Here is an excerpt from Patrick Arnold’s blog:

I also read about Lance Armstrong today. Apparently there is more evidence surfacing regarding his performance enhancing drug usage. Yeah, whoopee. Of course he doped. Everyone doped in the field of elite cycling. They still probably do, at least to whatever extent that they still can. This is reality. Prosecuting Lance Armstrong will not change that reality. Prosecuting all the dopers that he beat back in the day will not change that reality.

Read more at Patrick Arnold’s Blog: I Don’t Really Think I Should Talk About This But…

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.

“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.”

Methyltrienolone is a very toxic oral anabolic steroid. However, reports by the Athens News that methytrienolone killed 200 bodybuilders in the 1960s are ludicrous. Researchers at the University of Bonn (Germany) blocked its commercial release in 1966 due to its high hepatotoxicity (liver toxicity). Professor Demetrios Kouretas (Department of Biochemistry and Biotechnology at the University of Thessaly) told Steroid Report he worked with the toxic steroid methyltrienolone as part of his postdoctoral thesis at the University of Harvard.

I remember when I was working with R1881( methyltrienolone) at Harvard in 1990, we were very particular with handling R1881 due to its lipophilicity and easy diffusion throught the skin. And you may think that when you work with steroids you must be very careful.

Steroid experts William Llewellyn (Molecular Nutrition) and Patrick Arnold (Ergopharm) have each called methyltrienolone one of the “most powerful” anabolic steroids ever created.

Arnold has told the Steroid Report that several athletes used methyltrienolone in the 1990s and were able to successfully pass doping controls looking for methyltrienolone due to the very 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.

Patrick Arnold is organic chemist who developed the once undetectable anabolic steroid tetrahydrogestrinone (THG) for BALCO. THG is a modified form of methyltrienolone.

The fact that Thomas was acquitted on two perjury charges is very significant. It may not be significant for Thomas, but it is significant in showing that the jury did not understand the law.

Basically, the jury determined that Tammy Thomas did NOT receive “banned or illegal performance-enhancing drugs” (i.e. legally-defined anabolic steroids) from Patrick Arnold. (Count 2)

They also determined that Tammy Thomas did NOT “ever get an anabolic steroid from anybody” (at least “up to the time of March 2002″). (Count 5)

But then they believed she was GUILTY of TAKING STEROIDS. (Count 4)

How did Tammy Thomas take steroids if she didn’t EVER get them from ANYBODY?!

The only other evidence of steorid use provided by the government was the medical testimony of virilization experienced by Thomas and the positive steroid test on March 14, 2002.

Concluding Thomas used anabolic steroids based on a positive steroid test for norbolethone is inconsistent with their verdict on other counts. The jury agreed that Thomas was GUILTY of receiving products from Patrick Arnold (which must refer THG and norobolethone since Arnold was the only person to have synthesized these substances at the time) but agreed with the defense that these were not “illegal or performance-enhancing” (i.e. NOT legally classified as anabolic steroids at the time). So how could the jury (theoretically and/or legally) use this as proof of steroid use if they determined that substances received from Patrick Arnold were not “illegal or performance-enhancing”?

Using evidence of virilization as proof of steroid use is also problematic due to the fact that there is and has been a legal definition of anabolic steroids and a pharmacological definition of anabolic steroids. (Much to the chagrin of prosecutors, their star witness Patrick Arnold offered testimony to this distinction in court.) There were dozens of “dietary supplements” that could legally be purchased at many sports nutrition stores prior to 2005 that could have caused significant virilization in women using significant dosages of these supplements. Certainly they were pharmacological androgens but they were not classified as anabolic steroids until the Anabolic Steroid Control Act of 2004 was enacted.

So, for the jury to accept the virilization as proof of steroid use (while at the same time accepting defense’s distinction between legal and pharmaceutical definition of anabolic steroids) is inconsistent.

The bottom line is that the jury was confused; they did not know or understand the law and rendered a factually and legally inconsistent verdict.

Is this good news for Tammy Thomas? No necessarily. Defense attorney Philip Sweitzer tells me California permits legally and factually inconsistent verdicts unlike many other states.

“Nor need a verdict be legally consistent. The jury’s prerogative to render a legally inconsistent verdict is unquestioned by any authority. Jury unanimity, not consistency of theory, is the touchstone of a valid verdict. [Citations.] . . . Once it is clear that the jury’s intent is to acquit, the form of the verdict is not important; it is the intention to acquit that triggers the mandatory duty to receive and record the verdict and acquit the prisoner.” (Bigelow, supra, 208 Cal. App. 3d at pp. 1134-1135.)

Now that perjury trial of Tammy Thomas has concluded, it will be interesting to see how the government’s “new anti-doping weapon” is used against Barry Bonds and other athletes.

I want to thank attorney Philip Sweitzer for sharing his legal knowledge on this case as well as many others.

Under federal sentencing guidelines, Thomas faces a sentence that likely would range from probation to about two or three years in federal prison for the perjury convictions.

Thomas was specifically accused of lying to the grand jury about using steroids and obtaining performance enhancing drugs from Illinois chemist Patrick Arnold, a key Balco figure who pleaded guilty to manufacturing designer steroids and providing them to elite athletes through the now-defunct Peninsula laboratory.

Tammy Thomas already received a lifetime ban from competitive cycling for doping violations several years. This effectively ended her career as a cyclist. The conviction for perjury in the government’s case against Thomas may have effectively ended the pursuit of a second career as an attorney (“Tammy Thomas found guilty of perjury,” April 4).

“I already had one career taken away from me,” she yelled. “Look me in the eye. You can’t do it.”

Thomas then turned to a prosecutor and shouted, “Look me in the eye …. You like to destroy people’s lives.”

 The government has succeeded in its unstated goal of making an example of an athlete using steroids. Is this justice served?

Thomas, whose case is the first to go to trial in the five-and-a-half-year Balco investigation, was charged with making false statements to a grand jury in 2003 about substances she is suspected of receiving from Arnold. For the jury to convict Thomas, it must conclude that her statements were false and that they were material to the government’s investigation.

I am certain that Tammy Thomas is anxiously awaiting the verdict. Not only is her freedom in jeopardy but also a future career as an attorney. She has been silent about the case and has not spoken to the media; however, she has been very outspoken in her fashion statements outside the courtroom where she was photographed wearing a San Francisco Giants baseball cap, no doubt in support of other athletes who have been targeted for perjury by this federal investigation.

The Steroid Report feels that Thomas’ defense attorney Ethan Balogh has successfully created reasonable doubt with his arguments.

The government’s case against cyclist Tammy Thomas for perjury is surprisingly weak. The government’s case is largely based on the assertion that Tammy Thomas ingested “anabolic steroids” and/or “controlled substances” and/or “banned substances” obtained from chemist Patrick Arnold and she lied about it.

The inconvenient fact is that tetrahydrogestrinone (THG) and norbolethone were NOT legally classified as “anabolic steroids” until the Anabolic Steroid Control Act of 2004 was passed; Norbolethone and THG were two of the 26 compounds added to the Controlled Substances Act with this legislation. Consequently, THG and norbolethone were NOT controlled substances until the passage of the legislation. Furthermore, THG and norbolethone were not on the WADA/IOC banned substances list at the time.

Of course, not everyone agrees. Steroid Nation feels Balogh’s statements in court in defense of Tammy Thomas were simply “ludicrous.”

It irritates this writer that a lawyer would argue that point in court without his tongue turning black and his eyes bleeding out.  As ludicrous as a woman shaving every morning, not thinking she is taking an anabolic androgenic steroid.

However, juries do not hinge deliberations on the issue of ludicrous statements.

The statements upset Dr. Gaffney because they are medically (pharmacologically) inaccurate; this is true. As I commented, his statements about THG and norbolethone may be scientifically correct, but not necessarily legally correct.

But this is a legal case and the arguments are legal arguments. THG and Norbolethone were NOT LEGALLY classified as anabolic steroids. Read the Anabolic Steroid Control Act of 1990 – THG and norbolethone are not included. Then read the Anabolic Steroid Control Act of 2004 and notice that this amendment LEGALLY CHANGED the status of THG and Norbolethone to “Anabolic Steroids.”

 Admittedly, a steroid is a steroid is a steroid. No amount of semantic bickering or legal lobbying will change that. But for better or worse, criminal justice is deliberated by rule of law (not pharmaceutical rules) and juries are instructed to base their verdicts on the law no matter how ludicrous the arbitrary legal definitions may appear to them.

As I further commented, legal definitions don’t change pharmacological definitions. But they matter in the criminal justice system.

The arbirariness of legal definitions regarding steroids is really quite silly. Over the past decade, we have learned that a pharmacologically defined (anabolic-androgenic) steroid can be legally defined as (1) a “dietary supplement”, (2) an “anabolic steroid”, and (3) an “unapproved new drug.”

The legal status obviously does nothing to change the pharmacological definition. But the legal defintion (no matter how arbitrary) has very important implications in our criminal justice system.

It will be very interesting to see if the jury accepts defense attorney Ethan Balogh’s argument, in whole or in part.

The new swimsuit? Speedo’s LZR Racer.

That modest meet last month in Columbia, Mo., began an unprecedented — and controversial — six weeks that turned competitive swimming upside down: 14 world records set as of Wednesday, 13 in the LZR suit.

“There’s going to be more fireworks,” Speedo USA executive Stu Isaac said of the records being shattered. He suggested that more would fall at the ongoing Olympic trials in Sydney, Australia, and the U.S. trials in Omaha, starting in June.

But the onslaught of new world records has ignited debate over whether high-tech apparel provides an unfair advantage.

Actually, the swimsuit has not been banned. So, swimmers will not be forced to swim naked during competition. The new Speedo LZR Racer swimsuit was approved by FINA (competitive swimming’s governing body) having met the rules for swimsuits (e.g. minimum thickness, etc).

Some doping commentators like Norm Fost suggest that the best way to eliminate an unfair advantage is to make that substance, technology, etc. readily available to all competitors. This could easily be accomplished with anabolic steroids since they are so inexpensive as evidenced by Kelcey Dalton (former girlfriend of chemist Patrick Arnold) recent court testimony. However, the idea of leveling the playing field by allowing cheap steroids to be used by all athletes has been strongly rejected. So, the economics of access is not the determining factor.

Yet, the real complaint about the unfair advantage of the Speedo LXR swimsuit turns out to be economic in nature.

Many of the complaints so far are from national federations that have deals with other manufacturers and contend that the LZR, which costs $550, creates an uneven playing field of the haves and have-nots.

It turns out many national federations will not allow their athletes to wear this new performance-enhancing swimsuit because the federations have entered contracts with commercial entities; secondarily it has been suggested that the $550 price tag is prohibitively expensive for less affluent athletes. I’m not sure anyone in the history of civilization has effectively determined how to level the economic playing field. Good luck to sports organizations at tackling this one!

The inconvenient fact is that tetrahydrogestrinone (THG) and norbolethone were NOT legally classified as “anabolic steroids” until the Anabolic Steroid Control Act of 2004 was passed; Norbolethone and THG were two of the 26 compounds added to the Controlled Substances Act with this legislation. Consequently, THG and norbolethone were NOT controlled substances until the passage of the legislation. Furthermore, THG and norbolethone were not on the WADA/IOC banned substances list at the time.

So, it appears that Tammy Thomas was, literally and legally, telling the truth in her statements.

THG and norbolethone were not anabolic steroids at the time.

THG and norbolethone were not controlled substances at the time.

THG and norbolethone were not of the banned substances list at the time.

In addition, Thomas purchased THG and norbolethone from a prominent “supplement manufacturer” (Pat Arnold develops supplements for the popular sports supplement company Ergopharm). Most people generally believe they are buying supplements when they buy products from a dietary supplement manufacturer.

There is no shortage of reasonable doubt. I am surprised the government would ever bring such a weak perjury case to federal court; it shows their obsession with targeting high profile elite athletes who have allegedly used anabolic steroids. At the very least the government could have found a case where anabolic steroids (by legal definition) were involved and not just “unapproved new drug(s)!”

I’m wondering if the government will file perjury charges against IRS Special Agent Jeff Novitsky since he is apparently falsely asserting that THG and norbolethone were anabolic steroids, controlled substances and banned substances!

He also said he wanted to call athletes because only if they’d known they were receiving steroids (i.e. controlled substances) would there be a money laundering charge, giving the IRS a reason to be involved.

If Tammy Thomas is acquitted, how will this affect the Barry Bonds case? Regardless of the outcome, many observers feel the case will help Barry Bonds’ attorneys.

Jeff Novitzky, an Internal Revenue Service special agent and a lead steroids investigator, is expected to play a starring government role in both trials. His appearance at Thomas’ trial could give Bonds’ legal team an idea of how to question him.

“The outcome of the Thomas case will inform their decision on whether they should go to trial or not,” University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias said. “It’s a good road map.”

Maybe an acquittal will finally result in the general public’s disgust with the government’s steroid witch hunt?

While CNN is technically inaccurate, it is closer to the truth than Levin’s advocacy would suggest. From a consumer standpoint, I feel it is safer to assume that dietary supplements are unregulated. Most regulations are actually “post-marketing” measures i.e. very little prevents a new supplement from being sold in the marketplace.

I like the Dietary Health and Supplement Education Act (DSHEA) in principle too. But the supplement industry has abused and exploited DSHEA and utterly failed to self-regulate in the face of legislative challenges to DSHEA. It remains to be seen whether DSHEA is salvaged or systematically dismantled.

There is a reason that dozens of steroids have been and continue to be sold as dietary supplements for over a decade in the U.S.; DSHEA makes it legal. As long as supplement companies avoid certain claims and meet certain criteria well-known within the industry, the steroidal supplements can be introduced to the marketplace without “burdensome” requirements that the supplement company notify the government. This is the legacy of DSHEA.

At least one of the two most infamous designer steroids in the history of sport steroid scandals could have probably been legally sold as dietary supplements if they did not become scrutinized due to the spotlight of the BALCO steroids in baseball scandal i.e. tetrahydragestrinone aka THG aka “The Clear” and desoxymethyltestosterone aka DMT aka Madol synthesized by the convicted “father of prohormones” Patrick Arnold.

Pat Arnold’s indictment didn’t identify these so-called designer steroids as “anabolic steroids” because, legally, they were not. In response to the BALCO scandal, the FDA issued a press release on THG stating it was an “unapproved new drug” and not a “dietary supplement” to stop manufacturers who felt it met DSHEA criteria from selling it. (Actually, the latter steroid DMT was introduced into the marketplace but quickly (and voluntarily) pulled by its manufacturer shortly after the press associated it with the BALCO scandal and Patrick Arnold.)

THG and DMT did not legally become “anabolic steroids” until the passage of the Anabolic Steroid Control Act of 2004.

Several new steroid products are currently sold as dietary supplements legally and others illegally. But little is done about either due to the laissez faire regulation of the industry.

Furthermore, dietary supplements contaminated with steroids and stimulants continues to be a problem; for this reason alone I would be cautious about teenagers or children using any dietary supplement. Sadly, the supplement industry (or more accurately, several companies within the industry) are giving legislators every excuse to gut DSHEA.