NBC Sports claimed that NFL player Deuce McAllister tested positive for anabolic steroids using the headline “Report: Saints’ McAllister positive for steroids” in spite of the fact that the banned diuretic bumetanide was the culprit. The sensationalistic, highly misleading and false headline may have been the result of media ignorance about anabolic steroids. Bumetanide is NOT an anabolic steroid.

Even though the article explicitly identified bumetanide as the banned substance for which McAllister tested positive, NBC Sports may not have known that the diuretic bumetanide was NOT an anabolic steroid. Reports of a “rash of positive steroid tests” in the NFL by news websites here and here and here and here are highly misleading and false since none of the players are alleged to have used steroids.

We expect the general public to be grossly ignorant about anabolic steroids. But the failure of the media to accurately identify the drugs involved in anti-doping protocols in unacceptable. The layperson may think that all performance enhancing drugs on the banned substances list are anabolic steroids. But it is the responsibility of the media to accurately report information.

Of course, the fact that the NFL’s anti-doping protocol is referred to as the “NFL policy on anabolic steroids and related substances” (or as is most commonly referenced - the “NFL steroids policy”) just lends itself to the perception that an athlete who violated the “NFL steroids policy” was using “steroids.”

New Orleans Saints running back Deuce McAllister, defensive ends Will Smith and Charles Grant and Houston Texans deep snapper Bryan Pittman  all allegedly tested positive for bumetanide (which is NOT an anabolic steroid).