BALCO Focus of Designer Steroid Scandal
California Lab Allegedly Made THG Used by Elite Athletes
San Francisco Giants star Barry Bonds walks through the Federal Building in San Francisco on his way to testify before a federal grand jury in the BALCO case. Dec. 4, 2003.
The developing drug scandal in sports in this country will get a new jolt of publicity Thursday. In San Francisco, baseball superstar Barry Bonds is scheduled to tell a federal grand jury what he knows about a California laboratory alleged to be at the center of the doping scandal.
Bonds is the most famous of several dozen elite athletes subpoenaed to talk about their connections to the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, or BALCO. The grand jury is investigating BALCO's finances, as well as allegations that the lab produced the new illegal steroid THG.
In the first of a two-part series, NPR's Tom Goldman reports on Balco and Victor Conte, the controversial figure who runs the lab.
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