Athletes and the edges they find to be competetive

Ever since science and chemistry has shown we can manipulate what we put into our bodies, we have known of performance enhancing drugs. Eddy Merckx even dabbled and he is the greatest cyclist in the world whom everybody loves. Baseball players take steroids and yeah they look bad for it but life goes on. I am just wondering what the big deal is for the sport of cycling. Everyone gets all bent out of shape if there is a doper. The doper basically loses his soul and everything else for doping, and becomes a disgrace to the mere name of cycling.
Why?
EPO doesn't seem to be killing off athletes too quickly. It doesn't even give you man boobs and shrinkage problems like 'roids does. The only increased risk is in the thickness of blood, increasing the probability of things like clotting, thus heart attack, etc. Yet, we don't see athletes dropping like flies from this, or anything else like contaminated blood.

I'm just saying that we have adopted and accepted performance enhancements like gatorade and protein shakes, even creatine and 'sportslegs' to help us go faster, among other things like what bsn puts out. If you apply an sort of balancing with blood doping, ofttimes the ends justify the means, that is all I am saying. I can see why professional athletes, with the resources available, would use these things, not considering legal accountability into the equation. Purely with the drug involved, the rewards far outweigh the risk in my opinion.

As for my opinion on certain contemporary athletes, I feel badly for everyone. There are those that don't dope yet will probably never see the podium. There are others who do dope to keep their job or their competitive edge, to stay in the race. They know all the other competitive racers are doing it, its just a matter of who is going to get caught and who isn't. So why are we looking at anyone with scorn? Why do we wish the worst for those who get caught? Their career is seemingly over anyway.
In all honesty, I have been curious as to the effects EPO or simple blood transfusions have on my body. Take my blood out when there is a ton of oxygen in it, store it, recover, then put it back in right in time for competition and see how fast and how far I can go. I don't think I'm at risk for blood clotting already, so I would feel pretty safe if a doctor told me there is no concern.

I'm just tired of all the talk of doping in sports. Maybe its just the media or maybe its more but the scandal and the hype and all the allegations and stories and 'he said she said' mumbo jumbo is what is bad for a sport, not the doping in and of itself. Doping doesn't make a person bad, its all the media coverage and opinion that make them look bad. What do you expect from a normal human being when put on the spot? You really expect everyone of these humans to tell the truth and rat out their team, doctors, coaches, sponsors, etc? Give me a break.