Designer Steroids: Hide and Seek

Scientists had long suspected athletes were using new, undetectable "designer" steroids to beat drug tests, but they could never prove it until the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (BALCO) scandal exploded in 2003. BALCO exposed a sophisticated underground ring that supplied steroids to prominent athletes in many sports. Since the identification of BALCO steroids norbolethone and THG, Don Catlin and his team at the UCLA Olympic Analytical Laboratory have discovered more designer steroids. The latest are sold as dietary supplements and are widely available on the Internet. Company representatives say they are offering legal alternatives to steroids. These products contain designer steroids, according to Catlin, who analyzed them for The Post: