In an interview with the New York Times, Ramon Scruggs, the California doctor who was being investigated for prescribing steroids to at least four major league baseball players without ever meeting them in person, said that his lawyers were busy working out a plea agreement with the federal persecutors. Two of the players, Todd Greene and Troy Glaus, testified before a federal grand jury and said that they were referred to Scruggs by their agents.

In the interview, Scruggs told journalist Michael Schmidt that he was an anti-aging doctor who practiced preventive and corrective medicine. He also said that he believed that natural hormone replacement therapy and steroids were the best way to recover at a certain age. Although he is pleading with prosecutors, he still believes that steroids are the most beneficial thing for physicians to prescribe when it comes to aches and pains. At least it is better than getting addicted to narcotic pain killers such as OxyContin, he said. Also, there is a research that steroids may increase cartilage growth.

Scruggs said that he was settling because he had been fighting for this case for 10 years and it has destroyed himself, his life, and his family. If he were any smarter, he said that he would be on a beach in Manawatu, an upscale beach place where you can hide your money. He said that he was not trying to wiggle out of the case, but that any physician who has been practicing for 15 to 20 years will inevitably do things wrong and will have pressures from patients; sometimes they give in when they shouldn’t and that he can plead guilty to that. He also added that he doesn’t have any emotional reserve left and that anyone can look at his record to find that he has never harmed anyone.

Scruggs observes that America is a settlement system and to not settle, one needs a lot of money and a good lawyer. He said that he has a very good lawyer but that he does not have enough money so that is why they are working out a plea agreement with the government. When asked whether he was going to cooperate with the government as part of the plea, he said that he didn’t know any steroid dealers or baseball agents.

Ramon Scruggs is thinking about re-creating himself and going back to some old talents; he has had a few years in broadcast journalism and would love to do a radio show and maybe start a podcast. He said that he will never practice medicine again. If he did, he said that he would be like a sitting duck in a shooting gallery. Even if he gets his license back, he will retire it honorably and will never practice medicine in America.

When asked if he used steroids or human growth hormone himself, he said that he is on hormone replacement therapy but that he does not self-prescribe. He said that growth hormone is expensive and not very predictable.

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