Click the play button on the video window to the right to see the storyREAD THE ORIGINAL INVESTIGATION5/1/08 UPDATE:The Arizona Naturopathic Physicians Board of Medical Examiners has taken immediate action and launched its own investigation.If the board determines the doctors are prescribing anabolic steroids illegally, the doctors can lose their licenses and be slapped with hefty fines.
It's the ultimate sales pitch for the ultimate performance enhancing drugs.
"So just pretend we give you a magic wand and wave it on yourself," Dr. Jeremy Bula told Investigator Josh Bernstein as an undercover patient at an initial consultation. "And whatever (you) would like to change physically, mentally, internally, lay that out there."
At Revolution Medical Centers, anabolic steroids are the prescription of choice.
After just two visits, and making it clear he was healthy and only wanted to put on size and increase strength, Bernstein was handed a little black bag filled with more than $2,000 worth of steroids and other performance enhancing drugs.
During a four-month ABC15 undercover investigation, we watched as dozens of patients walked in and out of Revolution Medical Centers clinics in Phoenix and Peoria, and obtained copies of more than a thousand prescriptions.
For legal reasons we're not identifying the patients by name, but the list includes professional body builders with national titles, former wrestlers with World Wrestling Entertainment, professional triathletes, and even a college student who's won countless medals.
But the patients aren't just professional athletes and body builders.
They also include people you deal with on a daily basis, people you turn to in a time of need - local law enforcement and firefighters.
Dr. Craig Johnston, chairman of the pharmacy program at Midwestern University, described the drug prescriptions to be "pretty unusual" and questions whether many of the prescriptions are legitimate.
Besides the steroids, the doctors at Revolution Medical Centers are prescribing blockers or masking agents, supplements like cod liver oil, "which could be a way to speed up the disappearance of something from the body," Johnston said.
"We would certainly be concerned with that type of prescribing," said Doug Coleman with the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Revolution Medical Centers facilities are doing business with Signature Pharmacy, a Florida-based compounding lab that's been raided by the DEA and FBI.
Signature Pharmacy is named 18 times in the Mitchell Report, which brought shame to Major League Baseball.
That steroid scandal has resulted in a federal probe of baseball's elite as well as the doctors prescribing the drugs.
ABC15's undercover patient was inside Revolution Medical Centers as large boxes filled with anabolic steroids were being delivered from Signature Pharmacy.
It is important to note that for legal reasons, the undercover patient stopped short of walking out the door with any drugs, but did keep copies of prescriptions and other medical records.
The ABC15 Investigators repeatedly asked Doctor Bula and his team of physicians for on-camera interviews. Those requests were all denied.
We did receive two letters from lawyers representing Revolution Medical Centers.
The first letter raised concern over the release of patient information. However, in this story, we did not identify any patients by name or face.
In a second letter, received April 25, the clinic's attorney wrote, "My client hereby affirmatively denies that it engages (or has engaged) in any illegal conduct of any nature whatsoever."
Click here to see the original groundbreaking investigation, extended undercover video, and additional interview clips with the Drug Enforcement Administration.
