Amazon.com sells banned steroids posing as supplements, researchers find

Banned substances in sport supplements is one mole that just won’t stay whacked. On January 19, the Washington Post reported that a research team based in Los Angeles bought muscle-building products laced with illegal steroids though online retail giant Amazon.com.

Don Catlin, chief executive officer of the nonprofit Anti-Doping Research Group in Los Angeles, and his son, Oliver Catlin, announced that they had purchased in recent months eight products that appeared to be legal, muscle-building dietary supplements through Amazon. Testing has been completed on four of the products, three of which contained banned steroids.

Amazon did not respond to an e-mail request for comment, though Oliver Catlin, chief financial officer of the group, did say he thought the online retailer had been notified of the story before it was published. But, he said, "It does appear that they have pulled M-Drol off the site."

M-Drol, manufactured by Competitive Edge Labs, was one of the offending products. Searches on Amazon indicated that at least two other products included in the study – P-Plex and H-Drol, both from Competitive Edge – have also been pulled. 

Oliver Catlin said the primary goal of the buying exercise was not to target Amazon specifically, but to shine a spotlight on adulterated products in general and on the wide availability of banned steroids in particular. He also said the question of what's legal and what isn't is not as clear cut as it might seem; designer steroids go by many names, some of which are on lists of banned substances and some of which aren't.

"Our interest is in protecting the unsuspecting consumer from being able to buy these products, take them without knowing what they really are, and put themselves in the hospital," Oliver Catlin told Functional Ingredients. 

This marks an uncomfortable watershed for the sports nutrition market. Despite numerous U.S. Food and Drug Administration enforcement actions, steroid sales have now transcended locker room duffel bags and flashy websites festooned with glistening torsos and have moved into the heart of the online commerce world.

The big risk with steroids is liver damage, Oliver Catlin said, but there are a host of other risks, including hormonal imbalances resulting in gynecomastia (enlargement of male breasts) and psychological side effects, especially among younger users. While not defending the practice, Catlin noted that muscle builders who knowingly ingest steroids are much more likely to be aware of the risks and to know some of the protective strategies and products that can be used to lessen those risks. Having these products freely available on a site like Amazon puts them out among consumers who are not part of the bodybuilding inner circle.

"What about the high school kids who want to bulk up?" Oliver Catlin asked. "They go to Amazon, see this thing called P-Plex and think 'Oh, cool.' There's no information there to suggest that it's unsafe or that you have to use liver care products to protect yourself.  That's what we're trying to protect against."

Industry expert Anthony Almada, for one, wasn’t surprised by the news. “What do retailers, either online or brick-and-mortar, do to actually scrutinize advertizing or compositions of what they sell? Nothing! Why should they? They’re not required to by law,” he said.

Sports supplements comprise a huge and growing marketplace. According to Nutrition Business Journal  estimates, 2009 sales of sports nutrition supplements reached $2.9 billion on 5 percent growth over 2008 sales of $2.8 billion. For 2000-2009, the compound annual growth rate was 7 percent. Thanks to online retailers such as Bodybuilding.com and Amazon, a rapidly growing percentage of sports supplement sales are occurring via the web.