The Caitlins announced that they've found steriods in three of the four "supplements" they bought on Amazon.com, with testing in progress on another four to six samples, as reported in the Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/19/AR2011011900004.html).
From the context, it seems likely that the makers intended the products to contain steroids, rather than it being a contamination issue. As the article states, "But with the loosening of restrictions on dietary supplements in 1994, some manufacturers saw supplements as an effective vehicle for steroid distribution since the FDA did not review or inspect dietary supplements before they went to market. It is the manufacturer's responsibility to ensure its products are legal and safe."
To me, this is troubling in three ways.
First, it shows how easy it is to get steroids, just order them from Amazon!
Second, since there are no age limits on buying this stuff, which is heavily advertised, I'm guessing that more people in the US, including high school kids, are ingesting steroids than I had thought - intentionally or not.
Third, why would any (non-doping) athlete take supplements at this point, given the seemingly high risk that they might contain banned substances and the general lack of any hard evidence that (legal) dietary supplements actually help performance?
If additional testing shows this result to be the pattern rather than the exception, maybe it's time to tell the multi-billion dollar "supplement" industry that their "self-regulation" has clearly failed, and it's time for the government to step (back) in and regulate them.