askas;ldkasd wrote:
Juan's a Runner wrote:... by Brown or another physician,...
I, too, have received prescriptions and treatments from Brown, or another physician. So have my parents and siblings!! This is very frightening.
If your suspicions lie with Brown, why do you need to discuss the "other physician" part? If you think many doctors are suspicious in that way, I don't think trying to link everyone with Brown strengthens your point.
Sorry for being a little pedantic :)
That "by Brown or another physician" is part of a quote. Sorry, I did not format it quite right.
Still, I think the meaning is pretty obvious: 3 of the tip-top, most famous athletes of the last 2 decades of running in the US (plus the coach of one of them) all were treated for thyroid conditions (not to mention the various other elites who received thyroid treatment). These aren't just a few random elites; these are 4 runners who were by far the best US athlete of their era at their event, at least for a little while. I don't care if it was Dr Brown who dealt with all of them, or if it was 4 completely different doctors - the point remains, one way or another, a little light needs to be shone upon this thyroid problem thing. I don't care what your viewpoint is (i.e. some will say that maybe hard training has a negative effect on the thyroid gland, and that needs to be corrected to get them back to baseline); either way, it brings up some serious ethical and medical issues that need to be addressed, not just ignored.
Up until the last few years, most people probably associated "thyroid issues" with people who are a little on the sick or unhealthy end of the spectrum, not with the fittest athletes we have to offer. Telling us that Salazar, Rupp, Hall, and Kennedy all had thyroid problems would have sounded about as likely as saying they all had osteoporosis or diabetes. We'd want to re-evaluate whether intense training for distance-running was even good for you at all. Maybe there is a legitimate explanation, but "coincidence" is not it, and trying to ignore it just makes them seem all the more suspicious.