Because of the BALCO "ordeal", several very key people have been made infamous in the 
sporting/supplement world. While BALCO founder Victor Conte has found a warm and friendly home in mainstream media. In fact, he's the first line of defense when it comes to aberrant cops, crooked lawyers, lying cheating journalists and lawsuit-filing athletes. Other BALCO characters have soaked up less of the spotlight and more of the federal government's attention. One man who comes to mind is the inventor of the "clear," himself, Patrick Arnold. Even after serving time in Federal Prison for his role in BALCO, PA hasn't put down his beaker or his test tubes and has continued on his quest to invent new, unique, performance-enhancing substances. Even within the confines of the law, practicing such performance voodoo irks the G-man, and the conservative columnists alike, who pretty much think that the appropriate punishment for PA should be life-without-parole. God forbid a grown man seek to increase his testosterone levels!
I guess PA could just roll up and switch his manufacturing focus to tongue depressors, but we already have plenty of those. What we need are safe, reliable, and effective ways of increasing testosterone while lowering estrogen and PA seems to have a never-ending barrage of great ideas to do that. The hardest part is hurdling all the obstacles the government drops in his path; a feat easier said than done. That being the case, I thought it would be interesting to see what PA has been up to lately!
Since I can't directly interview him for RX Muscle because of his contractual stricture with a competing website/magazine, I thought I'd relay the gist of a recent conversation I had with my friend and fellow ex-con in order to get you up to speed. No one else is doing it, so I might as well....
As many of you may know, PA has been embroiled in an ongoing federal investigation after the DEA raided his impressive 40,000 square foot state-of-the-art manufacturing facility, Proviant Technologies, last year and found teeny tiny physiologically insignificant trace amounts of the illegal prohormone, androstendione, in his aromatase-inhibiting product, 6-OXO. This came just after a Canadian company reneged on a $4 million deal to purchase his Ergopharm brand which accounted for about 70% of his income. So, between the Canadians screwing him and the DEA claiming that Ergopharm spiked 6-OXO with the most ineffective prohormone ever invented, PA had no choice but to shut down and defend himself. While the Canadians battered his income stream, the DEA claimed that PA should have known that his manufacturing process for 6-OXO "tossed off" a couple of molecules of "andro", despite that the expensive testing equipment in his lab couldn't even detect.
The DEA's involvement was a direct result of two baseball players blaming 6-OXO for their failed drug tests. The DEA first thought PA was intentionally spiking his product, but later, they realized that this simply wasn't true. Any amount of androstendione that might be in the product was below his level of detection and, therefore, obviously physiologically insignificant. Still, any that is in there (even three molecules), is technically against the law and apparently the government is serious about sticking to that line of pursuit. The bottom line though is if you are a target of the government (as PA continues to be because of BALCO and his expertise atin steroidal synthesis and the fact that he won't stop inventing creative testosterone-boosting technologies), you'll always be subject to scrutiny that is often above and beyond any reasonable pursuit. Anyway, on the advice of his lawyers, PA had to stop production of the 6-OXO raw material, and that pretty removed all of his remaining revenue after the Ergopharm disaster with the Canadians.
Since PA left Proviant he still continues to partner with Lakhan Boodram, a guy PA has been in business with since he moved out to Illinois to start his supplement business life. Lakhan and PA are starting pretty much from scratch with a much downsized operation. Their bills are low but so is their income - for now. It is, however, much simpler and less stressful than it was, and they are confident they'll make a successful comeback.
Their newest product is a d-aspartic acid product that is chelated with calcium to give excellent solubility and bioavailability. They are very excited and feel there's great potential for d-aspartic acid. It's a testosterone booster that works through a very well documented biological pathway that is truly fascinating. Stacked with testosterone boosters that work through other mechanisms (such as estrogen inhibitors), PA believes there's potential for results beyond what we have ever seen before from this segment of testosterone augmenters
Stay tuned to RX Muscle for full product highlights and reviews!
