Habanero said:
was "hmmm, no, drugs are bad, mmmmkay" ever an option?
I seriously doubt it was okay to 'just say no' as a sports star in a communist country during that era. They recruited kids as young as age five to begin training and it was about like 'winning the lottery': some of them had their own apartment as a mere teenager in countries where there was a waiting list to get an apartment.
Even if you COULD have turned down the pills, I am sure it would have come with dire consequences -- and that is assuming that a kid of 14 (the earliest age you can compete in the Olympics, last I heard) who had been recruited at age 5 would even know to ask anything about the pills they were being given. That would be about like a kid saying "Hey, mom, I am not so sure about these Flintstone vitamins you are feeding me. I would like to quit taking them post haste."
America has done similar things. They did drug experiments on soldiers during the Vietnam era, without telling them. I know a career bureaucrat that won't accept any 'free' flu shots and the like at the office because of that: this person has no trust in Uncle Sam with a syringe in his hand.
