from the NFL Youth Football Fund to Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU). Wayne Huizenga, Stephen Ross, fellow NFL owners and the NFL Players Association all contribute to the NFL Youth Football Fund. The NFL grant is one of a series of improvements to the NFL and NFL Players Association’s policy and program on anabolic steroids and related substances. It will be used to disseminate ATLAS and ATHENA to 36,000 high school athletes and 1,200 coaches in 80 high schools during the 2008-2009 school year.