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Hair Loss News Archives
January 2008
Spanish footballer banned for hair-loss drug
Jan 2008
Spanish second division player Borja Criado said on Thursday he was trying
to prevent baldness and not improve his performance after being handed a
two-year ban for the use of a drug to combat hair-loss.
The Granada 74 midfielder tested positive for the banned masking agent
Finasteride while playing for Ciudad de Murcia in February last season, but
was originally cleared by the Spanish Football Federation.
However, the 25-year-old, who said he had taken the treatment because of
hair-loss caused by stress while studying for a law degree, has been
suspended for two years by the Spanish Committee for Sports Discipline after
an appeal.
"A dermatologist recommended I take a medicine called propecia," Criado told
a news conference. "I accept my part of the blame for taking it, but I think
I'm being used as a scapegoat. "I haven't taken this substance to improve my sporting performance, it was
only to deal with the problem I had."
Criado joins a growing list of sportsmen who have been banned for testing
positive for Finasteride after using hair-loss treatments.
Finasteride, which can be used to mask steroids, was added to the list of
banned substances in 2005.
Last month Brazilian footballer Romario was banned for 120 days for testing
positive for the drug, a result which he also blamed on hair-loss treatment.
German second division soccer player Nemanja Vucicevic of TSV Munich 1860
and Argentine tennis player Mariano Hood were both banned after positive
tests in 2005.
Former Australia international soccer player Stan Lazaridis and New Zealand
tennis player Mark Nielsen have also received bans for taking the substance.
U.S. skeleton gold medal hope Zach Lund was kicked out of the 2006 Winter
Olympics and given a one-year ban by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS)
after testing positive at a World Cup event the previous year.