The state Department of Children and Family Services has joined police in investigating a Palos Hills youth football program whose athletic director has said he helped obtain a prescription diuretic for children who wanted to meet weight limits.
The Palos Hills Police Department said the Cook County state’s attorney’s office also is looking into the private Palos Stars football league after athletic director Louis Trench said that he was aware a few children took the drug Lasix and that he helped families get the drug if they could not obtain it.
None of the investigating agencies would comment on the case Friday. DCFS usually investigates families suspected of child abuse, but under a change in state law made about five years ago, the department can investigate cases involving coaches, teachers and others who work with youths.
The Palos Hills football situation came to light last week when a south suburban pediatrician performed a routine physical on a 10-year-old boy in the sports program. Dr. Anthony C. Delach was so concerned about the boy and the use of prescription drugs that he complained to Palos Hills police.
Used inappropriately, Lasix can cause heart failure, arrhythmia, kidney problems or death, and it may produce a host of less serious side effects, ranging from cramps to light sensitivity. The drug commonly is prescribed for some types of heart patients.
Delach, who also is affiliated with Christ Hospital and Medical Center in Oak Lawn said, “I think if it’s happening in our community, it’s happening statewide, and if it’s happening in our state, it’s happening in other states.”
Coaches and doctors across the country said they were disturbed by reports about the use of Lasix by children.
Trench said in an interview Thursday that the boy took one Lasix pill about 3 1/2 hours before weighing in on Aug. 26. The boy met the 85-pound weight limit to play with the 10-year-olds, Trench said, then downed a quart of a sports drink to restore some of the lost fluids.
Three days later, when he went for the physical, the boy was up to 93 pounds. Delach said the boy’s mother told him her son was so weak at the weigh-in that he had to be supported and had cold compresses on his neck because he was feeling faint.
Repeated attempts to reach the boy and his family have not been successful.
Trench said in the interview that he was aware of two or three cases each season where children took Lasix, and he said that he cautioned the boys to take only one pill and take it only once.
Trench has said he does not know where the boy got the Lasix but said he was aware that he took the drug.
“Lasix is not a bad thing,” Trench said Thursday. “If it’s not abused, it’s 100 times safer than what some of these high school kids are taking.”
But Dr. Rabi Sulayman, chairman of the pediatrics department at Christ Hospital and Medical Center, said there is danger whenever children take prescription medication that is not intended for them.
Lasix “is a very potent drug,” Sulayman said. “The potency is such that very careful monitoring is indicated.”
Sulayman last week drafted a letter to the 100 or so pediatricians associated with Christ Hospital and Medical Center, alerting them to the situation and asking them to look out for further cases.
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Dr. Kevin Sherin, program director for the family practice residency program at Christ Hospital and Medical Center, issued a similar memo to his residents.
“If any parent knows of this practice, I hope they will stand up and be counted,” Sherin said in an interview. “There are reasons that the FDA regulates products and physicians prescribe drugs.”
Doctors and coaches said they were not sure how commonly prescription diuretics are used in youth sports, but they said the practice is not considered appropriate or ethical.
“It’s a practice to be condemned,” said Dr. Lyle Micheli, past president of the American College of Sports Medicine and director of the sports medicine division of Children’s Hospital in Boston.
“The policy of the College of Sports Medicine comes out strongly against it,” he said.
One danger, Micheli said, is that a child will use such drugs repeatedly.
“I think if a kid gets away with it once, they’ll be more likely to try it again,” Micheli said. “It flies in the face of everything we do in modern sports medicine. It doesn’t matter what age the athlete is.”
Permitting children to use drugs to alter weight teaches the wrong lessons to young athletes, said Dr. Bernard Heilicser, emergency-room physician and medical ethicist at Ingalls Hospital in Harvey.
“What are we teaching these kids, that it’s OK to scam the system? That it’s OK to chemically alter your weight?” he said. “Any physician that would prescribe these drugs is unethical, and any parent who would let their child take them is equally unethical.”
Youth sports programs are run by various organizations, including park districts, religious organizations and for-profit clubs. The Palos Stars football league is a private program. Such programs generally enroll youths in grade school or junior high school. Each group or league has its own rules and standards that while similar to other groups, may not be exactly the same.
High school sports fall under one umbrella, the stricter guidelines of the Illinois High School Association. Each school’s athletic department also oversees programs.
Problems most often crop up in sports such as football, wrestling and gymnastics, in which the body must be sculpted to perform in a certain way.
Ola Bunda, assistant executive secretary for the Illinois High School Association in Bloomington, called the situation “very scary to all of us.”
“Taking these kinds of drugs changes the normal growth pattern of the very young children. If they (coaches) do that, they are taking great risks,” Bunda said. “And too many people who are coaching youth sports are not trained as physical educators and know nothing about growth development.”
Because most coaches are not doctors and may know little about their players’ medical histories, officials for the nationally known Pop Warner football teams “don’t even recommend giving a kid an aspirin,” said Gary Lindesmith, president of the Chicago Suburban Youth Football Conference.
“Who knows what that kid’s allergic to?” said Lindesmith, whose conference is affiliated with Pop Warner football and fields 98 teams in 22 towns.
“We’re totally against stuff like this,” he said, “and we have rules in place that we hope keep things like this from happening. . . . Safety comes before everything.”