Posted on Tue, May. 11, 2004
Balco drugs allegedly acquired from outside
INFORMATION CAME TO LIGHT DURING RAID
By Pete Carey and Elliott Almond
Mercury News
A Midwest sports-supplement maker and a Texas anti-aging doctor supplied two of the key drugs in the Balco Laboratories steroid scandal, federal investigators were told last year.
Although reports have concentrated on Burlingame-based Balco as the distributor of a testosterone cream and the designer steroid THG, investigators have known since last year that Balco's president, Victor Conte Jr., obtained the drugs from other sources.
The information illustrates the murky territory occupied by performance-enhancing, youth-preserving chemicals. Neither of the two sources Conte allegedly named has been accused of breaking any drug laws or federal regulations. Doctors can prescribe one of the drugs, and the other one was unknown until Olympic drug testers at UCLA discovered it last year.
The substances, allegedly given to elite track and field athletes and professional baseball and football players, were nicknamed ``cream'' and ``clear'' at Balco. The cream was a gel rubbed on the skin that contained the male sex hormone testosterone and a masking agent. The clear was tetrahydrogestrinone (THG), a designer drug closely related to the anabolic steroids gestrinone and trenbolone. The investigators found out about the sources of the two drugs when they interviewed Conte while searching Balco Laboratories on Sept. 3, the Mercury News has learned. His lawyers dispute much of what investigators say Conte told them. Troy Ellerman, one of two lawyers representing Balco's executives, declined to comment.
Conte is alleged to have told investigators:
• The clear, the drug at the heart of the scandal, was obtained several years ago from Patrick Arnold, an Illinois supplement maker who introduced the top-selling prohormone androstenedione, or andro. Conte told investigators he bought his supply of the clear from Arnold for $450. The Food and Drug Administration declared THG an unapproved new drug in October shortly after Olympic drug testers revealed it publicly.
• A testosterone cream came from a Dr. Renna in Texas. Christian Renna, a Dallas anti-aging doctor with a Hollywood and professional athlete clientele, said last week that he knows Conte ``tangentially'' but declined to comment further. Two sources said that Conte had a prescription for testosterone. It is unclear if Conte had more than one source for testosterone, and if he did, whether investigators know who those sources are.
Conte is alleged to have told investigators that he bought the masking agent epitestosterone from a separate source and that someone Arnold knows mixed it with the testosterone cream.
Arnold, a chemist who heads LPJ Research in Seymour, Ill., declined to comment. ``It's a hot potato,'' he said.
Renna said he was ``more than puzzled'' by the allegation. ``I know Mr. Conte tangentially, but this is the first I've heard of that. Since this is going to be a public thing, I had better not make any comment,'' he said.
Renna has developed hormone-replacement therapies for movie stars, movie directors and professional athletes.
The physician, who has offices in Dallas and Santa Monica, ``has changed the lives of many people to include Hollywood's top personalities and producers, high-powered corporate executives, and professional athletes,'' states a Web site for Custom Formulary, an online pharmacy Renna founded.
Renna's athlete clients are professional football, basketball, hockey and baseball players, according to the Web site. News reports have described his work with film director Oliver Stone and actors Nick Nolte, Mickey Rourke and Chuck Norris.
Arnold's claim to fame -- andro -- is a steroid precursor that the body converts into testosterone and estrogen. Former A's and St. Louis Cardinals slugger Mark McGwire used it in 1998, when he broke Roger Maris' season home run record. It was banned by the FDA in March.
Conte is one of four men indicted on charges of giving performance-enhancing drugs to elite athletes. The others are Balco's vice president, James Valente; Barry Bonds' personal trainer, Greg Anderson of Burlingame; and Remi Korchemny, a track coach from Castro Valley. All have pleaded not guilty.
