Underground Steroid Handbook 2

Under ordinary circumstances, Genentech probably would not have gotten the FDA
approval for Protropin that it did in October of 1985. But Congress, in 1983, passed the
Orphan Drug Act, which encourages the private sector to produce drugs for rare
diseases when companies usually would not because of no patent protection or high
production costs. So, when the FDA approved Protropin in 1985, Genentech looked
forward to a monopoly of the American Human Growth Hormone market for a
guaranteed (by the Orphan Drug Act) seven years.
Before making Protropin, Genentech had produced Humalin, an excellent synthetic
human insulin, which they marketed through the Eli Lilly company, and Humalin is still
sold by Lilly today. But Lilly got wind of the notion that this time around Genentech was
going to market Protropin directly, so Lilly, in retaliation, developed their own synthetic
Human Growth Hormone, using the same E Coli Bacteria fermentation process, but
refining it so that the peptide had the correct 191 sequence of aminos, with no extra
methionyl at the end. The incidence of antibody reactions in test subjects was shown to
be a reduced 2% as compared to Protropin.
This product, commercially known as Humatrope, was considered different enough from
Protropin that the FDA approved its use and sale on March 8,1986, and Humatrope also
is sheltered by the Orphan Drug Act, which technically protects it from any other
synthetic competitors with the correct 191 amino count for seven years. Ironically, even
when Genentech tweaked its original synthetic and bumped the methionyl amino from
the peptide, the improved version could not be sold. And Serono, which just developed
an elegant synthetic HGH (trade name: Saizen) using recombinant mammalian cell
techniques resulting in the superior 191 count peptide cannot market their product in the
US.
I guess you can imagine that between Genentech, the FDA, Lilly, and Serono,
everyone's lawyers are in high gear. By the way, the Orphan Drug Act is up for
reacessment by Congress sometime in 1989. So where is the athlete in all this mess?
Not very far ahead, really. Of course, Lilly's Humatrope is now the HGH of choice for
athletes. Many of the top pros and amateurs use HGH regularly simply because,
whether it works or not, they know that the competition is using it, so they all want the
same advantage. It's obvious that HGH works on stunted growth children. Salvatore
Raiti, the former director of the National Hormone and Pituitary Program has said, 'Yes,
we know it works [on children] but we don't know the optimal dosage.' Assuming that
HGH did work on adult athletes, could anyone determine the optimal dosage for
enhanced athletic performance?
What about the horror stories: the bone distortions, organ problems, and premature
deaths that CBS's 60 Minutes would like to attribute to Growth Hormone use? That has
happened only to people having pituitary disorders; I've never even heard rumors of any
bad side effects on athletes using HGH. But then, I've never seen any effects, period. No
athletes got bigger, or stronger, or leaner while using just HGH. They just got poorer. Of
course, many athletes have used HGH in conjunction with anabolic steroids, and did get
some results, but from the steroid use, not the HGH use,
I know, I will not be able to convince some of you that using HGH is a worthless
endeavor. Someone will always rationalize: I'll use more; I'll use Humatrope; I'll take little
Copyright © 1989 by Daniel Duchaine Copyright © 2006 by QFAC, Inc. All Rights Reserved.