Amazon.com: An unfettered marketplace for banned and illegal drugs masquerading as dietary supplements

Banned and illegal drugs, by definition, should be hard to get, shouldn’t they? Unfortunately, the reality is quite the opposite; just explore Amazon.com, one of the largest marketplaces for banned or illegal drugs masquerading as dietary supplements.

Need steroids?  There are plenty of options.  New stimulant compounds that the FDA and other international authorities consider illegal and have proven harmful; no problem those are in stock.  What about new drugs that have yet to be approved for human consumption?  Sure you can get those too.  We explore a few startling examples of the illegal and potentially dangerous compounds available today at Amazon.com.

Steroids have been a concern for consumers and athletes for decades.  Pharmaceutical steroid development reached a pinnacle in the 1960’s with a handful of steroids like stanozolol and nandrolone approved for human use, after being evaluated for safety and toxicity. 

Since then a proliferation of prohormones, designer steroids or steroids in disguise, appeared in the dietary supplement marketplace and in positive drug test results in sport.  Unlike approved steroids, the safety, toxicity and approved dose of such compounds are unknown, and some, particularly 17-alpha-methylated steroids like Superdrol, have proven to be toxic and dangerous.  The drug caused liver failure and a positive drug test for an NCAA athlete Jareem Gunter in 2005.

With the BALCO scandal in 2003, that unearthed the doping escapades of Marion Jones, Tim Montgomery and Barry Bonds, came attention.  Steroids like ‘THG’ and ‘Madol’ were at its heart.  President George W. Bush focused on steroids in his 2004 State of the Union Address.  Later that year, Bush signed the Anabolic Steroid Control Act of 2004, which was enhanced with the passing of the Anabolic Steroid Control Act of 2012.

The FDA took prominent action in a highly publicized raid of Bodybuilding.com in November 2009.  In one of the largest regulatory actions to date, the FDA found 65 illegal steroid products for sale that contained five steroid compounds, “Superdrol,” “Madol,” “Tren,” “Androstenedione,” and/or “Turinabol.”  In 2012, as a result of this case, a fine of $7 million dollars was levied against Bodybuilding.com.

Unfortunately, Amazon did not heed the president’s 2004 State-of-the-Union message, nor the legal regulations in the Anabolic Steroid Control Acts, nor the prominent FDA enforcement action against Bodybuilding.com.

Amazingly, in January 2011 we noted in a blog post that products the FDA had raided Bodybuilding.com for in 2009 were still available at Amazon.com, namely CEL M-Drol, which contained ‘Superdrol’ (Superdrol, also known as methasterone, has the scientific name 2α, 17α-dimethyl-5α-androstane-3-one-17β-ol).  The Washington Post reported the story on January 19, 2011, numerous other news outlets followed with their own coverage.  We at The Catlin Consortium had hoped that by publicizing the issue Amazon would be put on notice allowing the company to address the issue responsibly.

That has not happened.  Instead, CEL M-Drol remained available at Amazon.com on September 10, 2013.  It has since mysteriously disappeared from the site after we
included the link in a supplement industry presentation in late September.  ‘Superdrol’, however, continues to appear in another product called M-Stane, which lists the compound on the label under the name 2a-17a-dimethyl-5a-androst-3-one-17b-ol.

M-Stane is only the tip of the iceberg.  As of October 20, Amazon.com still had two products available that were named on the FDA raid list in 2009; Kilo Sports Trenadrol and Purus Labs Nasty Mass.   A search for ‘prohormones’ on Amazon.com returned 125 products on October 20.  Many likely contain steroids or related substances. 

But the concern doesn’t stop with steroids.  Dangerous new stimulants like methlyhexaneamine and methamphetamine analogs, appearing as pre-workout supplements, remain available at Amazon.com.  Of particular concern is the original version of Jack3D from USP Labs and Craze from Driven Sports.

Jack3D grew to be one of the most popular pre-workout supplements on the market over the last several years.  The original version contained the now infamous stimulant methylhexaneamine, otherwise known in the industry as DMAA, geranamine, geranium oil extract and other names.  Patrick Arnold, the BALCO chemist, filed a patent for the compound under the name geranamine and included it in his own pre-workout product.

The drug has become a huge concern for athletes.  Astonishingly, more than 758 positive drug tests for methylhexaneamine have been reported by World-Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) labs since 2008, when the first positive was called.  The drug was not banned in 2008.  It was added to the WADA Prohibited List in 2009.  In 2012 alone there were 320 positive test results representing 7.1% of the 4,500 total WADA findings that year, placing behind only testosterone (T/E, 1,202 findings) and marijuana (398 findings). 

Some manufacturers defended methylhexaneamine, claiming it was geranium oil extract and thus of natural origin and present in the food supply prior to 1994, which would make it legal according to the definition of an ingredient in the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994.  However, the natural origin of the DMAA used in supplements proved unfounded and the FDA has challenged its legality and safety for several years and considers the synthetic compound to be an illegal ingredient. 

Of primary concern is the potential for the compound to cause serious harm, and even death.  Sadly, Jack3D was implicated in the death of Claire Squires, a runner in the 2012 London marathon.

USP Labs has since reformulated the product and removed DMAA  as have other manufacturers.  Despite the significant attention and health risks, the original version of Jack3D continues to be available at Amazon.com.  The reformulated Advanced Formula Jack3D is also available, marketed differently, suggesting that the distinction between the two products is known.  Neither includes ingredient information on the site.

Craze is one of the second generation pre-workout products that began to proliferate when methylhexaneamine was addressed by authorities.  It was Bodybuilding.com’s New Supplement of the Year in 2012.  The Craze label says it contains Dendrobex™, a trademarked extract of dendrobium, an orchid.  The label suggests that several suspicious compounds are components of Dendrobex™: N,N-Diethyl-B-Phenylethylamine and N,N-Dimethyl-B-Phenylethylamine, a CAS registered compound that is .004 mass units away from methamphetamine.  Eventually, the compound present in Craze was shown to be a methamphetamine analog, N,α-diethylphenylethylamine, with no known natural presence.

USA Today, in its exhaustive reporting on Craze and its manufacturer Driven Sports, elicited a significant response from retailers in the dietary supplement industry.  Giants like Wal-Mart, eBay, and Bodybuilding.com have recently pulled the product, but not Amazon.com. As of October 20, Craze remained available from 8 Amazon sellers.

We conclude with perhaps the most amazing example of all, involving a new category of developing drugs called Selective Androgen Receptor Modulators, or SARMs for short.  SARMs are drugs that act like steroids by activating androgen receptors in the body.  SARMs are a relatively new category of drugs and thus many compounds are still in development and clinical trials where toxicity and safety are being evaluated.  One such drug is Ostarine, being developed for muscle wasting disease associated with cancer by a company called GT-X, under the name Enobosarm, GTx-024 and MK-2866. 

No need to wait for approval, it appears Ostarine is already for sale in dietary supplements at Amazon.com, IronMagLabs OstaRx and Cutting Edge Labs OstaMax are names that suggest the new SARM is an ingredient.  The label for OstaMax, included on Amazon.com, is astounding, stating, “FOR RESEARCH PURPOSES ONLY, NOT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION”, and yet there is a serving suggestion of one capsule daily!  The scientific name of Ostarine is on the label as is the MK-2866 naming convention used by GT-X.  Positive drug tests have already been seen with a female cyclist testing positive for Ostarine in June, and WADA reporting five SARMs as a whole in 2012.

The Amazon mission statement is “to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online.”  Steroids, stimulants, drugs not approved for human consumption, and other potentially dangerous drugs, we hope, were not the intended aim of that mission.  Providing a marketplace for illegal compounds masquerading as dietary supplements in the face of international attention, consumer health concerns, and serious adverse events seems contrary to the customer-centric focus.  At the very least it is dangerous and irresponsible.

Global marketplaces like Amazon.com help set preferences across a variety of products, including dietary supplements.  We hope that Amazon becomes a real part of the solution by making the choice to eliminate these dangerous products instead of continuing to perpetuate their distribution.

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Methylhexanamine information: Where can you find it?

Methylhexaneamine

The world is awash with more and more news about methylhexaneamine and positive drug tests related to it.  We have already written a couple blog posts about the compound.  Yesterday we noted an article in The Herald Sun in Australia entitled: Athletes warned of supplement risk: FRESH warnings have been sent to Australia’s elite athletes outlining the risks of taking dietary supplements containing the banned substance methylhexaneamine.

The article describes an e-mail from the Australian Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA) warning athletes against taking dietary supplements containing methylhexaneamine…

“Athletes need to be aware that, under the policy of strict liability, they are responsible for any substance found in their body,” the ASADA e-mail reads.

“Athletes using supplements do so at their own risk. This substance is classed as an S6 stimulant on the Prohibited list and is prohibited in-competition.  ASADA is advising all Australian athletes subject to in-competition doping control to carefully consider their use of supplements and products containing methylhexaneamine.”

The article then goes on to quote track star Tamsyn Lewis’ response to the warning:  “There is simply not enough information and for younger athletes coming up through junior ranks, including the football codes, they’re driving blind,” Lewis said.  “They haven’t been educated or informed about this banned substance and the specific supplements to avoid.”

So, where do you find information on methylhexaneamine if you’re an athlete and want to avoid positive tests related to the compound?  Given all the attention on the compound recently we thought we would explore ASADA’s website to see what kind of information they have.  We found four listings after putting ‘methylhexaneamine’ into the search box on the site, all in the last month.  We also went to the USADA and WADA websites to see if information was available through their search boxes; surprisingly neither site returned any matching items.

Digging into the second link on the ASADA site, you can find ASADA’s formal advisory on methylhexaneamine that contains some very good information about the compound including a list of the various synonyms.

What seems to be missing is a listing of the various supplement products and label names, which hides the reality that methylhexaneamine is present.  Many products, for example, contain geranium oil extract, a seemingly benign ingredient.  In reality, geranium oil extract is a common label name for methylhexanamine in supplement products.  Mistaken use of methylhexanamine can easily result.

We have responded ourselves to the methylhexaneamine issue by creating ADR’s Searchable Database of Banned Stimulants.  The database includes banned stimulants, their synonyms, label names, and also brand names that contain this and other banned stimulants.  With the hope of providing a simple tool for athletes and other drug-tested professionals to help avoid similar issues in the future, we are working on raising financial support to further develop the database and expand it to other categories of drugs.  Please contact us at 310-482-6925 or info@antidopingresearch.org if you would like to help.

Comment on title: Perhaps you have noticed that we have spelled methylhexanamine in the title without the extra ‘e.’  This is because the compound is more commonly listed on internet sites without the ‘e’ even though the scientific name includes it, as a PubChem search demonstrates.  The Wikipedia page is found by searching without the ‘e,’ yet the first line of the article includes the ‘e.’  This example further demonstrates the confusion that swirls around this compound….