Steroids Detected In Dietary Tablets

However, Bruce Kneller, a consultant to Gaspari, wrote in an e-mail late yesterday that he had spoken to Gaspari and was conveying a comment on Gaspari's behalf. "The product . . . was discontinued several weeks ago after the publication of an inflammatory article in The Washington Post," Kneller said, referring to the Oct. 18 Post story. "It is no longer made or sold by Gaspari Nutrition and, in fact, was only available for less than three weeks."

Though Halodrol-50 is no longer available on the Gaspari Nutrition Web site, the product continues to be marketed on other Web sites that sell bodybuilding substances.

In an e-mail sent by a Gaspari official to a distributor, which was provided to The Post, the Gaspari official said Halodrol-50 and another product called Orastan E no longer advertised on Gaspari's Web site would continue to be sold to good customers. The Gaspari official added that he hoped "the government and media will ignore us and think we got rid of them," focusing instead on the "other companies."

Oral-Turinabol anchored the secretive doping program in communist East Germany that led to that country's emergence as an Olympic power three decades ago, according to classified documents uncovered in 1990 following the fall of the Berlin Wall. At the 1976 Summer Games in Montreal, East German women won 11 of the 13 swimming events. But the side effects from the massive doses of steroids administered to the East German competitors were as remarkable as the athletes' successes. Women developed excessive body hair, deepened voices, massive shoulders and male secondary sex characteristics.

Criminal trials in 2000 resulted in the convictions of East Germany's Olympic president and chief sports doctor, but a number of former athletes are still grappling with medical, legal and psychological issues related to the doping program.

One of the two steroids found in Halodrol-50, Catlin said, more closely resembles Oral-Turinabol than any other known steroid, but the two are not identical in structure. The steroid would be undetectable in standard drug tests because it is not an exact match with Oral-Turinabol.

"This is an unknown," Catlin said. "If I had to pick one it's ever so close to, it's Oral-Turinabol. . . . It's very close."

Athletes taking Halodrol-50 would flunk standard sport drug tests, however, because DMT -- which Catlin identified more than a year ago -- is now detectable. DMT was one of three steroids found associated with BALCO. The others were norbolethone and THG, also known as "the clear."

The FDA is investigating four other dietary supplement companies named in the Oct. 18 story in which The Post reported that Catlin had found anabolic steroids in five products produced by four companies: Anabolic Xtreme, Applied Lifescience Research Industries, Legal Gear and PharmaGenX. The story led Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.) to demand that the FDA explain its efforts to ensure that dietary supplements did not contain steroids. The FDA said in a Nov. 7 letter to Davis that the companies could face punitive action.