U.S. Anti-Doping Agency CEO Travis Tygart urged a group of attorneys general to take action on the state level on regulating steroids. Tygart spoke at the conference of the country’s attorneys general on Thursday and urged them to use a consumer protection laws in their respective states to help prevent and eliminate tainted and steroid-related supplements from reaching the market.”If consumers could run the land, I think federal regulations would change,” he said. “The political reality is that, unfortunately, we have to assume they’re not going to change. But that doesn’t deter you (states) from taking action.”

According to Tygart, strong lobbying efforts from the manufacturers of said supplements led to lax regulations that allow products on the market before they were even tested for dangerous or illegal controlled substances. These drugs can only be removed once they are proven dangerous. But this is nearly impossible considering the number of steroid-related cases today.

Tygart said that ephedra is the only supplement that that has been proven dangerous enough to take off the market over the last decade. The removal of ephedra from the market is due to a number of high-profile deaths, including those of Vikings lineman Korey Stringer and Orioles pitcher Steve Bechler.

In the said conference, Tygart said that scientific studies show that up to 25 percent of supplements made in the United States contained steroids and 11 percent has stimulants. Some of the steroid-like substances can be sold in the market as legal supplements because of a minor chemical change that has no adverse or significant effect on the way the drug works once ingested, Tygart added.

Also present in the conference was Kicker Vencill, an elite-level swimmer who missed the 2004 Olympic trials after a positive test for performance-enhancing drugs when he took a tainted multivitamin. Vencill has sued and won the case against the supplement company but it did not overturn his suspension or even save his chance at the Olympics. Vencill said that the “supplement industry is like the wild, wild west out there. There are no rules, they can do what they want.” “If you were trying to turn a quick buck and you didn’t have any morals, why wouldn’t you be out there doing that?”

This kind of issue is a relatively new issue in states. If they make a move, they will probably have to turn to consumer-protection statutes. States could also look at recovering expenses for government-paid health care costs for treatment of people who get sick from supplement use, much the way they did in lawsuits against tobacco companies.

Attorney General John Suthers of Colorado said he wants to study the issue on the state level. Suthers said that a group of states who work together can result to a great impact but also conceded that there’s only so much AGs offices can do, especially with their tight budget in today’s stricken economy. “We’re a complaint-driven organization and I have to admit, we’re not getting a high number of complaints at our office about mislabeled substances,” he said. “Whether we can muster the will to do something about it, I don’t know. But it’s a serious issue and I think we’ve got to look at it.”

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