Astaphan Lists Drugs to Beat Tests : Ben Johnson’s Doctor Names Masking Agents He Says Conceal Steroids

The doctor who supervised Ben Johnson’s anabolic steroid program named eight drugs Friday that he said athletes can take to conceal their use of banned substances, including two that, if effective, could significantly increase the drug users’ advantage over the testers in international sports.

Testifying for the third day before the Canadian government’s commission of inquiry into drug use by athletes, Jamie Astaphan said athletes who use steroids and other performance-enhancing substances are two years ahead of doping control laboratories in their knowledge of drugs.

But if two of the substances named by Astaphan indeed do act as masking agents, Dr. Robert O. Voy, former chief medical officer for the U.S. Olympic Committee, said the athletes might already have won the fight.

Referring to factrel and pergonol, Voy said by telephone from his Las Vegas sports-medicine clinic that it would be difficult to develop a test for them because they are naturally produced hormones.

“If they’ve (athletes) gotten that sophisticated, we might be fighting a losing battle as far as testing is concerned,” he said.

But Dr. Donald F. Catlin, executive director of the UCLA laboratory that conducts testing for the USOC, did not seem alarmed, expressing doubts about the effectiveness of factrel and pergonol as masking agents. To the contrary, he said he believes the two substances would be more effective as muscle-building agents.

“If they are, in fact, agents that cut down on the excretion of steroids, they would present a problem for us,” he said by telephone from his Westwood office. “But I don’t understand the pharmacological rationale of calling them blocking agents. From everything I know, they would have the opposite effect. They’re more like doping agents.”

Acknowledging there is no test that can detect the two substances, Catlin said: “I don’t think there’s going to be any demand to develop one because there’s no evidence to support the claim that they work as masking agents. Maybe Dr. Astaphan has done some studies.”

Astaphan, who has admitted supervising steroid programs for 14 Canadian track and field athletes and said he has worked as a consultant to 32 others from at least 15 countries, was not asked during his testimony Friday whether he experimented with the substances he classified as masking agents. He seemed reluctant to even name them until prodded by the inquiry’s commissioner, Charles L. Dubin.

“I assume you’re not interested after your experience in prescribing steroids for athletes,” Dubin said.

“No,” Astaphan said.

“Then you’re not giving away any trade secrets,” Dubin said. “So let’s hear it.”

After factrel and pergonol, Astaphan named six substances related to probenecid, which was placed on the International Olympic Committee’s banned list in 1987 after it was purported to have been the masking agent of choice earlier that year in the Pan American Games at Indianapolis and track and field’s world championships at Rome. Five of them, Astaphan said, are uricovac, urinorm, desuric, azubromin and anturan.

Pausing dramatically before naming the sixth, Astaphan said, “This one is going to get me.”

He identified it as carinamide.

“This is the golden boy of them all,” he said. “That’s the name I’ve given to it because: a) it’s not detectable; b) it’s not banned, and c) it blocks everything.

“It’s used in Europe for reasons like probenecid, when you’re given a combination of antibiotics that you want to remain in the system a little bit longer,” he said.

But Catlin said he does not believe Astaphan’s claims that carinamide is not detectable. He also said that it is banned, as are all compounds related to probenecid.

“It’s an old drug, developed before probenecid years ago,” he said. “But it never got out to the clinical market in the United States because it had to be taken in high doses and didn’t last very long.”

It is described as a “clandestinely produced” substance in the “Underground Steroid Handbook II,” the most recent summary of performance-enhancing substances compiled by Dan Duchaine of Venice Beach. Duchaine is currently serving a prison sentence for charges related to steroid distribution.

According to the handbook, carinamide was the most popular masking agent among track and field athletes at the Seoul Olympics.

“We have never seen a case of it,” Catlin said. “I frankly don’t know if we would have seen it if somebody had taken it. But I don’t think it would present any serious problems to us as far as not being detectable. I would think we’ll certainly look into this from the chemistry point of view to be certain we can find it.

“Everything he’s (Astaphan) said so far is just a variation on an old theme. I haven’t heard anything that gives me any serious concern. My concern is for all the poor athletes taking this stuff.”