Football is an inherently violent game, and with the cut-throat desire to win found in most elite football teams, it's no surprise to hear reports of team doctors, uh, numbing the rules and regulations around painkillers to get players back onto the field.
This, however, is not a good look for the University of Southern California. From Aaron Gordon of ViceSports.com:
The University of Southern California's football team doctor, James Tibone, injected a player with the controversial painkiller Toradol in a manner contrary to Food and Drug Administration warnings about the safe and proper use of the drug and also failed to warn the player about the drug's possible adverse effects, according to court documents obtained by VICE Sports.
Tibone administered Toradol, a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory prescription painkiller widely used in professional and college football, to the player far more frequently than recommended by the FDA's black box warning for the drug—a special warning that appears on the package insert of certain prescription drugs, indicates a risk of serious or life-threatening side effects, and is the strongest warning the agency will issue short of removing a drug from the market altogether.
[...]
In his deposition, Tibone admitted to ignoring black box warnings for the drug because he didn't "agree with them."
The NFL recently had a brush with the law when the DEA launched surprise inspections of medicine cabinets belong to doctors from the Detroit Lions, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and the Seattle Seahawks, among others. (Obviously, no charges were brought.)
Will be interesting to see how this issue plays out on the collegiate level. After all, only the most naive among us would believe crimes like this are only going down at USC.
