Recent positive drug tests by two cyclists suggest there is a new, cutting-edge substance making its way to athletes looking for performance-enhancement: FG-4592, an experimental drug that increases production of red blood cells but has not been approved for human consumption.
Athletes have long found surreptitious means of obtaining banned performance-enhancing drugs, but with FG-4592, there actually may be a far more straightforward way — simply by ordering it from chemical-supply companies online.
And that, said Don Catlin, an expert on testing for banned substances, is something new. Athletes have gotten banned drugs from websites in China, he said, but what they receive is not always what they tried to order.