Ortiz Keeps the Evil Eye Trained on Sports Supplements

So a few more big name Major League Baseball (MLB) player has been outed as being on the infamous list of players that tested positive for performance-enhancing substances, namely steroids, in a 2003, pre-ban test. Boston is bearing the brunt of the recent name leaks from the test, which was supposed to be anonymous, as former Red Sox star Manny Ramirez and current star David Ortiz both appeared on the list.

While Ramirez served a 50-game sentence for a subsequent infraction (female fertility drugs that are known to mask steroid use), Ortiz has been clean until this latest incident, and he isnt accepting any guilt on the matter. After a few days of deflection, Ortiz came out and theorized his positive test was due to an adulterated dietary supplement or vitamin product.

Here we go again, right? This defense is nothing new, but it adds to the speculation on supplement quality at a time when DSHEA , food and drug product safety, and adulteration is under intense scrutiny from regulators and the public.

On one hand, most athletes claiming a false positive from a tainted dietary supplement have failed to prove adulterationOlympic swimmers Kicker Vencill and Jessica Hardy come to mind as the few who have managed to produce lab tests showing tainted supplements. On the other hand, at the time of the 2003 MLB test resulting in the secret list of MLB payers who had steroids in their blood, supplements like andro were not yet banned by FDA and MLB.

Ex-con BALCO chemist Patrick Arnold (creator of many designer steroids that can avoid detection methods), not the most respected person to have in your corner, has come out and said Ortiz could have plausibly ingested andro supplements, which contained the hard-core steroid nandrolone . He told the New York Daily News that if Ortiz tested positive for nandrolone, hed perhaps have case with his tainted supplement defense. Ortiz had previously vocalized a harsh reaction to slugger Alex Rodriguezs admission to steroid use before 2003, so his media battle against these allegations take on added intrigue.

Speaking of intrigue, these secret 2003 lab tests are full of mystery. A couple labs tested a bunch of players, the results of which showed some 96 players were positive for performance-enhancing compounds. However, the players agreed to the testing under the promise of anonymous, nonpublicized results. Adding tot eh intrigue, the government seized the tests in 2004, and the prevailing belief is only the governmentnot MLB or the Players Associationknows which players test results indicate they took injectable hardcore steroids and which eight players are believed to have tested positive because of andro supplements. 

Is Ortiz among the excusable eight? No one knows, as the list of players and the results involved in this 2003 testing are supposed to be protected from publication. Leaks have outed players like A-rod, Ramirez and Ortiz. Innocent or not, the Ortiz ordeal is sure to keep the heat on the sports supplement market, with possible repercussions for the entire dietary supplement industry.

Is your rally cap on?