By Richard Gardner, Torch specialist

The death of Lance Cade is as tragic as they come. A 29-year-old father of two found dead from heart failure by his parents on August 13. With Luna Vachon's death at the age of 48 only two weeks later, the general public has been sent a powerful message about the mortality of former WWE employees.

The two deaths come at an inopportune time for former WWE CEO Linda McMahon’s U.S. Senate campaign. Her political opponents will attempt to exploit any moral weakness to their advantage, and two more additions to the lengthy list of wrestling casualties cannot be swept under the carpet. Nevertheless, the McMahon campaign has made every attempt to do so.

When asked, Linda McMahon compared Cade’s death to that of Heath Ledger, and said WWE are as accountable for their wrestlers’s personal activities as movie studios are for their actors. That argument might hold some water if famous actors were regularly dropping dead before reaching their fifties, but Ledger is very much the exception to the rule. That deaths such as that of Lance Cade occur with such alarming regularity ask serious questions about the working conditions at World Wrestling Entertainment.

WWE will tell you that they have a fully operational Health and Wellness policy designed to help those suffering from the sort of problems that Lance Cade had. That dangerous moves and chair shots to the head have been banned for the safety of their performers. That they pay for rehab fees of former employees, as they did for Lance Cade earlier this year. The problem is that this activism follows years of reticence while the bodies of former WWE wrestlers piled up.

WWE’s Health and Wellness policy was instituted in the wake of Eddie Guerrero’s death and serious changes to the policy were made after it was revealed that Chris Benoit had passed a test when a toxicology report revealed huge amounts of testosterone in his system. Yet, for many years, it was unclear whether WWE had a substance abuse policy at all.

Chris Nowinski is one of the few former WWE wrestlers who is willing to speak out about the company’s working conditions. On August 18, Nowinski described a conversation he had with Lance Cade when both were still with the company, in which Cade stated he was disillusioned by having to use steroids to become a pro wrestler.

In response, WWE attempted discredit Nowinski with some truly awful crisis PR management. As well attempting to discount his credibility in the field of concussions, when it is well known that he has done extensive research, WWE also tried to claim that Lance Cade and Chris Nowinski never had a conversation, which was a ridiculous statement considering that the two were tag team partners. That WWE’s PR department would release such deliberately misleading claims does not reflect well on the company or Linda McMahon’s Senate campaign.

Everyone has responsibility for their actions and WWE does not explicitly force anyone to abuse drugs. The company has done a lot of great work in recent years in making a safer working environment for their wrestlers. Yet none of the above changes the years of indifference when WWE had no official drug policy. Linda McMahon could try to protect herself by stating that she no longer holds a position at WWE, but her campaign is based upon her track record and business decisions while "building the company from scratch."

Lance Cade was not the first young wrestling casualty and Linda McMahon will likely be asked more difficult questions before her Senate campaign concludes, especially if this rate of deaths continues leading up to the November general election.

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