Yesterday a federal court judge in Minneapolis preliminarily enjoined the National Football League from enforcing its four-game suspensions of five players (the Vikings’ Kevin Williams and Pat Williams, and the Saints’ Charles Grant, Deuce McAllister, and Will Smith) for violating the League’s drug testing policy.  In July or August 2008, each of the players tested positive for a diuretic, whose alleged source was a dietary supplement with the brand name StarCaps, a substance banned by the NFL and other sports governing bodies because it may be used to mask  usage of anabolic steroids (whose usage by athletes also is prohibited).  The National Football League Players Association, the union representing the players, asserts they did not use StarCaps to mask steroid usage or know that it contained bumetanide, a diuretic not listed as one of the product’s ingredients. They deny any knowing use of a diuretic and voluntary exposure to the adverse health risks of doing so.  Rather, they believed their usage of StarCaps, an over-the-counter weight loss product, was permissible.  The NFL contends that its drug testing policy, which was collectively bargained with the players union, provides for strict liability. The NFL’s Policy on Anabolic Steroids and Related Substances states:

Subject to your right of appeal, if you test positive or otherwise violate the Policy, you will be suspended. You and you alone are responsible for what goes into your body. Claiming that you used only legally available nutritional supplements will not help you in an appeal. . . . Even if they are bought over-the-counter from a known establishment, there is currently no way to be sure that they contain the ingredients listed on the packaging or have not been tainted with prohibited substances . . . . If you take these products, you do so AT YOUR OWN RISK! For your own health and success in the league, we strongly encourage you to avoid the use of supplements altogether, or at the very least to be extremely careful about what you choose to take.

In response, the NFLPA claims the physician chosen by the NFL to independently administer the drug testing program knew, allegedly based on a laboratory’s analysis of StarCaps after an unidentified NFL player’s November 2006 positive test for bumetanide, that StarCaps’ labelling did not disclose this ingredient, but he failed to warn NFL players not to use this specific product in breach of his alleged fiduciary duty to do so.  It also claims that the NFL in-house attorney who oversees the League’s drug testing program had such knowledge, but also failed to notify the NFLPA or players about the presence of bumetanide in StarCaps.