Seth Vigdor
As many of you know, Mark Cuban has made a significant financial commitment in trying to fund the study of potential benefits of human growth hormone use for athletes recovering from injuries. In November of 2013, Cuban announced that he asked the NBA Board of Governors to consider letting injured players use synthetic human growth hormone while rehabbing.
Cuban has in the past compared HGH use to Tommy John surgery, in which the ulnar collateral ligament in the elbow is replaced with a tendon from elsewhere in the body. The procedure often allows pitchers to return to the mound throwing harder than they did before surgery. Cuban has stated that he “loves to test and challenge any schools of thought that have not been thought out,” as per an August email to ESPN’s Outside the Lines.
Besides being the Owner of the Mavericks, Cuban is Co-founder of the startup Broadcast.com and a star of the TV show ‘Shark Tank.’
Cuban spoke about his reasoning for funding HGH studies with USA Today Sports in an e-mail in November of 2013.
“The issue isn’t whether I think it should be used. The issue is that it has not been approved for such use. And one of the reasons it hasn’t been approved is that there have not been studies done to prove the benefits of prescribing HGH for athletic rehabilitation or any injury rehabilitation that I’m aware of. The product has such a huge (public) stigma that no one wants to be associated with it.”
With the talk of HGH in the news once again with an alleged doping ring in which Ryan Howard and Peyton Manning, among others have been connected to, Cuban recently called into TMZ Sports to discuss his position again.
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