Barry Bonds has never tested positive for anabolic steroids in any Major League Baseball tests. He admitted to having used a “clear” and a “cream” substance during his testimony in the 2003 BALCO steroid scandal. Bonds claimed that he thought these substances were used for arthritis and he didn’t know they were steroids. In 2004, however, federal investigators seized a sample of the athlete’s urine taken from the survey test and re-analyzed this for steroids again. The sample showed positive for a designer steroid known as “the clear” which could previously have been undetectable.
From Daily News
The designer steroid THG was developed by rogue chemist Patrick Arnold and distributed to athletes by Victor Conte’s BALCO laboratory. It was undetectable until October 2003, six months after Bonds was tested during the MLB survey. The New York Times first reported on Jan. 27 that a steroid had been detected in Bonds’ 2003 urine sample.
Defense attorneys will be challenging the positive results and argue custody issues. It is still unknown it the urine sample can be used as evidence in the Bonds’ trial and the athlete will most probably still stick to his statement that he did not knowingly take steroids and didn’t mean to commit perjury. The sample has caused debates between the government and the MLB. The lab that had tested the samples before should have destroyed positive samples within a year and negative samples after a month.
MLB and the Players Association agreed to a survey testing program in 2003 to determine the extent of steroid use in the sport. The tests were supposed to be anonymous and players were not disciplined if they tested positive.
The 2003 samples have been the source of a contentious legal battle between the government and baseball since April 2004, when federal agents investigating BALCO executed a search warrant on Quest Diagnostics and Comprehensive Drug Testing in Long Beach, Calif., the labs that coordinated MLB’s drug testing program, and seized the samples.
MLB and the Players Association filed a lawsuit against the government and after several turns through the courts, the case is now being considered by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
If you would like to make a comment, please fill out the form below.
