USADA's advice to Olympic hopefuls to avoid all dietary supplements comes on the heels of preliminary research findings by the International Olympic Committee Medical Commission that 20 percent of the 200 dietary supplements analyzed contained banned performance enhancers not listed on the labels. The IOC also told athletes not to take any dietary supplements because of what it considers lax U.S. laws for quality control and labeling of supplements. But the USADA warning seems in direct conflict with 2002 sponsorship deals cut by the Salt Lake Organizing Committee and the USOC with Utah-based Pharmanex, maker of athletic oriented supplements such as Creatine Blast. A subsidiary of Nu Skin, Pharmanex is the exclusive supplement supplier to the U.S. Skiing and Snowboarding Association, SLOC, and the USOC. The USOC stocks Pharmanex vitamin, mineral and "phytonutrient" products at athlete training centers, and gave all reporters attending the summit a tube of a Nu Skin cream with a label that claims it would "help revive tired legs" instantly.

SLOC President Mitt Romney has said Pharmanex and Nu Skin quality control measures are exemplary and he has no qualms about endorsing the products, even though the Olympic Athletes Commission has asked for a ban on supplement sponsorship deals.

Madden, however, said because Olympic drug testing labs can detect banned substances in much smaller traces than Food and Drug Administration purity tests, athletes should beware of all supplements.

"You can't take a multi-vitamin and put it in your body," he said, warning athletes they would fail a drug test. Manufactures may use the same production line to make vitamins that they use to make IOC banned performance boosters and "they can clean that vat and clean that vat, but that (Olympic drug-testing) laboratory is going to be able to detect it in the athlete's system."

Former Olympian and USADA Chairman Frank Shorter said because of holes in the federal law regulating supplements - Utah Senator Orrin Hatch's Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act - athletes cannot be sure that what's on the label is really what's in the supplement.

"You have no idea how any supplement could be tainted because the FDA doesn't have the power to know," said Shorter.

Hatch has countered, his law does give the FDA power to remove mislabeled or adulterated supplements from the market and he sees no need to amend the act to better regulate supplements that stimulate production of testosterone, and IOC banned substance. But Madden maintains the current system doesn't work.

"We're working behind the scenes quietly to get our government to move on this issue," he said, adding his agency budget would need to be increased a hundredfold to certify specific supplements for athletes. "This isn't just for athletes. We don't know what's in supplements. It's a health issue for the entire American public."