f the cream/clear, i'm getting me some finigenx and anabolic extreme...

If members of Congress leading efforts to eradicate performance-enhancing drugs from athletics want to get an idea of just how difficult that will be, they need only turn to the Internet.

While the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative investigation continues in San Francisco and Major League Baseball officials argue with the players' union over what penalties should be handed down to drug offenders, the Web already offers a new generation of steroids designed to avoid current tests.\

The Washington Post obtained five dietary supplements -- each of which touted its ability to build muscle fast -- available online and asked a prominent Los Angeles researcher to test them. Don Catlin, who directs the U.S. Olympic drug testing lab at UCLA, said four of the products contained previously undetected anabolic steroids. One contained a steroid that came to the attention of authorities just two years ago but, until now, was thought to be in only limited circulation.

"They are all steroids," Catlin said in a telephone interview after running tests on the substances, which are available in pill or liquid form. "They are all going to be effective." The Post reimbursed Catlin for the cost of testing the substances.

It is impossible to gauge the use of these so-called designer steroids. But their discovery shows how professional athletes, including Major League Baseball and National Football League players and Olympic athletes subject to regular, mandatory drug tests, continue to have at their disposal performance-enhancing products that are not detectable.