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Source: New York Times

Date: 1-Mar-2007

Author: Michael S. Schmidt

There is no proof that a doctor for the Pittsburgh Steelers, who has been questioned by federal agents about his purchase of growth hormone drugs, ever provided or prescribed hormones to any Steelers players, Art Rooney II, the team's president, said yesterday.

Richard A. Rydze, who is listed as one of six members of the Steelers' medical team, said Tuesday that federal agents from New York questioned him in December about his purchase in 2006 of about $100,000 worth of human growth hormone from a pharmacy in Florida. That pharmacy is now the subject of a multistate investigation into its online sales of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs. Rydze said that investigators had urged him to stop using the pharmacy and that he complied.

He is not accused of violating any laws.

Federal agents arrested four people with ties to the Signature Pharmacy in Orlando, Fla., on Tuesday. The pharmacy filled prescriptions written by licensed and unlicensed doctors who never met their purported patients, investigators said.

Rooney said that he telephoned Rydze on Tuesday after hearing about the investigation and also informed National Football League officials. "There is no evidence that Dr. Rydze prescribed or provided any hormone treatments to any of our players," Rooney said in a statement. "Dr. Rydze has assured me that this has never happened and will never happen."

Rooney said the Steelers would "continue to monitor this situation to make sure that we can continue to feel confident in our medical staff in this area."

Rydze said Tuesday that he never prescribed hormones to Steelers players. He did not return phone calls yesterday.

Rydze has worked as a game day doctor for the Steelers for many years, according to a team spokesman, and is also an internist at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

The medical center said yesterday that it had begun a review into Rydze's involvement in the federal and state investigation.

"We have initiated our internal review, so at this time we have no further factual information or comment," said Susan Manko, a medical center spokeswoman.

Rydze won the silver medal in platform diving at the 1972 Olympics in Munich and is a medical examiner for the Federal Aviation Administration and the medical director of the Pittsburgh office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

He is listed as a member of the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine, a group that advocates the use of human growth hormone to replace the hormone as it declines with age. The group, which has offices in Chicago and Boca Raton, Fla., tries to advise doctors on how to prescribe the hormone legally.