Dr. John Pierce, a Las Vegas-based anti-aging doctor, has heard from several fighters who say theyd rather go to the black market for performance-enhancing drugs than get a therapeutic-use exemption (TUE) for testosterone.

But now that the Nevada State Athletic Commission has closed the TUE program for testosterone-replacement therapy (TRT), he believes everyone will go the illicit route.

What theyve in essence done is taken people that were forthright about their usage of testosterone for a medical purpose and punished them for it, Pierce told MMAjunkie. That makes no sense because, bottom line, its going to happen.

Instead of having a physician involved in the care of a patient monitoring their levels, where youre getting a test all the time, much more so than you would a normal patient because of the nature of their work youre going to get people doing it underground, using black market steroids, not bio-identical hormones that have not been tested. They could potentially get themselves sick injecting themselves with whatever.

And then, at that juncture, theyre cheating because theyre not being forthright about it.

Among thousands seeking a license to fight in the state, the NSAC has issued a total of six exemptions to MMA fighters over the past seven years until its decision this past month to ban them outright. The regulatory body also turned away several fighters who sought a TUE as the exemption process became more public and more controversial. There was, however, widespread belief in the MMA community that prior to the ban, the NSAC was helping to legitimize the use of a performance-enhancing drug.

NSACs TRT ban sets off dominoes

NSAC representatives repeatedly defended the practice of granting exemptions in the past, citing safeguards to avoid abuse, but they starkly reversed course in the recent meeting that produced the ban.

Asked whether the NSACs now-shuttered exemption process had steered athletes from the black market to above-board medical professionals, Pierce, an emergency medicine doctor who heads Las Vegas Ageless Forever clinic, initially said, It had the potential to do that, and in my experience, it did do that. He then clarified that he hadnt explicitly treated any fighters in such a situation, but he had spoken casually about it among Las Vegas large fight community.

I actually have had people tell me that doing it the illicit way was much easier, he said. They wouldnt even consider doing it the legal way, because it would be much easier to do it the illicit way. They wouldnt be under as much scrutiny.

See the original post here:
Anti-aging doctor linked to Vitor Belfort: TRT ban pushes fighters to black market