This paper draws on data from a qualitative study of bodybuilding and drug-
taking. It discusses the ambiguous role of medicine as a source of knowledg
e and expertise among participants who systematically disavow medical prono
uncements on the uses and dangers of 'physique-enhancing' drugs. Empirical
data on perceptions of the medical profession, risk, and bodybuilders' vari
ous sources of ethno-scientific knowledge, suggest that medicine is simply
one 'authority' among many in the construction of the self and body within
late modernity. These ethnographic observations correlate with sociological
claims that medical orthodoxy is currently being subjected to an external
critique and that implicit trust in both the individuals who practice medic
ine and the underlying system of knowledge may have been weakening.