Feds anti-doping expert recounts unmasking steroid

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - One of the world's foremost experts in detecting performance-enhancing drug use among athletes recounted on Thursday for the Barry Bonds jury how authorities unmasked the designer steroid dubbed the “clear.”

Bonds has admitted using the steroid, but said his personal trainer misled him into believing it was flaxseed oil.

Dr. Larry Bowers, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency's chief scientist, told the jury Thursday that his agency anonymously received a syringe with trace amounts of liquid in the summer of 2003.

Scientists using highly technical chemical-detection equipment came up with a recipe for the liquid. Using the recipe, the agency had a batch ginned up and injected into baboons on their way to developing a urine test for the steroid that was put in place by late 2003.