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The next Olympic doping scandal could be delivered straight to your door.
A stockpile of so-called research chemicals known as peptides, many of which have been banned World Anti-Doping Agency And some not approved for human use in the United States are available through online retailers with the simple click of a button. is a salesman Amazonthe second one is alibabaa sponsor of International Olympic Committee,
The easy availability of drugs and their difficult-to-detect nature is exactly the toxic combination that doping regulators and Olympic officials are trying to avoid. Milan Cortina Games are only two months away, they are hoping to break the chain of scandals involving Russians Sugar Which has disrupted both summer and winter games since 2014.
While online pharmaceuticals and supplements have been portrayed as a risk by anti-doping officials for years, the influx of certain difficult-to-identify peptides – chains of protein-building amino acids that are marketed to help with anything from anti-aging to workout recovery to weight loss and memory loss – presents a more difficult challenge.
“These substances have spread,” said Oliver Catlin, president of the Anti-Doping Sciences Institute, whose late father Don was one of the godfathers of antidoping research.
Most of these peptides are so-called “research chemicals” that are not approved by the US Food and Drug Administration and are also restricted by the WADA code, either under its “S2” category which covers peptides or under its “SO” classification, a catch-all category for “non-approved substances”.
Some substances specifically listed under the “S0” category – such as the popular BPC 157 – are placed there because the medicinal structure of the substances does not fit well into any other category on the restricted list.
One tricky part of the “S0” category is that it includes unapproved substances that are not specifically listed because, for example, there is no way to test that drug and regulators don’t want to disclose it to users.
Catlin’s research found that there are hundreds of banned or illegal peptides available on the online market and that the menu of items is always changing, some of which were removed after The Associated Press began asking questions.
“It’s not like it happened overnight,” he said. “The mainstream use of peptides has grown rapidly over the last five years.”
Amazon, Alibaba answer questions about availability of peptides
Dan Burke, a former FDA official who now heads intelligence and investigations at the US anti-doping agency, said new-age peptides are hard to identify online because the US law banning their sale dates back to 1938 “and it hasn’t worked and doesn’t work to this day.”
“The bad guys know this, and that’s why things spread,” Burke said.
While some peptides – insulin and the recently popularized weight-loss dynamo GLP-1 are among the best examples – are time-tested, completely legal (with a prescription) and effective, other substances in the category are not legally marketable, either as supplements or prescription or over-the-counter medications.
Many of them, including the BPC-157, can be found on many online sites including Amazon and Alibaba. The latter is a major IOC sponsor “committed to helping the IOC transform the Olympic Games into the digital age.”
Asked by the AP about this, an IOC spokesperson said that Alibaba “has confirmed to us that it continuously monitors its markets and does not have any banned substances from the WADA 2025 list for sale.” Contacted by the AP, a representative of Alibaba.com asked for links to “problematic” drugs sold on its marketplace, and after the AP was sent two of them, it said it had removed those items.
The company said it prohibits all banned substances as per WADA’s banned list.
“While some of these substances may not be legally restricted in general consumer contexts, we have proactively adopted strict standards to define operational limits and our compliance efforts go beyond passive adherence and minimum legal requirements,” the company said in a statement.
Amazon told the AP that it requires all products offered on its marketplace to comply with applicable laws and regulations, and that it is in the process of removing products that violate its policies. A few days after being contacted by the AP, the website removed some of the drugs the AP asked about, but many of the listings remained and some new listings emerged.
Information is much easier to obtain than in Balco’s days
The current peptides boom comes nearly 25 years after the late Victor Conte became a household name in sports by developing and selling “Clear” and “Cream.”
These were the names of the so-called designer steroids that led to the infamous scandal that emerged from the Koontz Bay Area Lab Cooperative (BALCO) and engulfed baseball and track.
Like some peptides, designer steroids were impossible to detect at the time but were not easy to obtain. It took years to uncover their existence, let alone analyze their efficacy or approve athletes who use them.
Fast forward 25 years and this new performance-enhancing model is, in some cases, just as difficult to locate, but purchasing one is as easy as clicking a few buttons on a computer.
WADA spokesperson James Fitzgerald said the availability of PEDs on websites is not within its jurisdiction, but WADA began working closely with national anti-doping and law enforcement agencies two years ago to combat the illegal manufacture, sale and supply of all types of performance enhancing substances.
“The illegal manufacturing and trafficking of PEDs is not just a problem for sports – it is a societal issue that requires a multi-pronged approach,” he said.
Will this trigger the next Olympic doping scandal?
Whether the proliferation of drugs could be the trigger point for the next Olympic scandal may take years to uncover.
Like some of the blood-boosting drugs they plan to mimic, most peptides disappear quickly from the blood, making them difficult to detect. The IOC stores blood samples for up to 10 years to potentially improve detection long after the event has ended.
USADA and other anti-doping organizations have spent years warning athletes about the potential legal and eligibility risks of using unapproved substances – whether through prescription drugs or untested supplements – while also articulating the health risks to elite athletes and others looking to make a small advantage in the gym.
“From a consumer-buyer-beware standpoint, any time you consume or inject something where you don’t know what you’re taking, there is the potential for adverse health effects, and that’s worrisome,” said Matt Fedoruk, USADA’s chief science officer.
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AP Winter Sports: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics