Here is an interesting story about bee pollen supplements from 1994 (the story is taken from the Herald Journal – a daily newspaper printed in Utah, USA). This is the story Judd, a coach of a young hockey team that needed to win, and the pollen bee ingredient which Judd have encountered before the critical game of his hockey team.
The hockey coach probably wanted his team to win so bad, that he actually decided that giving bee pollen pills to his young hockey team would improve their chances of winning. It’s important to note that it’s not only forbidden to give supplements, steroids and other drugs to young sport players, but there was also a small risk that the coach took when he decided to give his young team bees pollen – one of them could have an allergic reaction to it.
Fortunately, neither of the 8 years old kids were harmed in this incident. However, as insinuated in the title, the coach himself had to resign under pressure – a pressure that wasn’t caused by the bee pollen capsules, but was exerted by the Hockey Association, the management and the angry parents that were literally furious to hear what their kids went through (despite the fact that no harm was caused to their children).
It’s definitely wasn’t the best time of Judd’s life, to say the least. The man was 38 years old at that time, a former college and semipro hockey player and apparently wanted to win so bad in the hockey game of his young team, that he was willing to risk the life of his own 8 years old child who was also part of the hockey team – which may also indicate that Judd didn’t know about the possible side effects of taking bee pollen pills or capsules.
Although Judd did invoke the ire of the parents that were concerned about the safety of their little kids, some parents wanted the coach to keep training the kids temporarily since the young hockey team still had three games left. On the other hand, many of the parents just couldn’t accept the fact that the hockey coach gave bee pollen supplements to their kids without their permission. In addition, one of the parents also claimed that it would send the kids the wrong message if they returned the coach that did something that wrong.
Of course, Judd realized the terrible mistake that he has done by giving the children bee pollen capsules and apologized for the incident. In addition, the hockey released a statement declaring that they don’t endorse the use of supplements or diet pills at all, and this is actually against their rules.
In a time where honeybee pollen is still being researched and studies, we’ve managed to prove one thing for sure about this natural bee product – it can make you lose your job.
Never give bee pollen pills to children or even adults without making sure that they don’t have allergy to bees, and it would be better if you didn’t give pollen bee supplements to kids at all. The reason for this is that we still don’t know much about short and long term side effects that the bees pollen has over young children.