Possible Suspension for Vijay Singh over Deer Antler Velvet Spray

According to this article, Vijay Singh may be facing a suspension over the use of some nonsense called Deer Antler Velvet Spray. I kid you not. This bothers me a little because they are talking about suspending him when there appears to be no proof he did anything wrong. He admits to using the stuff and even provided a testimonial, but he may have been using it as some sort of holistic brew. The selling point of the deer antler spray is that it contains IGF-1, which is apparently what your body turns HGH into. But as this article points out, there is no indication that applying it directly via the deer spray works on humans. The problem with the deer spray has been that, as the original SI article pointed out, it contained the steroid methyltestosterone, which is what got David Vobora suspended. That it contained this steroid appeared to be unknown to anyone, including the SWATS owners. 

The guys selling this stuff are charlatans and hucksters. This is just another form of Snake Oil. (Incidentally, I do kind of love the sleazy back-alley sales pitch for their products. How can you not immediately think of ShamWow Vince's line “the Germans always make good stuff” when you hear something like, "this stuff has been around for almost 1,000 years, this is stuff from the Chinese"?  Is that necessarily a good thing?  Can you use that line to encourage forced abortions?)They get these bottles from overseas and they slap a SWATS label on it and sell it with some BS story about harvesting deer from New Zealand, which they seem to think is part of the Orient.  Who knows what's in it and if you are getting the same thing each time? The stuff Vijay is taking could be nothing more than mineral oil. If they can’t test someone and determine if they have a banned substance in their body, then there’s no reason to suspend them. And looking at Vijay’s ranking trajectory, it’s not like there is proof he has gained any sort of edge whatsoever. 

So, not only does it appear that this stuff doesn’t work, it might actually make you suck. I am hearing that Ryan Leaf was an early proponent of this magical potion. This made me curious, so I decided to do some research and found that deer antler velvet has had numerous uses for many years. A few that I found during a quick study: 

• Joe Theismann used it on his legs before every game.

• Velvet Antler Spray was used on Greg Oden’s knees in high school.  It made him a prodigy.

• Rod Marinelli encouraged all of his players to use it when he coached the Lions.

• The hull of the Titanic was coated with velvet antler spray just before its maiden voyage.

• Jenna Jameson’s dad sprayed Velvet Antler spray on her kooch when she was a baby to keep her protected.

• Jim Jones told his followers to drink antler velvet, and described it as “refreshing.”  David Koresh later told his followers to douse their home with antler spray, to give it a “cozier feel.”

• Nicole Simpson sprayed it on her neck as it was said to attract men.

• Richard Pryor freebased antler velvet.

• Antler velvet was actually converted to a gas at one point and the Hindenburg was filled with it.

• Early settlers used deer antler velvet to wash their blankets before giving them as gifts to the American Indians.