Hooton Foundation criticizes Congress on steroids

The Taylor Hooton Foundation has criticized Congress and the federal government for failing to take action to regulate steroid use by youth.

In a letter released Monday, foundation president Don Hooton said ''it is a travesty that the budget includes no funds for steroid education for our youth.''

Hooton's son Taylor committed suicide in July 2003, and doctors said they believe the 17-year-old high school baseball player became depressed after he stopped using steroids.

Don Hooton, who established the foundation a year later, faulted Congress for not dealing with the issue since its high-profile hearing in 2005 when Mark McGwire avoided direct answers, and Sammy Sosa and Rafael Palmeiro testified they didn't use steroids.

Palmeiro later tested positive and McGwire in January admitted using steroids and human growth hormone on and off for a decade, starting before the 1990 season.

''At the televised 2005 hearings, congressmen readily beat up on MLB,'' Hooton said in his letter, to be published in a special World Series edition of USA Today this week. ''Five years later, no federal progress has been made to keep these drugs from killing our children.''

Hooton said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention claims 5.1 percent of high school boys and 2.7 percent of high school girls use steroids.

''This is no longer a problem limited to our athletes - it is a threat to all our kids,'' Hooton said. ''Major League Baseball, which was the focus of a lot of negative attention at the 2005 hearings, now outspends the entire federal government on youth anti-steroid education by a factor of more than 500,000 percent a year.''

The Hooton Foundation's education programs at major league ballparks are funded by MLB.

''We need the Congress and the federal government to take this threat seriously and act now,'' Hooton wrote. ''We need effective, broad-based youth education programs. We need better regulation of supplements.''