Navy to Test SEALs for Performance-Enhancing Drug Use

Beginning November, members of the Navy SEALs will start undergoing random testing for performance-enhancing drugs. The edict follows the death of a sailor in the elite unit's selection course, which spotlighted the use of steroids and other banned substances among SEAL candidates.

Naval Special Warfare announced Friday that it will institute the testing, marking the first time a U.S. military special operations group has sought to screen its members, The New York Times reported.

According to the SEALs' leadership, testing will be done not only on sailors who are in the highly competitive and grueling SEALs selection course, but on the entire force of about 9,000 service members and will include all SEALs and their supporting combat boat crews.

Other service branches do not have similar testing for their special operations troops, but the Army is "actively seeking" to start a program, a spokesman said.

"My intent is to ensure every N.S.W. teammate operates at their innate best while preserving the distinguished standards of excellence that define N.S.W.," Rear Adm. Keith Davids, the commander of Naval Special Warfare, said in a message Friday to the force. “Without the supervision of a qualified medical professional, prohibited P.E.D. use can lead to injury, long-term health issues or death."

The testing will be conducted randomly on 15% of the force each month, and will be combined with surprise sweeps of units.

A civilian lab whose specialty is testing athletes will screen the samples for dozens of banned substances, and the Navy could force out SEALs who test positive.

The tests come after the death in 2022 of Seaman Kyle Mullen, a former Division 1 football player and 24-year-old sailor who went into cardiac arrest hours after he finished Hell Week, the most difficult part of the SEAL selection course.

The Navy found testosterone, human growth hormone, and other drugs in a car Mullen shared with other SEAL candidates.

Mullen's death wasn't caused by the use of drugs, an investigation determined, but by bacterial pneumonia that was made worse by poor oversight and inadequate medical attention.

Several recent SEAL candidates said in interviews they knew of others who used drugs and saw cheaters who pushed the pace of training to the point where sailors who were not using performance enhancers were injured, or collapsed from exhaustion.

Some SEALs also said that doping remains widespread after the sailors finish their training and become active SEAL team members.

"If they tested the teams, we wouldn’t have SEAL teams," former SEAL Jeff Nichols said last year after the Navy started some testing at the training level. “If they were doing this in the teams, there wouldn’t be enough SEALs to deploy."

Nichols said he often used steroids when he was a SEAL, but now believes they are "dangerous and unnecessary," but still called for "compassion and understanding for what these guys are enduring."

He went on to comment that he used the drugs because he faced stress and exhaustion and "needed to heal because I needed to do my job. That's when I started injecting."

Sailors and families affected by doping hailed the move on testing, saying it was past due.

Brandon Caserta, who entered the SEAL selection course in 2017, told his parents that drug use was rampant and that he was harassed by users and singled out for extra hardship training. He dropped out with injuries and died by suicide a year later.

"Brandon had a chance to try again, but he didn’t want to because of all the drugs,” his father, Patrick Caserta, said. "I hope this levels the playing field. Guys might have to work harder, but ideally, they get better SEALs out of it."