Evening star., 1952-10-01
Vitomin Shots Found
Of No Aid to Athletes

Ut No Aid to Athletes
Medical Group Says Practice
Moy Do IrreporobIs Horm
By Thomos r. Henry
Athletes can't be cooked up" with
vitamins.
In the first place. it doesn't work.
Coaches who try it are kidding them
selves. Second, any such attempt repre-
Sents very poor craftsmanship and may
do the athletes themselves irreparabls
harm.
Such is the conclusion of the American
Medical Association In reply to one Of
its members who asked for the generally
accepted medical opinion on the reputed
current practice Of giving college ath-
letes. especially football players and
track men. hypodermic injections Of
Vitamin B and some other vitamins Just
before q contest.
Likened to Doping Horses.
The reply Of the medical association:
In college or high school contests or
In amateur contests of community spon-
sored teams there has developed an atti-
tude among certain supporters and con-
teStants that winning at any cost is an
acceptable goal. This has caused the de-
velopment Of technical steps to produce
artificial stimulation or permit the ex-
hibition Of strength or speed beyond what
Is normally possible in non stimulated
athlete.
'Tte administration OF Vitamin B or
vitamin-B complex Immediately before
contests to improve vigor or pep in the
contestants would appear to be in the
same class as the breathing of oxygen
by swimmers Immediately before the
starting gun. or the injection of various
chemicals into race horses. It Is b
means Of winning contest that other
wise the contestant might be unable
to win. Irrespective Of the physiological
effect on the individual player, this
practice should be deprecated on moral
grounds.
Prom the strictly medical point of
view, it was recently reported to the
American College of Allergists that the
excessive use of thiamine hydrochlor-
ide, Vitamin B-1 may cause serious
circulatory disturbances and produce
q reaction similar to that produced by
hiStamine. It is believed, however, that
the effect of the vitamin-B complex ID
not immediate and therefore any in
creased vigor or pep in contestants re-
ceiving it Immediately before Q contest
would probably be. q psychological
stimulation with q purely psychological
effect in production of higher levels of
accomplishment. At the best this Is
poor medicine. worse sportsmanship, and
an extremely destructive philosophy to
teach our youth" ~
Possibilities for industrial use Of
atomic energy are looking up-but per-
haps for the somewhat distant future.
Up to now prospects of atomic energy
turning factory wheels or pumping
water have not been too bright-partly
because Of the technical hurdles to be
crossed but chiefly because of the
enormous cost Of this kind Of power.
Its use has not been very seriously
proposed, except under very special
conditions. -.t.
Now, says Gordon Dean. chairman Of
the Atomic Energy Commission, recent
developments make it appear that
eventually it will be feasible for areas
with possibilities of development where
there is no other source Of power-such
as coal or water power. At the best. of
course. it will be very expensive. -sas
'It has been known all along" says
Mr.. Dean" that q reactor could be built
to produce, rower-as o matter Of fact
one Of the reactors at our testing sta
ton in Idaho actually produced power
last winter. But the trouble has been
with the cost, which would have been
many times higher than the cost even
Of the most expensive power from
other sources.
One Now Works Successfully.
Recently we completed construction
Of. and placed in operation, . new re-
actor which is now working successfully.
When this reactor was first thought OF. it
was believed that 1t would take $50 mil
lion to build it. The actual final con-
struction cost was only $40 million.
II am told by some Of our scientists
that they feel they could take the les
sons learned on that reactor and build
somewhat smaller but essentially sim
liar machine for as little as IS million.
when you get down into this range
the cost Of power begins to become in
teresting-not because it would COM
pete generally with coal, oil, gas and
falling water but rather because 1t looks
like it might become competitive In q
few isolated locations where normal
power costs are extremely high.
II am not talking about the kind Of
reactor which would be suitable for q
big central power station feeding kilo-
watts by the millions into utility net
work. am talking about o relatively
small machine that would produce kilo-
watts numbered in the thousands, but
sufficient to perform q useful purpose in
undeveloped areas which now are either
priced out Of the power market or can
afford only marginal supply at best
Questions and Answers
The stars readers can get the answer 70
any question Of fact by either writing The
Evening Star Information Bureau. 1900 / street
NV. washington 3. .. c.. and inclosing cents