Online sales of growth hormone flourishing in China

Olympic host nation is major producer of doping agents; authorities cracking down on offenders

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By Sami Sillanpää in Beijing
     
      "Become inches taller!" "Grow larger muscles!" "Growth hormone, the source of eternal youth!"
      There are numerous pages on the Chinese-language Internet that sing the praises of growth hormone and sell the stuff on to consumers.
      At the same time as China has tightened doping controls on its athletes, the country’s extensive and growing pharmaceuticals and chemicals industry has won a not entirely welcome reputation as one of the world’s largest suppliers of human growth hormone (HGH), steroids, insulin growth factor (IGF), and other preparations banned in competitive sports as “performance-enhancing substances”.
     
The subject bubbled to the surface last autumn, when the US Drug Enforcement Administration’s “Operation Raw Deal” raided numerous underground steroid labs in the United States, revealing an extensive distribution network that allegedly had at its core 37 factories operating in China.
      The American authorities claimed that as much as 99% of the raw materials for the drugs seized came originally from China, and asked the Chinese to investigate the dozens of companies that were exposed.
     
The Chinese authorities have subsequently tightened their control procedures.
      Thus far 256 pharmaceuticals manufacturing plants have been inspected, along with 2,821 wholesalers and 340,000 retailers, reported Gao Feng, Vice Counsel of the Drug Safety Administration Department of the Chinese State Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday of last week.
      According to Gao, three drug companies have had their licences revoked and 30 factories have been ordered to cease production of banned substances.
      The authorities have also brought sanctions to bear on 318 websites that have advertised anabolic steroids or hormones.
      "The trade in HGH on the Internet is being effectively controlled”, said Gao.
     
This may be so, but a brief browse through the Chinese web still turned up a good many pages offering human growth hormone.
      The substance banned in competive sports can also be used by ordinary men and women as a health enhancer, “youth elixir”, and anti-ageing therapy.
      Many Chinese sites advertise the items for “wealthy” people “who nurture their health”.
      Helsingin Sanomat presented itself as an eager customer and rang the number of the salesman listed on the langtin.com website.
      “Our growth hormone is undoubtedly of assistance to sportsmen. It helps to grow more muscle mass. Also the internal organs, such as the heart, will become stronger, and your sex drive and sexual performance will improve”, the salesman told me.
     
He reported that the HGH is imported from the United States.
      Without haggling over the price, a year’s dose would have cost 60,000 yuan, or around EUR 5,600. The man said he could deliver the goods to a meeting place in Beijing.
      Under Chinese laws and regulations, the sale of human growth hormone is permitted only on prescription from a qualified doctor.
     
A series of calls made to online dealers did indicate nevertheless that the authorities’ recent actions have been having an impact on the trade.
      “I cannot sell you anything right now. In recent weeks the controls have been very tight on us. We are not in a position to despatch anything to Beijing at present”, said one dealer contacted in Shanghai.
      HGH is sold over the Net in other countries, too. It is difficult to keep a leash on the trade, as it is so easy to set up new websites.
     
The legal export of human growth hormone from China requires a licence from the country’s Food and Drug Administration, which also calls for a written explanation from the foreign buyer of the intended use of the substance.
      Hence it is possible for the product to be exported from China in good faith, but the buyer in another country may well have other - illegal - uses in mind.
     
One of the 37 Chinese firms fingered by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration as a supplier of raw materials to the labs was GeneScience Pharmaceuticals.
      The company has a production facility located in the Changchun High-Tech Development Zone in north-eastern China, and it claims to sell two-thirds of all the HGH used in China, under the brand-name Jintropin.
      The Chinese authorities have now revoked the company’s operating licence and shut down its website. Nevertheless, earlier GeneScience advertisements are still up and visible on other sites.
      In one of them, GeneScience brags that its Jintropin product is ideal for competitive sportsmen, as it “increases lean body mass, shortens recovery time between workouts, and enhances overall performance with less risk of detection than other performance-enhancing drugs.”
      The claim is that there is no method for detecting the substance in the blood.
     
A month ago, the authorities in the United States ordered that assets of GeneScience totalling USD 2.7 held in New York branches of Chinese banks, which were frozen at the time of the earlier indictment over illegal marketing and distribution of HGH, should be forfeited to the U.S. federal government.
      The case was reported in the Boston Globe and other media. Criminal charges are pending in the U.S. against the company’s CEO Dr. Lei Jin and two alleged distributors.
     
The China connection also surfaced in the spring in a doping scandal that hit Greece, in which no fewer than eleven members of the 14-member national weightlifting team - which has enjoyed considerable medals success in recent years - tested positive for the anabolic steroid methyltrienolone.
      The team’s suspended coach protested his innocence of any wrongdoing and claimed that the Shanghai-based dietary supplement provider Auspure Biotechnology had delivered tainted goods and items that had not been ordered.
      The Chinese authorities believe the company was engaged in illegal activities and it is under scrutiny.
     
"The company in question was guilty of smuggling. Its licence has subsequently been revoked. Police investigations are continuing”, said Gao Feng from the Chinese Food and Drug Administration.
      Gao added that China will further tighten the screws on the trade in banned substances.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 31.7.2008

More on this subject:
 China believes it will come through the Olympics without doping scandals

Links:
  GeneScience: Jintropin
  U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration: Operation Raw Deal
  US Department of Justice: Chinese hGH manufacturer forfeits $2.7 million for illegal shipments to U.S.
  Human Growth Hormone (Wikipedia)

SAMI SILLANPÄÄ / Helsingin Sanomat
sami.sillanpaa@hs.fi