A Body to Die For: More misinformed propaganda

[Act of God]

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/mo...o_die_for.html

Pete Kennedy just wanted to be buff, but in the end,
he paid ultimate price for using steroids

BY WAYNE COFFEY
DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER

Sunday, March 25th 2007, 4:00 AM


Pete Kennedy

Pete Kennedy with his sister Jamie at Albany Medical center days before he died from steroid -related damage to his heart and kidneys.
EAST BERNE, N.Y. - Long before his muscles got big and his organs shut down, Pete Kennedy was just a country kid who loved to tinker. In the garage next to the little blue house on a hilltop he shared with his mother and sister, he would spend hours taking machines apart, and putting them back together.

His mother still remembers the time he came home with a bushel basket full of dirt bike parts, when he was 12. Two weeks later, Pete was riding the thing up and down Main St.

"He could build anything," Barbara Kennedy says of her son. "You could give him something that didn't work, and he would fix it. He would fix my tractor, my car, fix my aunt's vehicles. Friends would call and say, 'Pete, I have a problem,' and he'd say, 'Bring it over.'"

There will be no more automotive reclamation jobs for Pete Kennedy, no more wizardry with his wrenches. He died in the intensive-care unit of Albany Medical Center in the early hours of Friday morning, three weeks before his 28th birthday, three weeks to the day after he was hospitalized with what his mother thought was a heavy cold. Barb Kennedy was supposed to pick him up the next morning, never imagining the heartache to come; that her only son would have his healthy body ravaged by steroid use , that he would become the nation's latest chemically enhanced tragedy - a young man who just wanted to be big and buff, and wound up in the ground.

Barbara Kennedy found out with a 4 a.m. phone call from the hospital.

"I pray that no other mother ever has to go through this," she says.

Pete Kennedy was born and raised here, in the hill country southwest of Albany, a community (pop. 1,843) where people leave their houses unlocked and their keys in the ignition. Pete never played team sports; he just rode his four-wheeler and snowmobile, and lifted lots of bales of hay. He was a sinewy 6-1, 162-pound farmboy who worked for a glass manufacturer and had a bedroom done completely in John Deere, from clock to sheets.

Could there be a more improbable person to intersect with the burgeoning investigation into Internet steroid trafficking being conducted by David Soares, the Albany County district attorney? A less likely face of an orbit of steroid use that has nothing to do with home-run records or Olympic gold medals - but rather with a simple desire to bulk up?

While there is no evidence linking Kennedy's supply of Nandrolone and testosterone to the alleged steroid distribution ring - a widespread web of doctors, pharmacies and wellness centers that has already implicated several athletes - that Soares is investigating, authorities view the case as a heart-rending reminder of the prevalence, and the perils, of anabolic steroids, particularly those sold on the black market.

"Steroid use has been a drug of denial for many years," says John L. Lestini Jr., director of the National Steroid Research Center. "People say, 'It's an athlete's problem, let them solve it.' Well, it's not an athlete's problem. It's a widespread public health problem that we can no longer ignore."

Gary Wadler, a professor at the NYU School of Medicine and member of the World Anti-Doping Agency, agrees. He says much of the U.S. supply of steroids and human growth hormone comes from Mexico and the Far East, from unknown sources with, quite likely, nonexistent regulatory standards.

"If these drugs are pure, they are dangerous," Wadler says. "If you have no idea what you're swallowing or injecting, it becomes true Russian Roulette. The attitude in America is, 'They wouldn't sell it if weren't safe. They wouldn't sell it if weren't pure. They wouldn't sell it if it didn't work.' The problem is we're not dealing with drugs from the regular marketplace."

* * *
As far as Barb Kennedy can tell, the trouble started last April, after Pete got his second DWI. He was on his way home from Lake George. He'd had some Miller Lites at a bar, and refused the Breathlyzer test. His license was suspended. His probation mandated that he couldn't drink, couldn't join his buddies for Thirsty Thursdays at his favorite bar down the street, the Maple Inn. He felt a void. He opted to fill it by working out. He cleaned out the basement of the garage and set up an impressive array of weights, punching bags and fitness equipment.

By last summer, Pete Kennedy was lifting up to four hours a day, five days a week. He was constantly drinking power shakes and other concoctions. He spent $300 monthly at GNC, according to his sister, Jamie, 22. When he lifted, he had his heavy metal music blaring - "Anger music," he called it - and pushed himself to almost complete exhaustion.

"Aren't you overdoing it?" his mother would ask.

"No, I'm fine," Pete would say, before cranking up the music to drown out her voice.

"The gym became his crutch," Barb says.

For years Pete and Barb wore interchangeable jeans, waist 29, but that changed. His arms began to bulge with slabs of muscle, and his neck and chest thickened and hardened, as his weight increased to 170, 180, 190 - all the way to 215. Jamie noticed his jawline becoming more pronounced - a common side effect of HGH - and Pete's girlfriend said his back had developed severe acne - a condition that often accompanies steroid use.

Seeing him every day, Barb was slow to notice any changes at all, until Pete needed new pairs of size-34 jeans. He was becoming increasingly impatient and sometimes irritable, she realized. She asked him straight out if he was using steroids. Pete said no. She brought it up several other times. He was emphatic, just as he was when Jamie asked him about it.

"I'd never do that. I would never stick a needle inside me," he said.

Barb Kennedy is a dark-haired, 47-year-old woman with the sturdy grip and down-home bearing of a person who has spent a lifetime around the farm. She raises quarter horses and holds down three other jobs - waitress, short-order cook and an aide in a veterinary clinic. She knows when horses have been pharmacologically enhanced.

"I can pick a horse out in the crowd with steroids, but I couldn't pick my son out," she says. Sitting in the hospital cafeteria last week, amid another 10-hour day at her son's bedside, she blamed herself for not going at Pete harder.

"I wish I'd called him a liar and did the thing that parents don't like to do - searched his room," she says.

That search was belatedly conducted three weeks ago, Pete already in St. Peter's Hospital after complaining of a persistent cold, extreme fatigue and shortness of breath. Within hours of his admission, his kidneys shut down, his liver began to fail and his heart was enlarged. His blood was full of toxins. Doctors induced a coma as they figured out how to proceed. They asked Barb Kennedy if her son took steroids. Just before Pete was transferred to Albany Medical Center, Jamie got a call from a friend of Pete's. The friend said that awhile back Pete had asked where he could get hold of steroids. Jamie hung up and went into Pete's room. She looked everywhere. In the bottom of the closet she found a fireproof safe. She went to the desk and got the keys. She opened the safe. Inside it was a plastic bag with eight 30-milliliter bottles, four brown and four clear. "Testosterone," it said on the brown ones, next to a homemade label with a caricature of an overly muscled man.

Jamie began to sob. "My heart just dropped to the floor," she says.

* * *
Nobody knows for sure when Pete Kennedy started taking steroids, or how much he was taking. Linn Goldberg, M.D., a professor of medicine at Oregon Health & Science University and a leading researcher of youth steroid use, says it's not uncommon for "an average steroid user to take up to 100 times the normal level of testosterone."

State drug-enforcement investigators, working with DA Soares' office, are probing the black-market source where Pete Kennedy got his drugs. At 4:30 Friday morning, right after Barb Kennedy got the worst call of her life, she made a call herself.

"Go get the sons of bitches," she told investigators.

The terrible irony is that a day before his death, Pete Kennedy had had his best day in three weeks. He was taken off the respirator, and began to do some breathing on his own. His eyes opened and he seemed a bit more alert. Pete and Jamie are extraordinarily close - he always called her "Kid." Jamie asked him if he could say, "Hey, Kid." Slowly, almost inaudibly, Pete repeated his sister's words. Hours later, his breathing became labored and his heart began to race. The respirator was reinserted, but his heart finally gave out. "He fought hard," Jamie says. "I just don't think he could fight any longer."

Throughout the ordeal, the Kennedy family has been astounded at people's kindness. At the restaurant where Barb waitresses, two couples recently had a $160 dinner, and left $400. Barb ran after them and told them they had made a mistake. "No, we didn't," one of the men said. Food keeps showing up in Barb's refrigerator. People drop by with money here and there, to help pay for the $93 fillups for Barb's truck, and to help her cover the $479 monthly payments on Pete's beloved Ford F-250 pickup. A fellow farmer gave her $400 for a month's feed for her horses, and there is an upcoming benefit spaghetti dinner at the East Berne firehouse, followed by another at the Maple Inn. They are much more pleasant things to think about than the persons who sold the eight bottles of steroids that made their way inside Pete Kennedy's safe. "If a hillbilly on top of a mountain can get a hold of it, then it can get anywhere," Jamie says.

Over the last quarter-century, as steroids have become as much of a sports-world staple as standings and shattered home-run records, some have depicted their distribution and use as a victimless crime - not worthy of prosecutors' time. If some cartoon-character linebacker or slugger wants to take such a risk, what's the big deal? The NSRC's Lestini scoffs at that notion, and so does Wadler, who sees steroid trafficking as "every bit the money-driven enterprise that the cocaine and heroin businesses are." Steroid use routinely comes bundled with financial, familial and psychological wreckage, experts say.

Barbara Kennedy never figured she'd be wei***ng in on this, but she never imagined living through the hell she's lived through the last three weeks. She has bills to pay. She has a son to bury. She has a life she must try to carry on, without devouring herself with regret about what she might've done differently. Don't waste your time talking to her about victimless crime.

"I have proof it's not true," Barbara Kennedy says. "And the proof is seeing a mother watch her son die and not be able to do anything about it.”
Daily News Specials

[Snrf]

retarded...so how did steroids kill him?

By last summer, Pete Kennedy was lifting up to four hours a day, five days a week. He was constantly drinking power shakes and other concoctions. He spent $300 monthly at GNC, according to his sister, Jamie, 22. When he lifted, he had his heavy metal music blaring - "Anger music," he called it - and pushed himself to almost complete exhaustion.

guy was a retard, 4 hours a day? $300 monthly at GNC?

[SMAN12b]

and your steroid question is??

wrong forum!!

[helium3]

and i could post up 10000 stories about people who died from alchohol abuse or smoking.

a chronic user i suppose,can happen.

and i wasnt shooting the messenger,it just annoys me that stories like this are front page news when infact there are a million and one other deaths that are at the hands of substances being abused,far more widley available and legal.

[Act of God]

and your steroid question is??

wrong forum!!

Yeah I realized that after I posted...feel free to move it to news and politics if you want. My bad

[dupa95]

yes there is difference between USE and ABUSE.

[SMAN12b]

Yeah I realized that after I posted...feel free to move it to news and politics if you want. My bad

No sweat, admin will move it when they get here

[GHO5T]

Nobody knows what his past experience with AAS usage has been. How long has he been researching AAS compounds and how knowledgable he is when it comes to proper cycling and proper usage of AAS.

IMO he didnt know what he was doing, as far as even diet and training are concerned, and not to mention the AAS compounds he was administering.

Also i believe that its another case of abuse of AAS rather than use. It doesnt state what kind of dosages he was taking, the guy could of been taking extreme dosages thinking in order to get big i have to take more, and abusing the compounds, which unfortunately can lead to something like this.

Also there are alot more deaths in the U.S that are caused by smoking, heroin, and other drugs, so how come we dont hear about them and why arent they taken as seriously?

[Atomini]

WHen will the propaganda ever stop? Does the United States as a nation and North America as a culture have to collapse for all this to end?

[Booz]

booz to the rescue,
this as a steroid related subject tho so i will leave this here unless admin decide to move it then so be it but i think its ok..........................

[Schwarzenegger]

thats scary.

[Pooks]

He had an enlarged heart.
That is not a steroid side-effect.

Might be a Growth Hormone one, not sure, but def not a steroid one.

[dece870717]

Nobody knows what his past experience with AAS usage has been. How long has he been researching AAS compounds and how knowledgable he is when it comes to proper cycling and proper usage of AAS.

IMO he didnt know what he was doing, as far as even diet and training are concerned, and not to mention the AAS compounds he was administering.

Also i believe that its another case of abuse of AAS rather than use. It doesnt state what kind of dosages he was taking, the guy could of been taking extreme dosages thinking in order to get big i have to take more, and abusing the compounds, which unfortunately can lead to something like this.

Also there are alot more deaths in the U.S that are caused by smoking, heroin, and other drugs, so how come we dont hear about them and why arent they taken as seriously?

I was thinking the same thing. I'm guessing he could have been doing too much and may have been constantly on it, so no breaks in cycles and thus giving his body no time to recover.

[Pooks]

HERE ARE THE CAUSES OF ENLARGED HEART.

Cardi*****ly is abnormal enlargement of the heart. It's not a disease, but a sign of an underlying problem. Many conditions can cause an enlarged heart, including:

* High blood pressure
* Heart valve disorders
* Weakness of the heart muscle (cardiomyopathy)
* Severe anemia
* Thyroid disorders
* Excessive iron in the body (hemochromatosis)
* Abnormal protein buildup in an organ (amyloidosis)

In some people, an enlarged heart causes no signs or symptoms. Others may have:

* Breathing difficulties
* Shortness of breath
* Dizziness
* Abnormal heart rhythm (arrhythmia)
* Swelling (edema)

An enlarged heart may be found incidentally on a chest X-ray done for some other reason. A doctor can confirm a diagnosis by an ultrasound of the heart (echocardiogram). Treatment is directed at the underlying cause.

[Swifto]

Doesnt state a direct link. Many people have enlarged hearts. No dosages also stated.

Another example of scare tactics by the US media.

[aadrenaline]

HERE ARE THE CAUSES OF ENLARGED HEART.

Cardi*****ly is abnormal enlargement of the heart. It's not a disease, but a sign of an underlying problem. Many conditions can cause an enlarged heart, including:

* High blood pressure
* Heart valve disorders
* Weakness of the heart muscle (cardiomyopathy)
* Severe anemia
* Thyroid disorders
* Excessive iron in the body (hemochromatosis)
* Abnormal protein buildup in an organ (amyloidosis)

In some people, an enlarged heart causes no signs or symptoms. Others may have:

* Breathing difficulties
* Shortness of breath
* Dizziness
* Abnormal heart rhythm (arrhythmia)
* Swelling (edema)

An enlarged heart may be found incidentally on a chest X-ray done for some other reason. A doctor can confirm a diagnosis by an ultrasound of the heart (echocardiogram). Treatment is directed at the underlying cause.

you kind've just contridicted your 1st statement...steroids cause high blood pressure, and T3, T4 can cause thyroid problems.

[Pooks]

you kind've just contridicted your 1st statement...steroids cause high blood pressure, and T3, T4 can cause thyroid problems.

yah contradictions happen a lot on in this game LOL

Yah sounds like abuse of steroids , and poor diet habits.. plus who knows what else,, we really dont know know what else he has been into. He obviously turned very anti-social looking at that article, his mom had no freakin clue of anyting.. doods prolly been shooting up heroin and who knows what else.

[chest6]

It wasn't very specific. Didnt say the dosages involved. Im sure he was drawing from each of those 8 vials

[Snrf]

yeah 8g of test a week will probably do ya some harm

[nbkandrew13]

this isnt the end this mother will make this her cause blaming the steroids blaming everyone but her son, this i dont understand because when i would get thrown in jail and call my parents to get out i was told i got in get myself out so i learned about being responsible for what i do whatever it is. i mean the whole reason this guy started wotking out was because he got a couple of dui so who knows what else he was doing

[thegodfather]

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/mo...o_die_for.html

State drug-enforcement investigators, working with DA Soares' office, are probing the black-market source where Pete Kennedy got his drugs. At 4:30 Friday morning, right after Barb Kennedy got the worst call of her life, she made a call herself.

"Go get the sons of bitches," she told investigators.

They are much more pleasant things to think about than the persons who sold the eight bottles of steroids that made their way inside Pete Kennedy's safe. "If a hillbilly on top of a mountain can get a hold of it, then it can get anywhere," Jamie says.

run records, some have depicted their distribution and use as a victimless crime - not worthy of prosecutors' time. If some cartoon-character linebacker or slugger wants to take such a risk, what's the big deal? The NSRC's Lestini scoffs at that notion, and so does Wadler, who sees steroid trafficking as "every bit the money-driven enterprise that the cocaine and heroin businesses are." Steroid use routinely comes bundled with financial, familial and psychological wreckage, experts say.


Daily News Specials

OF COURSE....GET THOSE SONS OF BITCHES!!! They forced him to draw the solution out of the bottle and inject himself with it 2x or MORE every week. Yes, they are certainly to blame. ****ing PATHETIC...

Im going to rant here, so PREPARE.... This country is ****ed ass backwards and it makes me sick...You know what everyone in this ****ed up country avoids? ACCOUNTABILITY . Thats right, no one ever wants to be held accountable for their own actions, or the actions of their family members. Even WORSE, is these overzealous liberal DA's who want to shift the blame to everyone and everything BUT the people who should be held accountable. Its not YOUR fault if you kill someone who breaks into your house. Its the PARENTS fault if your kid buys a gun off someone and goes to school and shoots someone. Its unreal, and I dont know how all of us average citizens put up with this garbage. People need to start recognizing accountability, and the buck stops with the person who is performing said action.

As far as drug equivalency...At least with cocaine&heroin, which are highly addictive substances and can be somewhat recognized as a DISEASE the user is somewhat incapacitated as far as a concious decision to purchase, and maybe 20% of the blame lay on the dealer...However, the dealer is not forcing them to buy, and the cocaine&heroin industry are NO DIFFERENT than Big Tobacco, except that one is illegal and one is not. They work on the SAME business model.

We do not know "Petes" medical history, his passed substance use/abuse, and what his diet or training consisted of. If this story is in fact true, and he was in fact lifting 4 hours a day. My best guess would be that he was taxing his body (steroids or naturally) beyond its capability. He had obviously never worked out hard before (going from 170 to 215 in a short time), that kind of weight gain in the period of a few months is damaging to the heart, struggling to pump blood to 30-40 lbs more of you. Not to mention, if he was in fact a 'hillbilly' my guess is that his health care was LESS than ideal, and therefore a predisposition to heart disease would EASILY go un-noticed. If his death was the result of responsible steroid use, why is half of this forum not 6 feet under? And we all know some members on here are on some cycles that really make you cringe (dose wise)...However, I still see them posting.

The truth is, we will never know what really killed him. Did the steroids contribute to it? Absolutely, I'm sure that had he not taxed his body in such a manner any of his pre-existing conditions would not have been manifested as quickly. However, he made the choice to put substances into his body (which I am guessing he did not research). A smart logical person most likely would not inject themselves with substances that they had a vague or no idea of their capabilities. This is not an example of why steroids should be illegal. This is an example of why steroids should be a legal, well regulated, and well informed industry.

The truth is, if steroids were not illegal, and users were not ostricized, and users could conduct their responsible use with the aid of their physicians and not fear legal consequences...Petes existing or diminishing condition most likely would have been detected by the physician monitoring his use. However, our government has forced us to go underground, and to practice our steroid use in unsafe and unideal conditions.....

[auslifta]

you win

[nbkandrew13]

i knew it i knew my gear connect was sneaking in in the middle of the night and injecting me to get me hooked, those mfukers lol

[chest6]

I dont like quoting long posts but...godfather that was beautiful. I want that to be my signature

[Warrior]

"I am an idiot," wrote Coffey.


Wayne Coffey, NY DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER

To the author: You should be barred for this story! It is titled "A Body to Die For" and suggests steroids (never even mentioning anything in particular) led to total organ failure... WTF? Has this ever been documented...? Outside of bodybuilding use - has the medical community ever suggested that such a thing was even possible. How about some references or medical documentation to support this stance? Demonizing AAS as compounds that can lead to total internal meltdown... give me a ****ing break.

To the family: I am very sorry to hear of your premature and unexpected loss of your son. But by looking at the pictures, he doesn't portray someone that even needs AAS to get into that condition... let alone obscene or reckless amounts. This young man must have had something going on in his system - either some obscure recreational drug use, he was somehow poisioned or he had a major genetic tunmble...

Did this young man have an autopsy performed?

[Snrf]

did u send that to the author warrior?

[Warrior]

did u send that to the author warrior?

If we can find his contact info - we should send this whole thread to him

[Warrior]

I wonder how long before we start hearing gym-talk about how anabolic steroids will shut down every organ in your body???

[SVTMuscle*]

I think the only good thing about that story is that his sister is kinda cute.

[Atomini]

If we can find his contact info - we should send this whole thread to him

Him and a ton of other authors i've seen spout out anti-steroid misinformational propaganda.

[Schmidty]

I bet my mom flips out on me when i get home if she has seen this story in the paper

[Atomini]

I bet my mom flips out on me when i get home if she has seen this story in the paper

Is this story that popular? Wasn't in my paper. Then again, I live in Canada. THe only place I heard about this story was on this forum. Wasn't on our 6-o'clock news, nor in our papers or anything

Suddenly I realize how good living in Canada is.

[Warrior]

Is this story that popular? Wasn't in my paper. Then again, I live in Canada. THe only place I heard about this story was on this forum. Wasn't on our 6-o'clock news, nor in our papers or anything

Suddenly I realize how good living in Canada is.

Thats becuase it's obvious how amateur and misleading the content is... a respectable publication wouldn't print this trash...

[AandF6969]

lol he looks like a little girl in that picture

[Warrior]

This kid was poisoned; wether by suicide, manslaughter or murder...

[ronan the barbarian]

maybe im an idiot and didnt read it properly,but it doesnt say anywhere that his heart was perfect before he juiced,

plus training alone puts a certain amount of stress on your heart (atleast while training) so if there was a heart condition prior,training 4 hrs a day could cause probs anyway.

i just cant see the link with steroids ,maybe hgh if he was using,

my uncle patrick died of liver failure.he never ever drank or did any kind of drug,had a good diet and worked on the tarmac so was pretty fit.so sometimes these things just happen,

now if pat had even tried one dbol tab guess what people would blame his liver failure on???