General Nutrition Centers (GNC) expressed feigned outrage in a statement released to Newsday. Alex Rodriguez made the allegation that dietary supplements that have been sold in the past at GNC could have triggered false positive steroid results in athletes subject to anti-doping procedures. A spokesperson did not directly deny the claim as false but made a strong effort to cloud the real issue rather than acknowledge it (“GNC not happy with A-Rod’s steroid saga,” February 19).

“GNC does not sell illegal anabolic steroids. GNC is always troubled when an athlete who cheats himself and his profession attempts to implicitly or explicitly scapegoat another person or organization for his gross lapses in judgment, even if he was ‘young and stupid’ when it happened. GNC is confident that the public understands the difference between unlawful drugs that one’s cousin has to inject into the body and the legal, safe products for sale in its stores.”

спалниAlex Rodriguez referenced GNC in an interview with ESPN’s Peter Gammon where he admitted his own use of prohibited substances. Rodriguez never claimed GNC sold “illegal anabolic steroids”. Many statements made by A-Rod regarding his own use of anabolic steroids may not have been true, but everything he said about GNC was true. The only unfair characterization of GNC was any implication that dietary supplements caused A-Rod’s own positive steroid tests. mach zehnder modulator

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The Canadian Football League (CFL) is the only professional sporting league in North America that has not yet implemented steroid testing for its football players. Former WADA chief Dick Pound had previously called the CFL a “summer camp” for NFL players suspended for violations of the NFL policy on anabolic steroids and related substances (“WADA chief Pounds on CFL,” October 19, 2006).

“We’ve got the CFL,” Pound said. “It’s like a bad scene from the NHL. They say, ‘We don’t test in the Canadian Football League because we don’t need to test — there’s no drug use.’ Helloooo. We’re like a refuge for all the Americans… a summer camp for NFL players who have been suspended for drug use.”

This weekend, John Fahey, the head of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), publicly urged the CFL to adopt an anti-doping testing program. Fahey was in Montreal for the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Executive Committee and Foundation Board meeting. Fahey made his comments just prior to the 2008 CFL Grey Cup Final between the Calgary Stampeders and the Montreal Alouettes (“WADA chief challenges CFL to join fight against drugs,” November 23).

“To be here in Montreal on the weekend of the Grey Cup final and to find there is no doping code is very disappointing,” Fahey told Reuters following a WADA board meeting. “I understand there have been discussions and I hope they eventually lead to fruition.
 
 ”There has been dialogue between WADA and the CFL over a period of time but that doesn’t suggest that there is anything imminent.
 
 ”I can only say I think they are draw attention to the game in an adverse way by not having a (doping) code.
 
 ”I don’t see how any sport cannot have an effective anti-doping program.”

The WADA chief’s criticisms of Canadian Football League’s lack of an effective steroid testing program were undermined by WADA board member and British IOC member Sir Craig Reedie who was also in Montreal for the WADA Foundation board meeting.

Sir Reedie hihglighted the failure to implement an effective anti-doping program at WADA due to the noncompliance of over half of the signatories to the WADA code at the 2008 Beijing Olympics (“Drug Rules ‘Not Enforced’,” November 23).

Rules that bind athletes to give details of their daily movements to drugs testers are not being enforced in “half the countries in the world”, it was claimed on Thursday [...]

Sir Craig Reedie, British IOC member and a board member of the WADA, said “half the world” was not operating the system properly – WADA regulations state that athletes must provide testers with their whereabouts for an hour each day.
 
Reedie said: “The one issue the world of sport will want clearing up is in relation to whereabouts regulations for athletes.
 
“What has come out of Beijing is that half the world operates the system properly and half the world does not.
 
“This has come out of a survey done of national Olympic committees, and some are struggling with the whereabouts rules.
 
“We have to get the system to work properly so that everyone is operating in the same way.”

The major failure to implement the WADA code by the majority of its signatories compounds the major failure of WADA procedures and protocols to effectively catch dopers. WADA has not developed an anti-doping protocol that effectively closes the testosterone loophole, that has ever detected human growth hormone in athletes, or has thwarted the use of numerous banned blood boosting techniques and drugs. The sad truth is that WADA’s steroid testing program, far from Fahey’s “effective anti-doping program,” is only marginally more effective than the CFL’s drug testing program i.e. no testing at all.

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The National Football League apparently is willing to jeopardize the health of its players in a misguided effort to catch athletes who use banned performance enhancing subtances. John Lombardo, M.D., the administrator and medical advisor to the NFL Policy regarding Anabolic Steroids and Related Substances allegedly knew that the dietary supplement StarCaps were contaminated with bumetanide as early as 2006. Bumetanide is a powerful prescription diuretic found in StarCaps but not disclosed by the manufacturer. Yet, he failed to notify any NFL teams about the discovery to prevent athletes from using StarCaps as an explanation for a positive bumetanide test result exposing NFL players to significant health risks that could have easily been prevented by responsible concern for players’ health and well-being as the primary objective. 

Attorney David Cornwell, representing New Orleans Saints Deuce McAllister, Charles Grant, and Will Smith, made this allegation the NFL appeals hearing regarding the four-game suspensions resulting from bumetanide-positive drug tests (“Cornwell Says NFL Failed to Warn Players That StarCaps Contains Bumetanide,” November 19). 

Cornwell contends that Dr. John Lombardo, the administrator of the NFL’s policy regarding anabolic steroids and related substances, testified during the hearing that he learned in late 2006 of the presence of Bumetanide in StarCaps.  Lombardo, per Cornwell, did not share this information with NFL players, because Lombardo feared that other players testing positive for Bumetanide would claim that they were taking StarCaps, even if they weren’t.

Says Cornwell:  “Dr. Lombardo’s failure to disclose what he knew about StarCaps may have exposed NFL players to the significant health risks associated with the unintentional ingestion of diuretics.  If Dr. Lombardo had notified NFL players that StarCaps contained bumetanide, Will, Deuce and Charles would have never used the product to lose weight.”

John Lombardo has previously notified teams of supplements that may cause NFL players to fail a drug test even when the banned substance was fully disclosed on the product labels. Why did he not notify players about the great threat of an UNDISCLOSED prescription drug in supplements that may have been used by NFL players!?! (“N.F.L. Is Uneasy About Diet Supplements’ Use,” May 24, 1998).

This month Dr. John Lombardo, the N.F.L. adviser on steroids, sent a memo to every general manager, team doctor and trainer in the N.F.L. regarding two substances, the hormones dehydroepiandrosterone, known as DHEA, and androstenedione. Lombardo said that both are banned substances under the league’s steroid policies and are in an EAS product called Andro 6, sold in health and fitness stores throughout the country and used by many N.F.L. players. Andro 6 is also used to build muscle mass.

The banned substances DHEA and androstenedione ”are listed plainly as ingredients on the labels of these supplements,” Lombardo wrote in the memo, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times.

It appears that NFL players have turned the tables on the NFL anti-doping administrator, potentially opening the door for a lawsuit against the National Football League. After all, John Lombardo had the responsibility as a physician (“do no harm”) to notify management at various NFL teams about the discovery similarly to his notification about androstenedione and DHEA. At the very least, he should have made this information readily available to all NFL players by sharing it with NSF International, the independent company contracted to help NFL players with their dietary supplement decisions via a supplement hotline as part of the Official NFL/NFLPA Supplement Certification Program.

New Orleans player Jamar Nesbit, who has already served a four-game suspension, has already initiated legal action about the manufacturer of StarCaps. We expect more player lawsuits against Balanced Health Products and possibly even lawsuits against the NFL.

Molloy said that Nesbit had four bottles of the StarCaps pills, which were sent off for lab testing, and all of them tested positive for Bumetanide…

“What I’m saying in the complaint is that at least as of then, if not sooner, StarCaps knew there was an issue. They had a duty to advise consumers and to change their product. They did none of that. In fact, the product is still contaminated,” said Molloy, who also has represented tennis player Guillermo Coria and NFL running back Mike Cloud in similar cases, both of which were settled out of court.

“Since the contamination from bottle to bottle was consistent, it’s not inadvertent contamination,” Molloy said. “That really indicates to me that they’re spiking the product.”

Balanced Health Products, the manufacturer of Nikki Haskell’s StarCaps, has recalled a shipment of approximately 2,000 bottles from supplement stores around the country.

John Lombardo, M.D. is the administrator and medical advisor to the NFL Policy on Anabolic Steroids and Related Substances, the Clinical Professor in the Department of Family Medicine at the Ohio State University Medical School and Medical Director of the Max Sports Medicine Institute in Columbus, Ohio.

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The 2008 Growth Hormone Summit was held by the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA in conjunction with Major League Baseball (MLB) and the law firm of Foley and Lardner at the Beverly Hills Hotel in California on November 10, 2008. Dr. Gary Green, professor of family medicine at the UCLA medical school, chaired the conference of leading anti-doping experts and scholars. “Growth Hormone: Barriers to Implementation of hGH in Sports” addressed several scientific, legal and ethical issues involving testing athletes for human growth hormone (“Landmark conference to look at use of human growth hormone by athletes,” October 22).

• understanding the currently available methods for identifying use of hGH and understanding the viability of urine testing for hGH in the future;
• building a consensus on the most effective methods of implementing widespread blood testing for abuse of hGH;
• identifying future strategies for hGH testing; and
• understanding the United States Laws regarding the regulation and distribution of hGH

The current state of HGH testing involves blood testing. Anti-doping expert Don Catlin supervised growth hormone testing at the 2008 Beijing Olympics which involved approximately 1,000 blood samples; no athlete tested positive for HGH. In fact, no athlete has ever tested positive for human growth hormone using this test which has led many experts to question the effectiveness of the test (“Officials Question a Blood Test That Is Never Positive,” November 10)

Three hours into a conference held Monday by Major League Baseball on human growth hormone, the real question of the day emerged when officials from the commissioner’s office and the players union wondered aloud about how effective the current blood test for human growth hormone was if no one had tested positive.

[...]

Osquel Barroso, the senior manager of science for the World Anti-Doping Agency, was one such expert invited to the conference. WADA, which oversees the testing of Olympic athletes, has tested 8,500 athletes for human growth hormone since 2000 and has never had a test come back positive.

The big news at the Growth Hormone Summit was the increasingly viable urine test for human growth hormone that utilizes nanotechnology to identify urinary HGH markers. Don Catlin, CEO of Anti-Doping Research and Professor Emeritus at the UCLA School of Medicine is collaborating with Lance Liotta, MD, PhD of George Mason University to validate the utility of this test for WADA (“Researchers say they’re getting closer to HGH test,” November 11)

Don Catlin, a Los Angeles-based worldwide doping expert who oversaw blood testing for HGH at the Beijing Olympics, and Dr. Lance Liotta, a former pathology lab chief at the National Cancer Institute’s Center for Cancer Research, have launched a study to build upon Liotta’s ability to identify isolated markers of HGH in urine.

[...]

“This is a groundbreaking step that’ll change the game a bit,” Catlin said Monday at a first-ever Growth Hormone Summit staged at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

Don Catlin is becoming increasingly confident that the new nanotechnology urine test for human growth hormone will offer the ideal solution for HGH testing in sports. Many athletes have objected to the invasive nature of blood testing for HGH which previously seemed to be the only anti-doping measure capable of detecting molecules of such small size. But the nanotechnology technique has apparently overcome that obstacle (“MLB takes part in HGH summit,” November 11)

“That is what is exciting about what Dr. Liotta is doing. He has a technique that we think will do that,” Catlin said. “It is really brilliant.”

Ceres Nanosciences has patented the nanotechnology method of collecting HGH in the urine for analysis by standard lab testing equipment (“Scientists say breakthrough urine test for HGH developed,” July 23)

Virginia-based Ceres Nanosciences, partnered with George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., and Italy’s Istituto Superiore di Sanità, could have the test on the market within six months, company CEO Thomas Dunlap says. Ceres’ intention was first reported by the Washington Business Journal.

Widespread adoption of the test probably would depend on lengthy scientific reviews by anti-doping authorities, leagues and players unions. World Anti-Doping Agency representatives had a conference call with Ceres officials last week, WADA spokesman Frederic Donze says.

In the meantime, should any athletes test positive for human growth hormone, famed doping defense attorney Howard Jacobs was in attendance at the Growth Hormone Summit learning about the weaknesses and challenges of HGH testing that could be useful should he represent a “HGH-positive client” (“Researchers say they’re getting closer to HGH test,” November 11)

Southland attorney Howard Jacobs, who defended cyclist Floyd Landis in his doping case after Landis was stripped of his 2006 Tour de France title, said the summit raised “a lot of questions” that he would likely explore if he ever represents an HGH-positive client. “They haven’t validated any positive athlete samples,” Jacobs said. “You have to wonder how many studies they’ve conducted, plus there’s collection and transport issues.” 

The human growth hormone conference also featured the following anti-doping experts and scholars.

• Moutian Wu, laboratory director for the 2008 Beijing Olympics; National Anti-Doping Laboratory and the China Anti-Doping Agency 
• Anthony W. Butch, director of the UCLA Olympic Analytical Laboratory
• Dr. Don H. Catlin, founder and director of Anti-Doping Research
• Alan Goldhammer, vice president for scientific and regulatory affairs for Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America
• Dr. Richard I.G. Holt, professor of diabetes and endocrinology at the University of Southampton School of Medicine (U.K.)
• Dr. Lance Liotta, co-director of the Center for Applied Proteomics and Molecular Medicine at George Mason University
• Robert D. Manfred Jr., executive vice president for labor relations and human resources for Major League Baseball
• Matthew J. Mitten, professor of law and director of the National Sports Law Institute at Marquette University Law School
• Thomas H. Murray, president and CEO of the Hastings Center
• Dr. Thomas T. Perls, director of the New England Centenarian Study
• Dr. Douglas E. Rollins, executive director of the Sports Medicine Research and Testing Laboratory
• Travis T. Tygart, CEO of the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA)
• Frank D. Uryasz, president of the National Center for Drug-Free Sport.

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Anti-doping expert Don Catlin believes the numerous NFL players who tested positive for the diuretic butemanide may have unknowingly used dietary supplements tainted with the drug.  (“Alleged use of old-school drug surprises experts,” October 29).

“I’d love to know,” said Don Catlin, a renowned expert who ran America’s first anti-doping lab. “But that’s why the first thing I thought was, ‘They take supplements all the time. Every athlete does. Maybe it’s a bad batch of supplements.’”

We reported previously at Catlin’s bewilderment at the intentional use of butemanide by NFL players as a masking agent for anabolic steroids. There were several plausible indicators that a contaminated supplement could have been the culprit. Experts are indeed baffled by the presence of an old and dangerous drug in anti-doping samples.

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Two professional soccer players tested positive for the banned performance enhancing substances androstatriendione (ATD) and metabolites of the anabolic steroid boldenone according to the MLS. Red Bulls Jon Conway and Jeff Parke were suspended and fined ten percent of their respective salaries for violating the MLS substance abuse and behavioral health policy (SABH).

The Red Bulls team manager claims the doping violation was unintentional. Conway and Parke allegedly purchased a sports nutrition product from a nationwide dietary supplement chain (“Jon Conway, Jeff Parke suspended from Red Bulls for substance abuse,” October 16).  

According to Red Bulls manager director Erik Stover, both players said “that they ingested an over-the-counter supplement that unknowingly contained a banned substance.”

The statement seems to imply that there was no indication that the banned substance androstatriendione (ATD) was listed on the label of the OTC supplement product. Most likely androstatriendione was listed with a synonymous chemical name e.g. 3,17-dioxo-etiochol-1,4,6-triene or 3 17-keto-etiochol-triene; furthermore ATD and the veterinarian steroid boldenone share at least one metabolite potentially resulting in a false positive for boldenone. Ignorance or naivete regarding supplement ingredients by drug-tested athletes rarely succeeds in exonerating them from anti-doping policy violations.

UPDATE: The product used by Parke was purportedly ALRI Jungle Warfare.

Products containing androstatriendione (ATD) are very popular in the sports nutrition marketplace. One of the most popular products in this category is Gaspari Nutrition’s Novedex XT. Novedex XT is, by all accounts, completely legal and DSHEA-compliant with all ingredients fully disclosed on the label. But if the anti-doping policy in an athlete’s sport has banned androstatriendione (ATD), then athletes would be wise to avoid all OTC supplements containing any and all modified or derivative versions of 1,4,6-androstatriene-3,17-dione (ATD). 

The problem facing drug-tested athletes who insist on using dietary supplements is that there are dozens of synoynms and derivatives of 1,4,6-androstatriene-3,17-dione (ATD) that they must look for on supplement labels. According to Bruce Kneller, a supplement designer for Gaspari Nutrition and convicted steroid dealer who filed a patent on the pharmaceutical use of “1,4,6-androstatriene-3,17-dione (“ATD”) for therapeutic uses,” there are at least 158 modified or derivatives of ATD.

Potential pharmaceutical uses of ATD as identified in Kneller’s patent application include:

A composition having modified or derivative of 1,4,6-androstatriene-3,17-dione (“ATD”) will improve the health of mammalian subjects. The improvement of health is achieved with the administration of an effective amount of the at least one modified or derivative of 1,4,6-androstatriene-3,17-dione. Particularly, health is improved with administration of an effective amount for a mammal suffering from a gynecomastia, and/or estrogen-dependent cancer. Also, mammals recovering from steroid misuse/abuse with treatment in accordance with the present invention. Other improvements found to occur with an administration of ATD is that growth is enhanced and/or stimulated in developing mammals, particularly for short children whose epiphesial plates have not closed yet by delaying the closure of the plates. Male fertility can be improved via one or more effects on either gonadotropin releasing hormone, LH or FSH with administration of ATD. Administration of an effective amount of ATD increases athletic performance by increasing testosterone and lean muscle mass, shortens the recovery period in cases of severe trauma or burns, improves a mood of a mammal through improved anabolism.

The use of dietary supplements appears to put drug-tested athletes at significant risk for inadvertently ingesting prohibited substances even when the ingredients are listed on the product’s labels. Any supplement that purports to affect testosterone levels, etc. should raise a warning flag for athletes even if the ingredients are legal. Various legal supplement ingredients are banned in sports.

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Four of the eight NFL football players whose names were “leaked” as having violated the league’s policy on anabolic steroids and related substances were caught using the diuretic Bumex (bumetanide). New Orleans Saints running back Deuce McAllister and defensive ends Will Smith and Charles Grant tested positive for bumetanide as did Houston Texans deep snapper Bryan Pittman.

Reports of a “rash of positive steroid tests” in the NFL by news websites here and here and here and here are highly misleading and false since none of the players are alleged to have tested positive for steroids by the NFL. Nonetheless, MSNBC stated that one player tested positive for anabolic steroids with the headline ”Report: Saints’ McAllister positive for steroids“, but deep in the article reported the truth that it was bumetanide. There are even plausible indications these may have involved inadvertent doping from weight loss supplements tainted with bumetanide.

First, the prominent anti-doping drug tester Don Catlin recognizes bumetanide as a masking agent but is surprised because it hasn’t been used in over twenty years.

“It can be seen as a masking agent because it produces so much water that it dilutes drugs in the system,” Catlin said Friday in a telephone interview. “But we haven’t seen it used by athletes to mask drugs in over 20 years.”

He added: “It is also banned because some athletes need to make weight and it helps flush water out of an athlete’s body. In general, though, it is used by physicians to control blood pressure and reduce the amount of excess water in the body.”

Secondly, some dietary supplements marketed for weight loss have been empirically shown to be contaminated with bumetanide. StarCaps by Balanced Health Products has been found to contain near therapeutic levels of bumetanide by a 2007 article in The Journal of Analytical Toxicology in spite of claims by the manufacturer that the product contained only natural ingredients.

Third, it appears that the NFL players who tested positive for bumetanide are not only denying the use of bumetanide to mask other performance enhancing drugs, but appear ready to appeal the findings.

Bryan Pittman is appealing.

Atlanta attorney David Cornwell, who has been hired to represent Pittman at his appeal on Nov. 3, issued a statement on Friday that said: “Bryan did everything humanly possible to comply with the NFL steroid policy, including obtaining doctors’ written authorization to take weight-loss medication. He did not use steroids.

Deuce McAllister is appealing.

 ”I’ve hired an attorney, and I’m going to let him do his job,” he said. “I will be playing this Sunday against the Chargers.”

Fourth, the source who leaked the story seems convinced that bumetanide was not used for masking steroids or amphetamines but solely as a weight loss supplement.

“I don’t think many of them are attempting to cheat, or even know it is on the list. We are talking big guys who have likely never seen a steroid in their life. My understanding of the steroid policy is that it was intended to catch cheaters or people using performance enhancing substances to gain a competitive edge. These guys don’t fall into that category,” said the source.

The only conclusive evidence to support inadvertent doping would be the existence of sealed dietary supplements that can be proven to be tainted through testing. Otherwise, suspicions of doping with other substances will persist.

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The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) spends considerable money funding research aimed at catching athletes who use prohibited performance enhancing drugs (PEDs). WADA has always been on the losing end of an ongoing cat-and-mouse game. Anti-doping agencies are faced with several emerging doping methods such as synthetic blood doping, gene doping and designer steroids created via dynamic combinatorial chemistry (DCC).

A recently published study in the Journal of Occupational Medicine and Toxicology suggests that WADA has opened the door to social analysis and psychological profiling to catch steroids users and users of other banned substances. The WADA-funded researchers hope to establish a reliable indicator of self-reported use of performance-enhancing drugs.

The proposed anti-doping tool would ask the athlete various questions about their own self-reported doping, hypothetical doping scenarios, and the doping behavior of other athletes. If the athlete’s responses to the questionnaire fit the psychological profile of a doper, then this might represent evidence that athlete is doping even if the athlete does not admit to doping! The research is based on the False Consensus Effect from social psychology research.

[The False Consensus Effect is] the considerable overestimation of behaviour in which a person engages, and a slight underestimation of behaviour absent from a person’s repertoire. That is, over-estimating a particular behaviour indicates that the person who makes the estimate (and overestimates the behaviour) is likely to be engage in the same act.

[...]

The ‘False Consensus Effect’ (FCE), by which people perceive their own actions as relatively common behaviour, might be exploited to gauge whether a person engages in controversial behaviour, such as performance enhancing drug (PED) use. Hypothesis: It is assumed that people’s own behaviour, owing to the FCE, affects their estimation of the prevalence of that behaviour. It is further hypothesised that a person’s estimate of PED population use is a reliable indicator of the doping behaviour of that person, in lieu of self-reports.

An athlete that thinks most of his competitors are cheating must be cheating as well. This must be what WADA would call evidence of a non-analytical positive.

The researchers repeatedly emphasize that the measurement tool is not intended to catch dopers.

The measurement tool is to be used as a research tool to gather information on prevalence of PED use but it is not intended to be a diagnostic tool for individual assessment.

[...]

The importance of the method lies in its usefulness in epidemiological studies, not in individual assessments

But elsewhere in the article, researchers state that the measurement tool can explicitly be used to gain information about the individual assessed.

We propose to use estimates to gain information about the individual who makes the estimates and not the population for which the estimates are made.

[...]

The measurement tool is not envisaged to be used to gather data on projected use, but rather, employed as an implicit self-report method. A model will be developed to give an estimation of ‘own’ use based on the projected use.

Will WADA use the “false consensus” research as the “elegant integration of biochemistry, social psychology and statistics” in order to:

(1) Obtain reliable estimates of doping behaviour; or

(2) Obtain corroborating evidence that individual athletes are doping?

Source: Comfort in big numbers: does over-estimation of doping prevalence in others indicate self-involvement? (PDF)

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Researcher Jason Thomas, a graduate student in the doctoral program for synthetic organic chemistry at City University in New York, takes us inside the mind of a designer steroid chemist in an interview with Culturekiosque. Thomas describes a powerful tool that has the potential to create an infinite number of undetectable, designer anabolic steroids.

Once steroid designers specify the essential features and desired biological activity for steroid drug design, hundreds of novel designer steroids could be synthesized or simulated through Dynamic Combinatorial Chemistry (DCC) ["Designer Steroids: Speeding Evolution (and Filling Stadium Seats)" August 8]. 

Until now, human attempts to change testosterone’s anabolic, androgenic or estrogen-related properties have been relatively slow due to the fact that they have been addressed one at a time. A steroid designer imagines a certain compound, synthesizes it, and then tests it for effectiveness. This can take a matter of weeks or years. However, this process is about to undergo a drastic change. Dynamic Combinatorial Chemistry is a complicated process, so instead of explaining how it works I will simply provide the bottom line. Once steroid chemists have invested the necessary time into the chemical strategy for DCC, hundreds of novel steroid compounds can be synthesized and tested within a matter of minutes. The entire process is orchestrated by computers. The pharmaceutical sector has recently employed this process, and steroid manufactures will soon follow suit, if they haven’t already.

Since the four ring carbon structure was extremely complicated for synthetic chemists to create, they have historically created most steroidal compounds from diosgenin, a steroidal substance occuring naturally in the Mexican wild yam. This has limited the number of undetectable performance enhancing drugs that rogue chemists could synthesize for tested elite athletes. But with combinatorial chemistry, chemists are not limited by the four-ring steroid construction.

Steroid designers have been limited by the structure of the molecule. But that is going to change, because there are now new ways to make the molecule all together. Until now, you started with diosgenin. You go to progesterone, then you make all other anabolic steroids. You can only do but so much because that basic structure is all there. Now, they are putting these things together from different pieces and in the next few years they might find something as anabolic as pure testosterone but with none of the side effects. For the moment, this is not possible as long as they use diosgenin as the initial compound. In my opinion, designer steroids are going to blow up in the next couple of years. Instead of making 50 different molecules they will be able to make 50 million different combinations. It will be like evolution all over again [without the limitations of time]. (emphasis added)

The steroid chemist behind the BALCO steroid scandal, Patrick Arnold of Ergopharm, explains that this is how pharmaceutical companies are creating a new class of drugs known as Selective Androgen Receptor Modulators (SARMs) that are not “steroids” but could potentially have significant performance enhancing effects. SARMs have long promised all the benefits of anabolic steroids with none of the side effects. Furthermore, Patrick Arnold suggests “anabolic” performance enhancing non-steroidal drug that bypass the four-ring steroid structure could be effective at eluding detection by anti-doping agencies.

This is the type of thing they use in the development of SARMS, which are non steroidal androgens/anabolics.

Why confine you to the four ring structure of steroids when that is too easy for the drug testers to figure out (steroid backbones have unique signatures on the mass spec)? And (in the case of legit medicine) too politically incorrrect.

The use of dynamic combinatorial chemistry to create novel (undetectable) designer steroids could prove a more serious challenge to anti-doping agencies than other emerging doping methods such as synthetic blood doping and gene doping.

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The Hellenic Olympic Committee (HOC) president believes organized doping is behind the fifteen Greek athletes who have failed anti-doping tests before and during the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Former 400-meter hurdles champion Fani Halkia, swimmer Ioannis Drymonakos, 400-meter runner Dimitrios Regas, sprinter Tassos Gousis and eleven unidentified Greek weightlifters all tested positive for the same prohibited anabolic steroid – methyltrienolone (“HOC president: Greek sports face organized doping,” August 18). 

“There are 15 people, all with the same substance. This is the strangest thing, because it leads to the conclusion that there is an organized effort,” Minos Kyriakou told The Associated Press. The athletes — 11 weightlifters, three runners and a swimmer — all tested positive for methyltrienolone, a banned steroid. “There is an organized crime — because that is what this is called,” Kyriakou said. “Because it seems there is a lot of money hidden there, a lot of profit.”

While Kyriakou believed organized doping resulted in the methyltrienolone positives, he was careful to dismiss suggestions of systematic doping.

“It’s not systematic, but definitely there are some guys who know the sources and I think the state needs to take care to discover that,” Kyriakou said Sunday. “At the end, they have to be punished by the state.”

The phrases “organized doping” and “systematic doping” are often used interchangebly. But I’m guessing that Kyriakou apparently made the distinction to deflect suggestion of state-sponsored systematic doping of Greek athletes. WADA, on the other hand, apparently had suspicions of systematic doping and a potential cover-up at the WADA/IOC approved anti-doping lab in Athens when they chose to test samples at a lab in Germany (“Greek media accuse Olympic team of cover up,” April 13).

Another unexplained aspect of the whole case which seems to suggest  WADA had suspected attempts to mount a cover up is the fact that samples taken from the Greek team were tested in Cologne, Germany, rather than Athens which has one of the world’s most advanced anti – doping labs. Don Catlin, a leading expert on doping,in an interview with NEA, expressed surprise that WADA had choosen not to follow the normal procedure and allow the samples to be examined in the country involved.

Kyriakou did not name who he felt was behind the organized doping although many have blamed Greek weightlifting coach Christos Iakovou who claims to have imported contaminated supplements containing methyltrienolone from the Chinese company Auspere Technology.

I spoke with chemist Patrick Arnold of Ergopharm in Dallas last weekend. He has largely put the BALCO scandal behind him and no longer concerns himself with the tactics used by athletes to beat the drug tests. But when he work with IOC/WADA-tested athletes and created undetectable steroids such as THG, Patrick Arnold told me that several athletes used methyltrienolone in the 1990s to successfully pass doping controls. Anti-doping tests were not sensitive enough to detect the small quantities of the steroid required for performance enhancing effects. He was somewhat surprised that methyltrienolone was detected by drug testers in the Greek Weightlifting steroid scandal suggesting anti-doping tests have improved for the substance.

The fact that athletes were being caught using methyltrienolone was apparent to the international athletic community as early as April 2008 when the Greek weightlifters were busted. So, it seems highly unusual and even unlikely that systematic and/or organized doping was involved in the Greek doping scandal. Why would athletes continue to use methyltrienolone when it was obvious that it could be detected and that anti-doping agencies were looking for it specifically in Greek athletes? Would an organized doping effort be so utterly incompetent as to ignore such a threat and continue doping athletes with a detectable steroid?

This would seem to give more credence to claims of widespread supplement contamination and/or sabotage as alternate explanations to HOC president Minos Kyriakou’s claim of organized doping.

Sprinter Dimitris Regas denied the use of anabolic steroids and claimed sabotage.

Regas claimed he was a victim of “some people who want to attack (Greek) athletics,” adding he would lodge an official complaint against the parties in question, without specifying who they might be.

The coach for 400 meter hurdler Fani Halkia and Dimitris Regas, George Panagiotopoulos, has denied the use of steroids and claimed sabotage.

“It would be my pleasure for Greek justice to intervene.  I want them to intervene. My two athletes (Halkia and Regas) did not use methyltrienolone. I believe there has been sabotage or tampering at doping control.  I had never heard of that substance, and only learned about it after the weightlifting scandal.  One thing is certain, that I would never give such substances to my athletes.  How is it possible that one would take prohibited substances only a few days prior to the Olympics, you would have to be insane.”

Post from: Steroid Report

Written by: Millard Baker | Twitter | FriendFeed | Facebook | E-mail

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