From the San Jose Mercury News, September 4, 2003
Olympic drug-testing officials are helping to investigate a Burlingame, Calif., manufacturer of nutritional supplements whose clients include Barry Bonds, Marion Jones and other star athletes.
Don Catlin, director of the Olympic drug-testing center at UCLA, said Thursday that he has consulted with federal agents for a year about the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative, which authorities raided Wednesday.
Catlin also said he recently worked on the case with the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, which oversees drug testing for Olympians. "It is a work in progress," Catlin said of the investigation. An anti-doping agency official said he could not talk about its involvement.
The raid of the Burlingame firm, also known as Balco, owned by nutritionist Victor Conte, was conducted by agents of the Internal Revenue Service and the San Mateo County narcotics unit. Neither agency would discuss the raid. No arrests were made, but agents were seen leaving with several boxes. "We are not even acknowledging it was a search," IRS spokesman Mark Lessler said. "We are only calling it a law enforcement action."
Conte, who did not answer a page from the Mercury News, could not be reached Thursday. An associate, Brian Goldman, said Conte was in Paris last weekend attending the world track and field championships. An assistant U.S. attorney in San Francisco, Don Clay, said his office has not filed any criminal cases involving Balco. In March, the U.S. attorney's office did file a civil case against the firm, alleging it overbilled Medicare by conducting unnecessary and unreasonable tests for trace minerals. The case is unresolved.
Conte is well known for helping athletes, from 49ers and Raiders players - including linebacker Bill Romanowski - to Olympic stars and bodybuilders. Conte supplies dietary supplements to sprinter Kelli White of Union City, who tested positive at the world championships Aug. 24 for a banned stimulant. She said she took it to combat the sleeping disorder narcolepsy. Goldman, an East Bay child psychiatrist who has worked with Conte for two decades, said he gave White the stimulant modanifil, for which she tested positive. Track officials did not suspend White, who hopes to compete in the 2004 Summer Games, but still could strip her of gold medals she won in Paris.
Goldman said Conte and Balco do not give athletes banned substances. "Victor knows my position: I disapprove of anabolic steroids," Goldman said. Goldman said he offers athletes safe and legal alternatives to steroids, which promote muscle growth. But Goldman said he suspected some female athletes of doping after they came to him with hormonal problems. He would not identify those athletes.
Balco specializes in supplying nutritional aids that include trace minerals the company says can enhance athletic performance and strength. According to its Web site, runners such as Jones, Tim Montgomery and Regina Jacobs have used Balco products. Bonds, the Giants' superstar, praised Balco in a recent issue of Muscle & Fitness magazine.
Conte and East Bay track coach Remi Korchemny formed the ZMA Track Club, which signifies the zinc and magnesium product the nutritionist promotes. White told the Mercury News earlier this week that Conte helped her maintain a consistent weight level after the 2001 season. She said Conte's staff analyzed her blood to decide what nutrients she lacked. "They do a lot of things for us," said White, a James Logan High star who emerged this year as one of the world's leading sprinters.
Also connected to Conte, according to Balco's Web site, were bodybuilders Ronnie Coleman, Flex Wheeler and Mike Ashley. Coleman, a former Mr. Olympia from Arlington, Texas, said Thursday he never received banned substances from Balco. "It was a vitamin and mineral supplement," he said.
The burgeoning dietary supplement industry has drawn attention from Congress because of highly publicized deaths, such as that of Baltimore Orioles pitching prospect Steve Bechler, who used a product containing the stimulant ephedra. The unregulated industry does not follow strict standards created by the Food and Drug Administration for prescription medications. As a result, the labels of dietary aids are not always accurate. International sports leaders worry that some of the products are tainted with banned drugs. A number of athletes who have tested positive for anabolic steroids in recent years argued that they took over-the-counter supplements and should not be sanctioned.
From the Daily Journal, by Dana Yates, September 5, 2003
The sports lab probe deepens. Sources say Barry Bonds’ trainer questioned. Olympic implications revolve around nutritional supplements.
Sports insiders speculate that Wednesday’s raid of a popular sports nutrition center is just the tip of the iceberg in what could put dozens of professional athlete’s jobs in danger. What started as a raid of one business spread to a nearby gym yesterday where witnesses report seeing law enforcement agents questioning Greg Anderson, personal trainer for San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds.
Three clients leaving Bay Area Fitness, located at 888 Hinckley Road, separately confirmed reports that agents entered the club to retrieve Anderson Wednesday afternoon. Employees refused to answer questions about the event but didn’t deny agents were at the gym, which is around the corner from BALCO labs and shares many of the same clients. Anderson is just one in a long list of professional athletes and trainers who visit BALCO. At the lab, athletes get their blood analyzed for mineral and vitamin deficiencies. Based on findings, athletes are then given nutritional supplements to equalize the deficiencies.
As first reported in the Daily Journal yesterday, agents from the IRS Criminal Investigations Unit and San Mateo County Narcotic Task Force raided Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative, also known as BALCO, located at 1520 Gilbreth Road at 12:30 p.m. Wednesday. Arriving in unmarked cars, agents slipped into the low-profile building and removed boxes of unknown items.
BALCO has a client list that includes Bonds, Marion Jones and Kelli White, an Olympic sprinter who tested positive last week for performance enhancing drugs prescribed by Dr. Brian Goldman, who often works with BALCO. Reporters from the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times and San Diego Union-Tribune are pursuing the story which began last week when Olympic sprinter Kelli White tested positive for performance enhancing drugs prescribed by Dr. Brian Goldman, who works with BALCO labs.
While speculation flies, law enforcement agents are keeping their lips sealed on why they raided BALCO labs. Nutritionist Victor Conte is the founder of BALCO and his name is familiar in athletic doping circles. Conte worked with American shot-putter C.J. Hunter at the 2000 Olympics when Hunter had tested positive for the steroid nandrolone. Hunter was banned from Olympic competition.