Steroids in Sports? UNCW Professor Invited To National Forum To Discuss Issues Surrounding Sports Supplements
2/24/2004 12:00:00 AM
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WILMINGTON, N.C.– Mike Perko, associate professor in the University of North Carolina at Wilmington Department of Health and Applied Human Sciences, has been invited to serve as a keynote panelist at the Joint Commission of Sports Medicine and Science Conference, Saturday, Feb. 28 in Austin, Texas.
The joint commission meets annually with representatives from more than 40 sports medicine and science communities to share their work, to learn what others are doing in the field and to debate issues that will affect the future of the sports medicine profession. Perko will be discussing research in the area of sports supplements and advocating for policy changes at the federal level to protect athletes from taking untested products.
Elected officials and executive directors from the all major sports medicine organizations will be in attendance including the American Medical Association, the American College of Sports Medicine, the National Athletic Trainer’s Association, the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, the U.S. Olympic Committee and the U.S. Olympic Sports Medicine Society.
Serving on the panel with Perko will be Leslie Bonci, media spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association who appears regularly on ABC’s Good Morning America. Bonci, who serves as the nutritionist to the Pittsburgh Steelers and the U.S. Olympic canoe and kayak team, is also director of the Sports Medicine Nutrition Program, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Health System.
Also on the panel is Frank Uryasz, president of the Center for Drug Free Sport, the official drug testing agency for the NCAA and one of the world’s leading resources for sports dietary supplement information.
According to Perko, this conference highlights an issue of national importance. “When the President of the United States mentions performance-enhancing drugs in a State of the Union address, obviously a big message is being sent that ‘enhancing performance goes against the fabric of fair-play.’ Sports governing bodies play an end game by penalizing athletes instead of identifying the strong influences that surround the reasons for such drug use,” he said. “We need to identify the influences and begin change on that level, such as paying millions of dollars to 19-year-old super athletes. That's the message I will bring to the commission.”
Perko, who holds a Ph.D. in health education and health promotion from the School of Public Health at the University of Alabama, is coordinator of health education programs at UNCW and speaks to universities nationwide as an NCAA expert on dietary supplements and athletes. He is the author of the book Taking One for the Team: The New Thinking on Dietary Supplements and Young Athletes and recently appeared on ESPN’s Outside the Lines weighing in on the dangers of Ephedra.
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MEDIA CONTACT: Dr. Mike Perko, 910/962-3258 or perkom@uncw.edu
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