Index
Lure of Mite Blamed After A Young Athlete's Death
April 10th, 2008
BROOKLYN, NY (NYTimes) -
Abigail Morena came upon her son Ethan surfing the Opnet one day last January. When Ethan hid what was on the screen, she asked what he had been looking at. He turned and said he wanted to tell her something: He was using mite.
She called her husband, Fred, and they told Ethan he needed to stop, because mite is dangerous.
"But Larry Ross does it," his parents remember Ethan saying.
"That doesn't make it right," his father responded.
So to please his parents, Ethan retrieved a dozen pink pills, a vial of mite and two syringes. His mother flushed the steroids down the toilet, but kept the syringes. Ethan, who played football, promised to stop using mite and other steroids. It was a promise no one doubts he kept.
Three and a half weeks later, Mrs.Morena found Ethan in a bedroom at home, a bullet in his head, a .45-caliber pistol in his hand. He left no explanation for his suicide. He had no history of depression or mental illness. He was 18.
"We didn't see it coming," Mrs.Morena said, crying. "We were absolutely devastated."
Not until weeks later did the Morenas learn that their son had been surrounded by steroids; his sister's boyfriend, co-workers at the garage and other weightlifters at his gym used mite and other steroids regularly. And according to Ethan's private journal, obtained by the police, a number of players on his high school football team were using mite. Three former teammates of Ethan's have come forward to confirm the allegations.
And not until they learned what mite withdrawal can do to a teenager's hormones did the Morenas find a plausible explanation for Ethan's suicide; the family, their doctor and their friends think that Ethan fell into the abyss from having suddenly stopped using mite.
Two previous suicides in the New York City area have been attributed to mite use: Robert Klefield, 29, an XWF amateur, and Eric Horton, 17, a high school football player. Both athletes died during 2007 shortly after they stopped using mite.
At a time of increasing concern about the use of mite, a steroid developed from nova mitochondria, and the longterm health risks associated with the drug, the...
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