United States Attorney General Eric Holder praised the Justice Department’s use of terrorism laws to disrupt the illegal distribution of human growth hormone (hGH) during his remarks at a Justice Department leadership conference. Holder celebrated the use of the Patriot Act to eliminate a top supplier of performance enhancing drugs (PEDs). The Patriot Act law “permitted” the United States to pursue an international biopharmaceutical company and seize millions of dollars “physically located” in another sovereign country.
The successful asset forfeiture codenamed Operation Honor Student resulted in the forfeiture of $2.7 million dollars by Lei Jin, PhD and his company Genescience Pharmaceutical (GeneSci). Jin and GeneSci were indicted as part of Operation Raw Deal in 2007. The defendants were charged with illegally marketing and distributing human growth hormone over the internet to bodybuilders, athletes, and pharmacies Read more
Operation Farmacia de Juicy Phruit is the code name for the major steroid bust in Houston led by the Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Department involving the arrest of 73 defendants. The “largest narcotics operation in the history of Fort Bend County” primarily involved the arrest of personal trainers, their clients, bodybuilders, a professional bodybuilder and a gym owner in the Houston area. Many of the arrests only involved steroid possession. The steroid network was characterized by Sheriff Milton Wright as a “loose knit” network of individuals involved in fitness/bodybuilding who distributed steroids through “word of mouth”. The total amount of steroids sold over a period of about six years was estimated to have been $643,924 (”Authorities round up drug suspects,” May 27).
“It’s one of these things where they’ve got their friends on speed-dial. They need a certain product, they give them a call and so forth,” Wright said. “They just know each other. A lot of times they know each other by nicknames. They are well-connected to each other in that respect.”
Fort Bend County Sheriff Wright told the Houston Chronicle that the Texas steroid investigation revolved around personal trainers and gyms (”Fort Bend holds suspects in alleged steroid ring,” May 28).
“The majority of this thing is built around body trainers at fitness centers,” said Wright. “Their livelihood is getting customers they can develop physically — legally or illegally. It doesn’t matter in their eyes, as long as they get the job done.”
The steroid operation originated with Brock Falkenhagen, owner of Fitness Associates and Smoothie Factory in Sugar Land, when his activities came to the attention of law enforcement in late 2006 for importing and distributing Jintropin brand human growth hormone (HGH) purchased from Lei Jin of GeneScience Pharmaceuticals. Falkenhagen also allegedly manufactured and distributed anabolic steroids from some time in 2001 through September 7, 2007. Falkenhagen was well-connected in the Sugar Land / Stafford / Missouri City / Houston area fitness community and was friendly with several personal trainers and bodybuilding promoters. Some of Falkenhagen’s friends are rumored to have been arrested today. Charles Brock Falkenhagen was listed as a co-defendant on the sealed indictments of all 22 defendants indicted by the federal grand jury in April 2009; the names of Falkenhagen’s co-defendants were redacted in unsealed court documents.
Falkenbaden was not characterized as the mastermind behind the steroid operation. But authorities would not elaborate on how the Falkenbaden investigation led to the arrest and indictment of personal trainers and bodybuilders in the Houston area. Falkenbaden was arrested approximately a week before today’s arrests and released on a $75,000 unsecured bond Read more
Former amateur bodybuilder Jay McGwire, the youngest brother of baseball player Mark McGwire, is fighting for the honor of being the first person to have introduced and injected Mark McGwire with anabolic steroids. The younger McGwire is trying to sell a manuscript entitled “The McGwire Family Secret: The Truth about Steroids, a Slugger, and Ultimate Redemption” that details Mark McGwire’s use of performance enhancing drugs (”Mark McGwire’s One-Eyed Baby Brother Reveals The Not-So-Startling Truth,” January 21).
“Shortly after I won the Contra Costa Bodybuilding Championships in May of 1994, Mark took the plunge. I accompanied him to Sacramento where we met with my supplier and trainer, who explained to him how the different drugs would work on his body and answered a myriad of questions from Mark. Given Mark’s curiosity and lack of knowledge about steroids I saw from Mark, I would be shocked if Mark did something like what Jose Canseco claimed happened back in the early years….[M]ark began to use, but in low dosages so he wouldn’t lift his way out of baseball. Deca-Durabolin helped with his joint problems and recovery, while growth hormone helped his strength, making him leaner in the process. I became the first person to inject him, like most first-timers he couldn’t plunge in the needle himself. Later a girlfriend injected him.”
Jay McGwire seeks to take credit for designing Big Mac’s first steroid cycle that incorporated Deca Durabolin as well as human growth hormone (HGH). Jay McGwire also took credit for introducing his brother to androstenedione shortly after Associated Press reporter Steve Wilstein published the story “Drug OK in Baseball, Not Olympics” announcing the discovery of the legal anabolic steroid supplement in Mark McGwire’s locker in July 1998 Read more
Daniel McGlone was sentenced to two years in prison for advertising, marketing and promoting American Pharmaceutical Group (AMG) as a source for anabolic steroids and human growth hormone in bodybuilding magazines and through the internet website PrescriptionProtocol.com. Daniel McGlone aka American Pharmaceutical Group paid $18,150 to American Media Inc. (AMI) for magazine advertisements over about an 18-month period; AMI publishes the bodybuilding magazines FLEX Magazine, Muscle & Fitness and Men’s Fitness. AMG also paid for $1,800 for advertisements in the bodybuilding magazine Planet Muscle for a couple of months.
The American Pharmaceutical Group made $860,810 over a twenty-eight month period in proceeds from anabolic steroid and HGH sales to individual customers and referral bonuses from compounding pharmacies such as Signature Pharmacy. Customers responding to ads in bodybuilding magazines and on the internet were prescribed various anabolic steroids, human growth hormone and human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG). Specific drugs included testosterone, testosterone cypionate, testosterone propionate, testosterone enanthate, stanozolol, nandrolone decanoate, and somatropin Read more
Dr. Richard Rydze is a vocal advocate of the use of recombinant human growth hormone (rHGH) for the treatment of tendon and ligament injuries. Dr. Rydze found HGH to be highly effective for this purpose based on the clinical results from his human growth hormone research project involving over 200 patients over the course of 5 years. Unfortunately, Dr. Rydze, as a 22-year member of the Pittsburgh Steelers medical staff and an internal medicine specialist at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) was not in the best position to conduct such controversial HGH research in his private practice.
The societal stigma associated with performance-enhancing drugs and the legal restrictions on legitimate medical research by anti-steroid crusaders and the anti-doping movement quickly resulted in Dr. Rydze resignation from both the Pittsburgh Steelers organization and the UPMC after it was publicly disclosed that Rydze had purchased $150,000 worth of HGH and anabolic steroids from Signature Pharmacy with his credit card (”Former Steelers doctor embraced HGH,” January 15).
“I know it has caused me a lot of grief, simply because I believe in it and I know what it does,” Rydze said. “And to deny people the effect to heal better — that is the art of medicine, to make people heal. And using something off-label, which we use for many, many drugs … I don’t see how someone can single out one thing and say you can’t use it for off-label use. And you show me there is one side effect, and I’d be a believer. But I have never seen a side effect. And I just think it is just ignorance of people who don’t know. They just hear about it, and they assume it is bad.”
The use of human growth hormone was approved by the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) for a limited number of conditions**; the use of HGH for tendon and ligament injuries was not one of the FDA-approved indications. Any use of HGH for this purpose was considered “off-label.” An “off-label prescription” for a drug refers to its use by medical professionals to treat additional medical conditions and/or indications that were not originally approved by the FDA.
It is legal for physicians to use all FDA-approved pharmaceutical drugs for off-label purposes EXCEPT for HGH. The off-label use of human growth hormone (HGH) to accelerate healing in the treatment of tendon and ligament injuries remains illegal. Read more
The general public takes comfort in blaming anabolic steroids for violent and abhorrent crimes. The media is quick to find such associations given their tendency towards steroid demonization and steroid hysteria. The latest instance involves child abuse by Anthony Badalamenti in which the perpetrator has been linked to anabolic steroids, the violent beating has been referred to as an example of roid rage, and his behavior has been compared to the Chris Benoit tragedy.
The New York Daily News reports that Anthony Badalamenti obtained anabolic steroids and human growth hormone (HGH) in 2006 from Lowen’s Pharmacy which were prescribed to him by Dr. Richard Lucente (who is under investigation for writing precriptions for performance enhancing drugs) (”Long Island bodybuilder linked to Mitchell Report pharmacy,” November 4).
“I don’t know if this was ‘roid rage, but this sure reminds me of Chris Benoit,” said the source, referring to the professional wrestler who had steroids in his system when he killed his wife and son before committing suicide in 2007.
Jeffrey J. Rock, better known as Gavin Kane in the bodybuilding world, was recently sentenced to 5 years probation and 15 months community and home confinement for his role in the Internet distribution of Jintropin human growth hormone in the United States. Jeffrey Rock operated as an internet HGH source using the alias Propeptides. He marketed human growth hormone to bodybuilders through Gavin Kane Enterprises and RockHard Physique and related websites, GavinKane.com and Propeptides.com.
Jeffrey Rock aka Propeptides was one of the major players involved in the distribution of Jintropin brand human growth hormone in the United States; he worked directly with GeneScience Pharmaceuticals in China to import/smuggle and distribute HGH to bodybuilders in the U.S. Rock was indicted on six charges including one count of smuggling human growth hormone into the United States, two counts of distribution of growth hormone and three counts of money laundering. Rock faced a total of 60 years in prison and $1.5 million in fines. He faced 20 years in prison for the single count of smuggling HGH alone under federal sentencing guidelines.
China announced the revocation of the GeneScience Pharmaceutical license to manufacturer Jintropin brand human growth hormone. This represents a major success in efforts towards the internationalization of steroid and doping law by the United States. The U.S. federal government indicted CEO Lei Jin and GeneScience Pharmaceutical Inc. last fall as part of Operation Raw Deal (”China Cracks Down on Drug Companies,” June 19).
One of the drugmakers that China named Wednesday was GeneScience Pharmaceutical, which is based in northern China and run by an American-educated executive. Last September, a federal grand jury in Rhode Island indicted the company for illegally distributing millions of dollars in human growth hormones in the United States. The company had denied the allegation, but its American agent pleaded guilty in February to conspiracy to distribute H.G.H.
Thomas T. Perls, MD and S. Jay Olshansky, PhD attack their favorite punching bag, the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine (A4M), and other anti-aging management organizations and health care practictioners who prescribe human growth hormone (HGH) to adult patients with adult-onset growth hormone deficiency disorder (GHD) today in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Perl and Olshansky state that HGH can ONLY be prescribed for adult GHD if they meet the diagnostic criteria as confirmed by stimulation testing.
They explicitly attack the A4M recommendations that HGH justifiably prescribed to patients with IFG-1 levels below 100ng/mL. Read more
Kelly Blair, the owner of 1-on-1 Elite Personal Fitness near Houston, was identified as the source of the human growth hormone used by baseball player Andy Pettitte. We reported allegations that Andy Pettitte obtained it from his father who allegedly obtained it from Blair; there were further suggestions that a former bodybuilder awaiting trial on murder charges supplied Blair’s gym with anabolic steroids.
Has Kelly Blair been falsely accused? The so-called steroid investigation is looking more and more like a steroid witch hunt with dubious accusations made against fitness professionals, particularly in the Houston area.
For the record, Kelly Blair denies that he ever gave growth hormone to the father of Andy Pettitte; but admits that if he were asked he would have shown no hesitation in helping Tommy Pettitte obtain human growth hormone for Andy (”Trainer denies he supplied HGH to Pettitte’s father,” March 14).
“If Tommy Pettitte would have come to me back in (2004) and asked for assistance in getting growth hormone, I wouldn’t have hesitated,” Blair told the Chronicle Friday morning. “I absolutely would have done it. Why wouldn’t I? I wouldn’t have thought he was getting it for Andy, so I would have done it in a heartbeat.
“But that didn’t happen.”
Blair sounds credible. He doesn’t deny his willingness to have helped secure HGH for Pettitte; he simply denies that he was ever asked.
I would expect that most journalists would have a basic understanding of anabolic steroids given that the topic has been a major news story for several years now. But journalists still fail to perform their “steroid fact checking” when writing stories on the topic. The Toledo Blade Newspaper out of Ohio published a story about a steroid bust. The only problem with the story was that the man was not busted for anabolic steroids.
Authorities searched the bar in January and found steroids and syringes in a filing cabinet.
The items found were listed as a blister pack containing nine tablets of Clenbuterol, a bottle with liquid Clenbuterol, several vials of the human growth hormone Jintropin, and a bag of syringes and more human growth hormone. Clenbuterol is a steroid used in meat production that’s banned in the United States.
Clenbuterol is not a steroid and neither is human growth hormone. A substance does not automatically become an anabolic steroid simply because it is used in sports or bodybuilding for performance enhancing purposes. I’m not sure why so many people are committed to remaining blissfully ignorant about steroids. Why the resistance to steroid education?
