Cattle Cocaine

Not too long ago a popular television ad for a fast food establishment featured the slogan: "Where's the beef?"

Well, today you might want to add another word to that catchy, little ditty: Where's the beef from? If the answer comes back Mexico or China, you may want to opt for fish or chicken, not beef or pork.

Since June of this year after several players on Mexico's national soccer team tested positive for a steroid, clenbuterol, Mexican officials have struggled with tracking down ranchers who supposedly spike livestock feed to make their cattle more attractive come market time.

Steers usually yield about 55% meat. On clenbuterol that yield jumps to around 62-65%. Cattle on the steroid for a month or two, according to some sources, can pack on 100 pounds or more of beef in each steer. If you can hear an old fashion cash register ringing somewhere in the background, you're getting the picture.

Problem here is one man's cash is another's poison, in more ways than one. Innocent people can get caught up like those soccer players who were later exonerated. Other unsuspecting, innocent souls just get sick from eating the contaminated beef, many winding up in the hospital.

Last June at the Under-17 World Cup in Mexico four more urine samples tested positive for traces of clenbuterol, alerting the Federation International Football Association, soccer's worldwide governing body, to test all 208 urine samples taken at the games. Earlier this year Germany's anti-doping organization warned athletes to avoid eating beef in Mexico because of the positive-doping risks. Clenbuterol in on the the banned list of the International Olympic Committee.

Roughly 54%, 109, of those samples showed traces of the banned substance. That turned out to be at least one member on 19 of the 24 teams competing. The FIFA later inspected meat samples from team hotels and found 30% contaminated with the steroid. Most countries ban the use of clenbuterol in farming. The U.S. and Europe prohibit using clenbuterol in food-producing animals.

In the jargon of pharmacology, clenbuterol is a beta2 sympathomimetic, a vasodilator, causing the blood vessels in the lungs to expand, increasing oxygen transportation, one of its performance-enhancing properties. Similar to adrenalin, only longer lasting, it's a powerful thermogenic used to burn fat. As one internet site that apparently sells the steroid puts it: "Clenbuterol is the most popular fat burning pill that is widely circulated in the world of bodybuilding, athletics and Hollywood."

In Mexico nearly all of those tested had levels lower than that banned by the authorities, so none of the players was suspended. Mexican law passed in 2007 carries a possible 7-year jail term for anyone lacing cattle with the banned substance. But this was not the first time clenbuterol reared its tainted presence in sports. In 2010,  a three-time Tour de France winner from Spain, though later re-instated, tested postive for the drug. Also in 2010 a Chinese cyclist tested positive as did a minor league baseball player in the St. Louis Cardinal's organization who received a 50-game suspension.

In 2007 a former New York Mets clubhouse employee pleaded guilty to distributing illegal substances, one of which was clenbuterol, to numerous major league baseball players. He was fined and sentenced to five years probation and later wrote a book about his dealings. From cycling to baseball, from swimming to track, clenbuterol has a track record and not all the particpants appear to be innocent victims.

Mexican famers familar with the situation, according to one wire service report, refer to the powdery substance as "cattle cocaine" or "miracle salts." Many manufactured drugs are converted from insoluble into soluble salt forms known as hydrochloric salts. Salts are water soluble, making these drugs easier to assimilate and find their way into the blood stream. Hydrochloric salts are usually referred to by using the name of the base substance and adding on hydrocloride or HCL. The body routinely absorbs an HCL in 15-30 minutes.

The salt form of cocaine is known as cocaine HCL. The salt form of Lidocaine, an anesthetic used to numb wounds, as Lidocaine HCL. Adrenalin used by cutmen to stop bleeing in boxing is officially called adrenalin or epinephrine HCL. Clenbuterol is commonly sold in its hydrocloride salt form, Clenbuterol hydrochloride. So considering the amount of lean meat these doped-up cattle can add in such a short time, the term "miracle salts" isn't far fetched.

Outbreaks of people who got ill from ingesting the contaminated meat are not new either. There have been several in Mexico and China among other places. In 2006 hundreds people in Shanghai became ill after eating pork spiked with clenbuterol. In early 2009 another tainted-pork outbreak occurred in the province of Guangdong and earlier this year China's Ministry of Agriculture launched a crackdown on illegal additives to pig feed after a subsidiary of Shuanghui Group, China's largest meat producer, was implicated in using clenbuterol-laced pork in its meat products.

Mexico has a similar story. News reports state cases of the steroid showing up in beef have happened in 10 of the country's 31 states. Though the Mexican government has tried to play down the outbreaks, saying sickness from eating tainted beef used to be worse; one out of every eight jobs in Mexico depends on tourism, so they may be saying much less than they're willing to admit.

Symptoms include increased heart rate, palpitations, nasuea, vomiting, headache, increased blood pressure, hand tremors, insomnia and, in some cases, heart attack. Among athletes, clen, as it's known on the street, is more popular with females because it doesn't have many androgenic side effects like deepending the voice, thickening the skin or the facial hair associated with anabolic steroids. It comes in two forms, pill and syrup. In the early 1990s the FDA got wind of clenbuterol being used to pump up show animals. Because of its strong bronchodilator properties, the FDA did approve a syrup for veterinary use to treat asthma in horses.
t.m. hatter