Scorin' with Orrin.

• Author: MENCIMER, STEPHANIE
• Position: Orrin Hatch, U.S. senator

How the gentleman from Utah made it easier for kids to buy speed, steroids, and Spanish fly

AT LAST SUMMER'S OLYMPIC GAMES in Sydney, Australia, Norwegian wrestler Fritz Aanes suffered two heartbreaks: He lost the bronze medal, and then he was banned from competing internationally for two years, after testing positive for the potent anabolic steroid nandrolone. Although he couldn't do much about losing his medal, Aanes protested vehemently about his drug test, arguing that he had not taken steroids. The problem, he claimed, stemmed from another source: mislabeled dietary supplements manufactured in Utah.

Aanes made a compelling case. Nandrolone had been banned since 1975, and because it was easily detected for up to a year after only one injection, it had largely disappeared from pro sports. Athletes really bent on cheating had much better (and harder to detect) drugs to choose from. Later, a lab in Cologne, Germany, confirmed that there were trace amounts of nandrolone in Aanes's Utah supplement that weren't listed on the label.

Aanes wasn't the first athlete to blame tainted American dietary supplements for a positive drug test. Three others headed for or competing in the 2000 Olympics also tested positive just for nandrolone. And the International Olympic Committee (IOC) had been getting reports about the possible supplement-steroid link since 1999, when more than 350 athletes competing around the world tested positive for the curiously pervasive compound.

Researchers suspected that not only were dietary supplements being mislabeled, but many of the U.S.-produced supplements called pro-hormones actually behaved like steroids, even though they were legally sold over the counter. The surge in positive tests for nandrolone also coincided with the spike in pro-hormone use after St. Louis Cardinals slugger Mark McGwire admitted to using androstenedione--or "andro"--while chasing the single-season home-run record in 1998. (Banned by the IOC, andro is a steroid that the body converts to both testosterone and estrogen.)

After the controversy in Sydney, the IOC warned athletes to avoid American supplements, particularly those manufactured in Utah, the "Cellulose Valley" of the U.S. supplement industry. The IOC also blasted the U.S. for poorly regulating supplement producers and asked then-White House drug czar Gen. Barry McCaffrey to review the Dietary Supplement and Health Education Act (DSHEA), which had deregulated the U.S. supplement industry in 1994.

Then Olympic officials, increasingly frustrated with the U.S. response to their concerns, went one step further and blamed the surge in nandrolone tests on a single U.S. senator: Orrin Hatch (R-Ut.). Hatch was the chief architect and sponsor of DSHEA, which among other things, prompted supplement makers to flood the market with vitamins, herbal remedies, amino acids, and other "natural products" like andro without any federal safety or purity guarantees. "[Hatch] is directly implicated in this affair," said Prince Alexandre de Merode, chairman of the IOC medical commission.

The IOC criticism was particularly biting given that Hatch's home state will be hosting the next winter games in 2002, and that one of the games' major sponsors is, in fact, a supplement company. Utah had already produced a major Olympics bribery scandal; all it needed was a reputation as the world's steroid capital just as the IOC was arriving with its drug-test lab.

So Hatch fired back at the IOC, saying that athletes could not blame their bad drug tests on him, or on the supplement industry, which he claimed was properly regulated in the U.S. "I am tired of this childish finger-pointing," Hatch said. "The last time I checked, neither the prince nor the athletes were experts in food and drug law."

The pressure from the IOC didn't seem to faze Hatch, who reiterated his belief in personal responsibility and the right of consumers to care for themselves using supplements. Gen. McCaffrey, though, did get the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) to study the possibility of declaring andro a controlled substance much like narcotics and anabolic steroids. The move prompted a group of pro-hormone makers to pay a lobbying visit to Hatch's Washington office to express their concerns. The group represented a rather unusual constituency for the well-respected senior senator, a pious Mormon drug warrior who abstains from tobacco, coffee, and booze and makes Christian music CDs in his spare time.

Among the visitors were representatives from Weider Nutrition International, a leading pro-hormone producer in Utah which last year was fined $400,000 by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for making false claims about some of its weight-loss products. Another was body-building guru, chemist, and supplement maker Pat Arnold, the "father" of pro-hormones.

Hatch's office apparently reassured them that the senator would continue to defend their interests. Arnold later posted a report on Anabolicextreme.com about his visit, writing, "Hatch's assistants informed us of the pressure they were getting from the IOC representatives (a bunch of arrogant princes and ambassadors) to do something about the terrible andro and the unfair advantage it gives people and abuse by kids (and other silly crap). The IOC is very angry at Hatch because of his role in making supplements like andro and creatine (which they consider evil) freely available in this country. Hatch, of course, realizes how ridiculous they are."

Hatch was unavailable for comment, but he has been unapologetic in his support for the supplement industry, having battled the FDA and other federal agencies over the regulation of vitamins, herbals, and other natural medicines for more than a decade. He believes the government has no more right to restrict Americans' access to vitamin A or the herbal ma huang than to McDonald's french fries. Hatch considers his 1994 law, DSHEA, a triumph on behalf of consumer health freedom. But a close look suggests that if anything, DSHEA (or the Hatch Act, as body builders call it) has left Americans "free" to serve as guinea pigs for a multibillion-dollar industry, much of which is built on a foundation of fraudulent claims, pyramid schemes, and lousy manufacturing practices.

Since DSHEA became law, substances as varied as paint stripper, bat shit, toad venom, and lamb placenta have all been imported from overseas, bottled up--often by people with no scientific or health backgrounds--and marketed as dietary supplements to unsuspecting American consumers. Many supplements have been tainted with salmonella, arsenic, lead, pesticides, unapproved foreign prescription drugs, as well as garden-variety carcinogens. And despite their New-Age health aura, a significant portion of these "natural supplements" are stimulants, depressants, and other mood-enhancers that some medical experts believe would be classified as drugs if they were synthetic. A surprising number of these products are addictive.

Thanks to Hatch, the U.S. now has standards as low as those in many Third World countries for the sale of many products with serious, pharmacological effects. The results have been deadly. Between 1993 and 1998, the FDA linked at least 184 deaths to dietary supplements, which are now also suspected of contributing to the sudden deaths of three football players in August.

Yet Hatch--one of the Senate's most powerful Republicans who is often touted as a possible Supreme Court Justice--has resisted attempts to clean up the supplement market. There's big money in dietary supplements, and Hatch has taken his fair share in campaign contributions. But his support for the industry goes well beyond simple campaign-finance issues. Hatch is part of a deeply committed segment of the American public that believes in the right to use alternative medicine and nutritional supplements with a religious fervor.

"He is by far our greatest advocate. No one rises to the issue the way Sen. Hatch does," says Loren Israelson, executive director of the Utah Natural Products Alliance, which represents the Utah supplement industry. "He's a true believer in natural health."

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