# New Info on Armstrong's EPO Positive



## Dwayne Barry (Feb 16, 2003)

I think I understand why the lab says they were testing the reliability of the test (or maybe more accurately it's validity?). Apparently, EPO doesn't stick around long in the urine (3 day test window) and there is the opinion that even freezing urine won't prevent degradation. So I beleive the lab was using this old frozen urine samples from a time when they could be fairly sure that some of them would have indeed contained EPO to see if their test could detect EPO in old frozen urine. It would be interesting to know if they have already validated on younger frozen urine sampls known to contain EPO.


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## Old_school_nik (May 21, 2002)

*Yes, but this still does answer our question about a control*

sample where you aren't certain what is in the control from the get go. I read the same article about the debate on whether EPO can even last in frozen urin from that many years ago... but still if you don't know the urin has EPO in it in 1999, before you freeze it, how can you use it as a control sample? Its really bad science IMHO.

Besides that there are serious chain of custody issues with samples and lab docs say they can't confirm who the samples were from evenif there are codes on the vials.



Note: I am in the "all pros use some type of perf enhancing drugs" camp

Nik


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## Dwayne Barry (Feb 16, 2003)

They weren't trying to validate the test per se, they know it works. They were only seeing if they could detect EPO in old frozen urine samples. According to the head honcho, they either would have found nothing, which would indicate either the test was no good or that no one was doping with EPO, or they would detect EPO which would mean the test works on old frozen urine samples.

Cyclingnews.com also says they already did this on the '98 samples back in 2000 so that they knew it worked on at least 2 year old frozen urine. Only detecting 14 positives out of a 100+ samples from the '98 tour. Names were never released, nor were they released this time. It was L'equipe that was able to match the sample numbers to names from old documents they obtained to reveal that 6 of the '99 samples were Armstrongs.

Edit: Today cyclingnews.com is saying there were 40 positives from the '98 samples.


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## Americano_a_Roma (Feb 10, 2005)

If you're interested, here is the Nature article where they describe the test:

http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v405/n6787/full/405635a0_fs.html

I've attached the figure from the article, which is an isoelectrically focused electrophoresis of various urine samples, blotted for EPO. They say that recombinant EPO (doping) has a subtly different isoelectric point than EPO produced from your body. Here's what's in the picture:
A. Purified commercial human urinary natural EPO
B. recombinant EPO-(Neorecormon, France)
C. recombinant EPO- (Eprex, France)
D. urine from a control subject;
E&F urine from two patients treated with Neorecormon EPO for post-haemorrhagic anaemia;
G &H urine from two cyclists from Tour de France 1998 

So A is legal EPO, B and C are illegal EPO, D is normal pee, and G and H is pee from a cyclist in the '98 tour (illegal!). As you can see, things aren't necessarily cut and dried with this test. Look at lane E, which is a patient treated with EPO for illness; they show a hybrid of legal and illegal EPO. That's why they make a point of saying that the results are analyzed by lab workers, by computer to determine percentage illegal and legal EPO present, and by mathmatical modeling, and only called positive if all were in agreement.

There was some question regarding whether long-term freezing could alter the isoelectric point of normal EPO to make is seem like abnormal EPO. Seems to me that the test they did had a built in negative control for that, i.e. that they tested all the 1999 samples, and the majority of samples came back negative, and of the 12 positive, 6 came from Lance. That is, ALL lance's samples were doped, and virtually NONE of the others were, seemingly eliminating the possibility that the circumstances of the test led to positives. If I were a peer reviewer of that data, I would accept it as proof that Lance doped.


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## dagger (Jul 22, 2004)

*Hey Doc,*

Where does it say they tested all the samples. Since most of us aren't institutional subscribers we can't access the site's contents. Thanks for the analysis and explaination but is there a way to post the entire article. Thanks


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## Old_school_nik (May 21, 2002)

*Great post - this is why message boards are great!*

Ok - you have answered 2 of my remaining 3 questions about the issue. I am sold thatthe blood in the test is EPO enhanced but is it Lance's blood? What about chain of custody of the urine for 5 years as well as proof that the blood is Lances just because the reporters say it matches the codes from tour urine samples - isn't this a perfect situation to switch out samples - over 5 years of cold storage?

Nik








Americano_a_Roma said:


> If you're interested, here is the Nature article where they describe the test:
> 
> http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v405/n6787/full/405635a0_fs.html
> 
> ...


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## rocco (Apr 30, 2005)

Old_school_nik said:


> Ok - you have answered 2 of my remaining 3 questions about the issue. I am sold thatthe blood in the test is EPO enhanced but is it Lance's blood? What about chain of custody of the urine for 5 years as well as proof that the blood is Lances just because the reporters say it matches the codes from tour urine samples - isn't this a perfect situation to switch out samples - over 5 years of cold storage?
> 
> Nik


Or could the matching numbers be a coincidence? Did the lab do their research/experiement without changing the numbers on purpose? If they didn't why not?


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## djg (Nov 27, 2001)

*A "peer reviewer of the data"?*



Americano_a_Roma said:


> If you're interested, here is the Nature article where they describe the test:
> 
> If I were a peer reviewer of that data, I would accept it as proof that Lance doped.


What does that mean, precisely? I'm familiar with peer review carried out on behalf of certain grant-making agencies and I'm familiar with peer review carried out on behalf of scientific journals, and it's hard to see how either species could be be interested in such a claim (although, who knows, with the ever proliferating legions of journals perhaps we'll see a few dedicated to something new called "Lance Armstrong Science"). I understand that you think that this is evidence of EPO in some set of old samples. Even if it's extremely good evidence, I'm not sure I understand the use of the term "proof" in this context. More than that, I suppose I might ask one of two methodological questions, one perhaps naiive and the other, I suspect, less so. Here's the naiive one: without being terribly familiar with this area of science, or these methods, I notice that the conclusion is based on agreement between multiple tests. That suggests a concern that each test may, on its own, be prone to a level of error (inadequate confidence measure, other issues) that those bundling the results seek to reduce via a sort of one-sample meta-analysis. And if that's right, I'd like to see the numbers on the tests themselves. Perhaps that's just wrong, although that seems the obvious reason to look across the various methodologies for agreement in that way. Here's what seems to me a less naiive question: what exactly is the science of matching the samples to Lance Armstrong? I understand that L'Equipe has photos comparing file numbers, after the fact, and finding a match. Perhaps a reasonable person might find such pictures suspicious or worse. I just don't understand that there was any procedure specified before the fact, and then followed, for coding the samples in a particular way and being confident, over the years, that the samples continued to correspond to some particular subject. We do, after all, have such procedures, when it matters, for investigations with all sorts of non-human animals, among other things. So, if I were doing "Lance Armstrong Science," I would want something akin to what criminal law types (cops, lawyers, judges) would think of as procedures for maintaining a chain of custody, tying samples A, B, C, and D not just to each other but to the guy on trial. And if I were a peer reviewer (which I've been, albeit not for anything in "Lance Armstrong Science"), I would, on this ground alone, say: "sorry, no good, otherwise interesting, but go back and do it again."

I'm not saying that L'Equipe's allegations are false or that I have good evidence that they are false. I don't know Lance Armstrong personally and I sure as heck don't know what he was doing in 1999, except second- and third-hand--like everyone--from reading the paper and watching TV. I do know that the most sophisticated mathematical model in the world doesn't necessarily tell you much of anything about this physical world we inhabit, unless you've got a good method for tying the model to the bits of the world you want to explain. If what you want to explain is not some general phenomenon, but some particular guy, well, then, something seems to be missing here. Your use of the phrase "peer review," together with the mathematical term "proof," seems unhelpful.


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## mellowman (Apr 17, 2004)

Nice post Americano_a_Roma. Thanks. Much better than a lot of the noise and trolling going around these days.

Looking that the pic it looks like both lane G & H had been taking EPO for awhile such that their bodies no longer produced natural EPO, which has been known to occur.

It is understandable if there are a bunch of samples that look like E or even worse like a combination of D & E then the EPO indication is not so simple. Probably where the work on new mathematical (statistical) test by LNDD comes in to play.


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## supercrank (Feb 20, 2004)

*Not controlled*

"There was some question regarding whether long-term freezing could alter the isoelectric point of normal EPO to make is seem like abnormal EPO. Seems to me that the test they did had a built in negative control for that, i.e. that they tested all the 1999 samples, and the majority of samples came back negative" 

I disagree on this point. Demonstrating that the majority of the urine samples were negative for recombinant EPO does not prove that the isoelectric points did not change over time. 

A negative doping test in this scenario simply means one of three (or possibly four) things:
1) true negative (ie the rider did not take EPO)
2) false negative due to an undetectable level of EPO in the urine due to low excretion 
3) false negative due to degradation of EPO after prolonged storage (it's frickin' freezing in here Mr. Bigglesworth!)
4) false negative due to a change in the isoelectric points over time (totally speculative and I'm not sure how plausible this is-- any lab geeks that can help out here?)

On the flip side, as far as I can tell, a positive doping test could be due to
1) true positive
2) false positive if the patient is a rare statistical outlier who naturally excretes EPO isoforms with isoelectric points similar to those of recombinant EPO (as in the case of a recently exonerated triathlete)
3) false positive if the isoelectric points shift over time (again, totally speculative)

The Nature reference is just a brief communication. For more detailed info on methods, go to
Clinical Chemistry 49:6(1) 901–907 (2003)
The fulltext PDF should be available without charge

As to the matter of Lance's guilt, I think there are questions about the integrity of the test results as well as that of the people who leaked (no pun intended) the urine sample #s to L'Equipe-- I'll pass on judgement.


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## Americano_a_Roma (Feb 10, 2005)

Just to clarify a couple things: that figure I posted was from the Nature article describing the protocol used to test urine samples, published back in 2000; it's an example of the test used in the current case, but has no bearing on the results of the LA test.

From cyclingnews.com, day before yesterday: The retrospective testing was carried out since December 2004 on the entirety of the Tour de France 1999 B samples, and determined twelve positive samples - six of which belonged to Lance Armstrong.

You have to keep in mind here that the test does not return positive or negative results for EPO; EPO is always present in the urine. What the test does is to determine whether the EPO in the urine is naturally occurring EPO or injected EPO. Look at the pic I posted above; urine from a non-doper is in lane D, urine from a doper is in lanes G&H. What they wanted to do was to see if this test would still work to detect EPO in 5-year old samples. It would be impractical to take samples from treated and untreated athletes, freeze them, wait 5 years and then do the test. So they did the next best thing: they took all the samples from the 1999 tour, figuring that some would be illegal and some would be normal. They JUST wanted to see if they could still detect EPO in these old samples, and if some gave illegal and some legal outcomes, they DIDN'T want to incriminate anyone. 

Apparently they managed to detect EPO in the old samples (i.e. EPO doesn't degrade in 5 years at -20), and they got 12 illegal readings (i.e. you could still tell the diff between normal and illegal EPO after 5 years). As far as the lab was concerned, it stopped there; they'd done their test and gotten their result. Then the reporter came in and dug up the numbers and linked 6 of the 12 illegal samples to Lance. This is significant because, had the 12 illegal samples all come from different riders at different times, you could argue that 5 years at -20 had shifted the isoelectric point of the EPO and made some legal samples look illegal. But the fact that ALL LAs were illegal, and virtually ALL the others were still legal means, to me, that there was something in LAs pee that was not in anyone else's. That's the best control you can expect in this case, because an apples-to-apples comparison requires that samples be frozen for 5 years.


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## Americano_a_Roma (Feb 10, 2005)

djg said:


> What does that mean, precisely? I'm familiar with peer review carried out on behalf of certain grant-making agencies and I'm familiar with peer review carried out on behalf of scientific journals, and it's hard to see how either species could be be interested in such a claim (although, who knows, with the ever proliferating legions of journals perhaps we'll see a few dedicated to something new called "Lance Armstrong Science").


I just meant that I felt that the experimental design was sound and that, if they really did blindly test all the 1999 samples and 6 of the 12 positives were from one rider, I consider that a valid indication that that rider was using recombinant EPO. I am not actually peer reviewing this data, obviously, but I do peer reviews for journals regularly in which I have to decide whether a finding is really sufficiently compelling to warrant publication. This one (with the disclaimer that no one has actually seen the raw data, and that there are some issues with sample matching) seems to hold up. "Proof" may have been a little strong, from a purely scientific standpoint; I was using it in a more coloquial sense. Lets say that the evidence is "very compelling".



> More than that, I suppose I might ask one of two methodological questions, one perhaps naiive and the other, I suspect, less so. Here's the naiive one: without being terribly familiar with this area of science, or these methods, I notice that the conclusion is based on agreement between multiple tests. That suggests a concern that each test may, on its own, be prone to a level of error (inadequate confidence measure, other issues) that those bundling the results seek to reduce via a sort of one-sample meta-analysis. And if that's right, I'd like to see the numbers on the tests themselves.


Good insight; my understanding is that they use one test, but subject the data to multiple types of interpretation. They do this to make outcomes more "quantifiable" and make sure that all tests are interpreted in the same way. Look at the pic I posted; that is what the output of the test looks like. To some degree observation can be accurate; G compared to D seems pretty clearcut. Suppose you have a result that looks like the E lane of that figure; what percentage of that sample is in the "illegal" range? What if you had one that looked like a cross between D and E? What if you have 10 that progress incrementally from D (all normal) to F (on the juice), where do you draw the line? So, to make sure everyone is treated the same way, and to make the results more defensible in court, they use graphic analysis to determine what percentage of the total EPO present in a given sample falls into the normal range, and what percentage is in the illegal range. They use multiple methodologies not so much because the test could be faulty, but because the data requires interpretation and it's important to apply the same standard to everyone.




> Here's what seems to me a less naiive question: what exactly is the science of matching the samples to Lance Armstrong?


I know nothing about this, and as I said earlier it is a major caveat to the interpretation. I assume that the sample IDs from the 1999 tour meant nothing to the scientists involved in the test (i.e. using them would not compromise the "blind" nature of the results), so they may have just kept them. If they changed the numbering scheme before doing the test, they would certainly have kept a record of corresponding numbers; that's just good science. What remains murky is the role of l'Equipe and its reporters in digging all this up.


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## split (Mar 22, 2004)

What is the title and who are the authors of the article. I would like to look it up. Thanks.


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## tom_o (May 6, 2004)

Americano_a_Roma said:


> What they wanted to do was to see if this test would still work to detect EPO in 5-year old samples.


Weren't these urine samples tested in 1999?


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## Dwayne Barry (Feb 16, 2003)

Tomakit said:


> Weren't these urine samples tested in 1999?


Not for EPO as the UCI did not start using the test until 2001. Which is why it is quite disengenuous of Armstrong, who is not a stupid person, to use the old "but all my tests were negative" excuse which is lame anyway since we know of numerous cyclists caught with EPO even in the past few years who never tested positive. See cyclingnews.com today for one possible way it is done.

From (I believe) the most recent guy to get nailed for EPO Mark Lotz (from RBR): "I had the bad luck that they had a search warrant, otherwise nobody would ever have discovered I was using it".


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## Americano_a_Roma (Feb 10, 2005)

split said:


> What is the title and who are the authors of the article. I would like to look it up. Thanks.


Recombinant erythropoietin in urine
FRANÇOISE LASNE AND JACQUES DE CEAURRIZ
Nature 405, 635 (08 June 2000);

Doesn't really say much beyond the pic I posted, its just a Short Communication.


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## Mel Erickson (Feb 3, 2004)

Some things that bother me. They have nothing to do with the science. 12 detects with 6 reportedly from Armstrong. Implies he and maybe one or two of the other Tour riders were the only ones doping with EPO in 1999. Plausible?

Since testing for EPO in the TdF was instituted Armstrong has never tested positive, as far as we know, yet he continues to dominate the field. In fact, his dominance has seemed to increase. Why didn't his performance drop off if he stopped using EPO?


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## Dwayne Barry (Feb 16, 2003)

"Implies he and maybe one or two of the other Tour riders were the only ones doping with EPO in 1999. Plausible?"

Not necessarily. Relatively few tests are carried out. I think there were only something like 180 tests in this year's Tour. So about 1 per rider for the whole 3 weeks, or about 9 tests per day. Except it's not random, the stage winner, leader in GC, and a few others are tested daily which means probably most riders are never even tested. And remember there is only a 3 day window (assuming a relatively large dose of EPO) to detect it. It would be nice to know if there were days Armstrong was tested but not positive. Others have pointed out the failed tests fall into 3 groupings (Prologue and Stage 1, Stages 9 and 10, then stages 12 and 14). Is this an artifact of when he was tested or indicative of 3 distinct injections? He won the prologue and led until stage 2, he won stage 8 and led to the end of the race.

"Why didn't his performance drop off if he stopped using EPO?"

Two possible explanations are one he didn't stop using, the test is obviously beatable (see Millar, Museeuw, Lotz, etc.), two most other riders stopped as well so there was still a level playing field.


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## mellowman (Apr 17, 2004)

Mel Erickson said:


> Some things that bother me. They have nothing to do with the science. 12 detects with 6 reportedly from Armstrong. Implies he and maybe one or two of the other Tour riders were the only ones doping with EPO in 1999. Plausible?
> 
> Since testing for EPO in the TdF was instituted Armstrong has never tested positive, as far as we know, yet he continues to dominate the field. In fact, his dominance has seemed to increase. Why didn't his performance drop off if he stopped using EPO?


If YOU really want to follow this line of thinking then YOU need to look into HBOC's, Hemopure or Oxyglobin. EPO is soo '90s. Have fun and knock yourself out.


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## Mel Erickson (Feb 3, 2004)

Still troubled. Reportedly 40 positve EPO tests from the '98 field and only 12 in '99 with Armstrong having 6? Sure, he was tested more. How many samples were tested from '99? Still have to wonder.

If many were using EPO in '99, including Armstrong, and most later stopped (2000, 2001), why weren't there more positives in '99 like there were in '98?

Something seems amiss.


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## mellowman (Apr 17, 2004)

Mel Erickson said:


> Still troubled. Reportedly 40 positve EPO tests from the '98 field and only 12 in '99 with Armstrong having 6? Sure, he was tested more. How many samples were tested from '99? Still have to wonder.
> 
> If many were using EPO in '99, including Armstrong, and most later stopped (2000, 2001), why weren't there more positives in '99 like there were in '98?
> 
> Something seems amiss.


'99 was the year after the '98 Festina affair so perhaps riders were scared away from using it that year then other alternatives became viable. Perhaps many samples did have EPO but it has degraded. Perhaps many of the dopers were not actually tested (maybe you should rent the '99 tour to see what happened and why some contenders were not at the top). They didn't test everyone. 

The only thing amiss is your pre-conceived notion of what the answer should be.


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## Americano_a_Roma (Feb 10, 2005)

Even if Armstrong was on dope in 1999, and even if it did give him some advantage (couldn't have been much, as I believe they had instituted the "speed limit" of 50 hematocrit by they; I mean he couldn't have been the new "Mr. 60%"), I think that the subsequent years show that he certainly didn't win just because of the drugs. He won because he worked harder, prepared more, only raced the tour and so on. I mean, this is not a guy who had never won anything, won once and then faded away; I personally don't think that these allegations chage his legacy as an amazing cyclist.

I could imagine a scenario in which LA used small doses of EPO in the 1999 tour and then quit; I mean, he had been at death's door, and has said that EPO was the only thing that kept him alive through the chemo. He was unsure if he really had what it took to win the tour...so what's the harm in a little of the good ol' EPO? He subsequently discovered that he was plenty strong without it (after all he must have taken relatively small doses), and didn't want to risk a positive test, so he quit from 2000 on. Just wild speculation, mind you.


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## mellowman (Apr 17, 2004)

Well, in subsequent years Armstrong had one of if not the biggest financed teams to support him. Also his performance pre-cancer predicted he would be a sprinter type rider not a climber (even Merckx has said this). Post-cancer he can TT and climb like a MOFO. 

Not sure where I read it but I do remember reading recently that the 2000 or 2001 TdF doping control samples have also been kept by LNDD because of an ongoing police doping investigation involving Postal. Have also read that in 2000 or 2001 police found some bovine solution (probably Hemopure) in the garbage where Postal was staying. The following year the bovine solution is on the doping ban list. Again speculation. 

There is also the posibility Armstrong uses an altitude tent for the same effect as well. Or at least claim too because it is legal so a good cover. Again, all speculation.


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## rocco (Apr 30, 2005)

*some other facts, speculation and pointed questions*



mellowman said:


> Well, in subsequent years Armstrong had one of if not the biggest financed teams to support him. Also his performance pre-cancer predicted he would be a sprinter type rider not a climber (even Merckx has said this). Post-cancer he can TT and climb like a MOFO.
> 
> Not sure where I read it but I do remember reading recently that the 2000 or 2001 TdF doping control samples have also been kept by LNDD because of an ongoing police doping investigation involving Postal. Have also read that in 2000 or 2001 police found some bovine solution (probably Hemopure) in the garbage where Postal was staying. The following year the bovine solution is on the doping ban list. Again speculation.
> 
> There is also the posibility Armstrong uses an altitude tent for the same effect as well. Or at least claim too because it is legal so a good cover. Again, all speculation.


It's true Merckx did doubt Armstrong's ability to be a TDF champion regardless of what he trys to claim now. However, Armstrong wasn't really a sprinter or a roleur but was in fact a good all around classic rider with explosive excelleration ability who could break away and stay away if needed. That sounds like the makings of a good TTer to me. I've heard Ulrich described as a sprinter regarding the early part of his career though and he turned out to be OK. Armstrong's TT ability just prior to cancer was actually making big improvements. Of course lossing at least 15 pounds of muscle due to cancer might help one be a better climber. That old explosive excelleration thing helped too. That's just speculation though. If LA was a doper why didn't his performance level drop off significantly between 2001 and 2005?


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## djg (Nov 27, 2001)

Americano_a_Roma said:


> I just meant that I felt that the experimental design was sound and that, if they really did blindly test all the 1999 samples and 6 of the 12 positives were from one rider, I consider that a valid indication that that rider was using recombinant EPO. I am not actually peer reviewing this data, obviously, but I do peer reviews for journals regularly in which I have to decide whether a finding is really sufficiently compelling to warrant publication. This one (with the disclaimer that no one has actually seen the raw data, and that there are some issues with sample matching) seems to hold up. "Proof" may have been a little strong, from a purely scientific standpoint; I was using it in a more coloquial sense. Lets say that the evidence is "very compelling".
> 
> 
> Good insight; my understanding is that they use one test, but subject the data to multiple types of interpretation. They do this to make outcomes more "quantifiable" and make sure that all tests are interpreted in the same way. Look at the pic I posted; that is what the output of the test looks like. To some degree observation can be accurate; G compared to D seems pretty clearcut. Suppose you have a result that looks like the E lane of that figure; what percentage of that sample is in the "illegal" range? What if you had one that looked like a cross between D and E? What if you have 10 that progress incrementally from D (all normal) to F (on the juice), where do you draw the line? So, to make sure everyone is treated the same way, and to make the results more defensible in court, they use graphic analysis to determine what percentage of the total EPO present in a given sample falls into the normal range, and what percentage is in the illegal range. They use multiple methodologies not so much because the test could be faulty, but because the data requires interpretation and it's important to apply the same standard to everyone.
> ...


All reasonable responses. My point regarding the data bundling was that this seems a loose, INFORMAL method of ramping up one's confidence in measurement tools which incorporate a subjective element. In many cases, that's the best one can do, and it may be quite convincing for journal referees, editors, study panel members, etc., in certain fields. Nonetheless, we'd ideally like to do better when we do science, and it's not clear that science (as opposed to technical testing or application) is what was being done here.

AND, we'd like to distinguish convincing results from proven results. And we'd like to distinguish experimental findings from extrapolations from such findings. Of course labs which wish to apply and compare X tests to Y samples have procedures for, e.g., maintaining the identity of sample number 123 across the 2 or 4 or 9 tests from the start of the experiment to the end--these may be procedures set forth in the formal protocol itself, or, more commonly, may be procedures specified in a lab manual or notebook. To the extent that there's archiving of samples, there's a system for doing so. But we may or may not specify procedures for tracing the provenence of sample 123 (which, depending on what we're doing, may be critical information, relevant information, or entirely uninteresting and pointless). If L'Equipe had a means of matching laboratory IDs with Rider IDs, that means might be good or bad, sage or nuts, entirely independent of (a) whether their (the newspaper's) identification is correct and (b) whether the laboratory has any means of confirming that it is correct. My point about "Lance Armstrong Science" was simply to distinguish between (1) the science (which you may know quite well--not my area, as I've said), (2) the technology and its application, and (3) the accusation, or linking of the application with some particular human being. It may be all true, but we don't really seem to know, and (3) doesn't seem a part of the science, whatever else it is. It's not just about good or bad or smart or not. Science can be done poorly, and applications or journalism can be done well. But different projects (and ends and means) are different projects.


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## rocco (Apr 30, 2005)

*more news....*

http://sports.yahoo.com/sc/news?slug=ap-armstrong-doping&prov=ap&type=lgns



> Armstrong goes on the counterattack
> By JIM LITKE, AP Sports Writer
> August 25, 2005
> 
> ...


Christiane Ayotte says she has no doubt that if the lab in Paris found EPO but what about the false positive issue? With all apparent dirty pool that's going on how do we know if someone didn't tamper with LA's samples? The credibility of everyone involved is shot now and there is 100% proof either way now.


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## rocco (Apr 30, 2005)

*more news....*

http://sports.yahoo.com/sc/news?slug=ap-armstrong-doping&prov=ap&type=lgns



> Armstrong goes on the counterattack
> By JIM LITKE, AP Sports Writer
> August 25, 2005
> 
> ...


Christiane Ayotte says she has no doubt that if the lab in Paris found EPO but what about the false positive issue? With all apparent dirty pool that's going on how do we know if someone didn't tamper with LA's samples? The credibility of everyone involved is shot now and there is no 100% proof either way now.


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## Mel Erickson (Feb 3, 2004)

I think YOU'RE reading WAY too much into MY posts. Right now I'M not sure what to BELIEVE and am simply asking some QUESTIONS about things that trouble ME. Don't be too QUICK to make ASSUMPTIONS about where I stand.


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## Dwayne Barry (Feb 16, 2003)

The bovine substance was Actovegin (I think that is the spelling) which was some topical stuff that was suppose to increase circulation, so illegal under the general blood doping ban. Postal claimed it was for a diabetic soigneur, which still begs the question of why they were dumping it along with spent syringes, etc. in random dumpsters?

It would be interesting if someone could go back a find out when Armstrong did start using the altitude tent, which is not illegal except apparently in Italy now.


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## txzen (Apr 6, 2005)

The fact is that the test, as reported in the intial Nature paper cited above, when it was implemented was a disaster and produced many false positives. They've been trying to refine it ever since.

Also, the differences between human and recombinant EPO have gotten a little more muddy. 

The drug EPO differs from natural EPO we make in our body. To be made as a drug, the gene for EPO is put into cells of another organism (in this case probably hamster) and the protein is produced from those cells, purified, and then sold. The protein content and function is identical, but different cells and organisms attach sugar molecules to proteins in different ways. It just so happens that the way the manufactured EPO, or "recombinant (rEPO)", differs from natural EPO is that it has a different sugar residues. 

How do you tell the difference scientifically? These sugars affect the overall charge of the protein. The way you detect differences in charge is by a method described above called isoelectric focusing. Basically, you put the proteins from the urine in a gel, then apply a voltage gradient across it - positive one side, negative on the other. The proteins will migrate towards a charge that they are equal to. You then look for the protein in the gel with an antibody for it. 

This type of test for rEPO was first published in Nature 405, 635 (08 June 2000), for those of you following along. However, what we know is that after this paper was published, at least one cyclist who tested "positive" by this method was able to demonstrate that in his case he did NOT take EPO although the test on his urine suggested that his isoforms looked like rEPO. More on that later. 

What does this look like? This is from WADA's own website, desribing the test. 








https://www.wada-ama.org/rtecontent/document/td2004epo_en.pdf 

rEPO is from a company in France, and NESP (also a rEPO) is from Amgen in the US. You can see that the protein, either from recombinant or natural sources, separates into distinct bands along the voltage gradient. The rEPO and NEST look pretty different, don't they? uEPO is natural EPO concentrated from human urine.

So, they take the urine, concentrate it down 5-10,000 fold, then put it on the gel to look for the difference in fingerprints, if you will. What I think you can see is that there are some bands in the middle that appear to be unique to normal EPO, but some bands fall higher or lower. Thus, they have to make an identification criterion for positive or negative.

From WADA:

rEPO: 
1) three consecutive bands (1,2,3,4) in the basic area.
2) the two most intense bands either measured by densitometry (how dark the look, basically) or visually in the basic area must be band 1, 2 or 3.
3) the two most intense bands in the basic area must be more intense than any other band in the endogenous area 

NESP:
1) in the acidic area there must be three acceptable consecutive bands assigned as B, C, D in the corresponding reference preparation.
2) the most intense bands must be C or D
3) the most intense band (C or D) must be more intense than any other band in the endogenous area



Now that we all understand the different isoforms of recombinant and natural EPO...

Here's an interesting report that highlights the issues with the EPO test:
link

Summary:
- the concentration of EPO in urine is highly variable from person to person
- the concentration of EPO in an individual's urine does not appear to change when undergoing serious prolonged activity (they were looking at marathon runners)
- BUT, "extreme long-duration exercise can produce small but significant increases in the percent basic isoforms found in the urine".

So, high-impact athletic events can alter the isoforms of EPO and make it look more like rEPO. 


With that in mind, let's examine the case of Rutger Beke, a triathlete from the Netherlands who was suspended earlier this year after testing positive for EPO. He appealed, and with scientific evidence on his side, was eventually cleared after the French scientists agreed that in his case he produced EPO that looked like rEPO, and that there were issues with his sample.

link

His defense team put forth evidence that showed: 
1 )his urine sample was contaminated with bacteria, which raised the pH of the sample causing his natural EPO to shift on the gel and look like rEPO (where the protein shifts on the gel corresponds directly to pH).

2) he already produces about 4x the normal amount of EPO

3) he is genetically prone to developing proteinuria - excess protein in the urine - following strenuous exercise. One of the excessive proteins found in his urine is one called alpha-ACT. His defense team sited a WADA study that showed that alpha-ACT can look an awful lot like EPO on the isoelectric focusing assay. 

4) his defense team sited WADA's own studies that showed that #1 and #3 could potentially be a big problem with the test. 


So there you go. The EPO test has, since its inception, been problematic and there are ways to get a false positive. If Tyler's team had taken such a focused attack on the test methodology as it might have been a different story. However, in Rutger's case, it appears that they were able to show that he had excess amount of natural EPO and that there was a contaminating protein identified in the urine which would give a false positive. He had much more credible scientific evidence on his side, I think.


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## Dwayne Barry (Feb 16, 2003)

txzen said:


> So there you go. The EPO test has, since its inception, been problematic and there are ways to get a false positive.


So you really think all these snow-white cyclists getting nailed with the test are false positives? Cycling had or has an endemic doping problem. I would think the relatively few that do get caught are actually the tip of the iceberg rather than some poor guy getting nailed by a false positive.

The test must also require some sort of "probability" determination. As the forms published by L'equipe have a percentile score next to the samples with ones in the high 80's or 90's being deemed positive (perhaps 85 is the cut-off?), and lower ones negativet. From the prologue Armstrong's sample is the only 100, the next day it was 89.7, both were deemed positive.

Not sure what the numbers mean, I hope not "percentage of EPO that appears to be unnatural" or something like that since pretty much everyone tested had some in their system.


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## txzen (Apr 6, 2005)

Dwayne Barry said:


> So you really think all these snow-white cyclists getting nailed with the test are false positives? Cycling had or has an endemic doping problem. I would think the relatively few that do get caught are actually the tip of the iceberg rather than some poor guy getting nailed by a false positive.


I never said that, just that the methodology is not entirely sound and has been proven to give very conflicting results. Probably most of the positives are real. Probably many cyclists have also taken advantage of the fact that EPO is only detectable 4-12 hours after injection, and are much better at dosing themselves than before - and are thus "negative".


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## Dwayne Barry (Feb 16, 2003)

txzen said:


> I never said that, just that the methodology is not entirely sound and has been proven to give very conflicting results. Probably most of the positives are real. Probably many cyclists have also taken advantage of the fact that EPO is only detectable 4-12 hours after injection, and are much better at dosing themselves than before - and are thus "negative".


Well what defines "entirely sound"? Does any such test exist? I think the weakest link in the Armstrong defense will be that the test is flawed. If he's really clean a better bet would be that L'equipe is full of sh*t and those positive samples are not his. BTW, the lab says they still don't know who the samples belong to but if it comes to it more B sample is still available and they can do genetic testing to determine if the samples in question are Armstrong's or not. They sound fairly sure from their end that the positives are real.


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## sintjon (Aug 26, 2005)

From what I understand of the testing the lab has used, they actually performed 3 tests on each sample from 99, each test using a slightly different method. They only declared a test positive if all 3 methods showed positive results.


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## Americano_a_Roma (Feb 10, 2005)

txzen said:


> I never said that, just that the methodology is not entirely sound and has been proven to give very conflicting results. Probably most of the positives are real. Probably many cyclists have also taken advantage of the fact that EPO is only detectable 4-12 hours after injection, and are much better at dosing themselves than before - and are thus "negative".


Just out of curiosity, how is the test as you describe it different from the one in the original Nature paper. I imagine that they've refinded and automated the protocol, and possibly characterized more types of recombinant EPO, but it still looks like isoelectric focusing to detect differential post-translational modifications specific to the organism of origin.

Also, do you know what organism they produce this stuff in (I assume they use cultured cells, not animals)? If I were producing a bunch of protein I'd use bacteria, but I don't know if the product would be pharmaceutical grade... And why, specifically, is recombinant EPO differentially glycosylated? Is it organism specific or cell-type specific? Quick Robin, to PubMed!


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## dagger (Jul 22, 2004)

*Ok...Lance gave 17 samples in the 99TDF*

Where's the results for the other 11 samples?


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## Dwayne Barry (Feb 16, 2003)

dagger said:


> Where's the results for the other 13 samples?


Presumably negative, which is what you would expect if he was periodically injecting EPO and AT BEST there is a 3 day window for it's detection. Unless we were to assume that he was doing it on a daily or at least quite frequent basis.


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## Dwayne Barry (Feb 16, 2003)

sintjon said:


> From what I understand of the testing the lab has used, they actually performed 3 tests on each sample from 99, each test using a slightly different method. They only declared a test positive if all 3 methods showed positive results.


The form L'equipe shows has an A,B,C column but only the B has a number in it. It is then color-coded for positive and negative. All 3 columns for all 4 riders tested in the prologue are the positive color and then one the next day for stage 1 (which must be Armstrong's if L'equipe has their facts straight). Lower down the sheet there are samples with the A and C columns "positive" but the B column "negative", so presumably those riders were not deemed positive.


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## dagger (Jul 22, 2004)

*Ok...Get out your calender then*



Dwayne Barry said:


> Presumably negative, which is what you would expect if he was periodically injecting EPO and AT BEST there is a 3 day window for it's detection. Unless we were to assume that he was doing it on a daily or at least quite frequent basis.


24 days of the tour and 17 samples were taken. How many days are you saying he injected and those daysthe EP lasted for 3 days? So he only injected twice then? Why only inject on 2 occasions? There would be no benefit. You have to take EPO therapeutically to get benefit?


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## txzen (Apr 6, 2005)

Americano_a_Roma said:


> Just out of curiosity, how is the test as you describe it different from the one in the original Nature paper. I imagine that they've refinded and automated the protocol, and possibly characterized more types of recombinant EPO, but it still looks like isoelectric focusing to detect differential post-translational modifications specific to the organism of origin.


Well, it is still IEF for the urine samples, but man...that gel in the Nature paper is kind of ugly. The main difference that I see is that they have more accurately identified that "endogenous zone" where normal EPO should run compared to the two EPO products. 



> Also, do you know what organism they produce this stuff in (I assume they use cultured cells, not animals)? If I were producing a bunch of protein I'd use bacteria, but I don't know if the product would be pharmaceutical grade... And why, specifically, is recombinant EPO differentially glycosylated? Is it organism specific or cell-type specific? Quick Robin, to PubMed!


Organism-specific. At least for AMGEN, they express the protein in CHO cells - Chinese Hamster Ovary cells. You can also use bacteria, yeast or other mamallian cells to express the protein. All of these will do different things to the protein once it is finally made. 

Producing protein in mamallian cells is a pain, but the protein produced is more likely to be active. Some of these proteins can be made in bacteria, yeast, or insect cells, but often times the modifications that the organism puts on the final product render it much less active, if at all, when you put it back into a mammal. 

I don't think it's a cop-out to express doubts on the methodology here. We're not detecting a foreign substance like a chemical in urine or blood. We looking for a natural human protein that has a minute change to it's final structure, and we're looking for trace amounts of an easily destroyed compound in urine that we must concetrate greatly to even see. The process by which proteins are glycosylated while understood biochemically, is still a little murky when you get down to regulation. The fact that under times of stress it can be differentially glycosylated - or that this process apparently can be slightly different from individual to individual - means that things are even more complicated.


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## Dwayne Barry (Feb 16, 2003)

dagger said:


> 24 days of racing and 19 samples were taken. How many days are you saying he injected and those daysthe EP lasted for 3 days? So he only injected twice then? Why only inject on 2 occasions? There would be no benefit. You have to take EPO therapeutically to get benefit?


The bunching of the positives would suggest he injected on 3 different occasions. The prologue, stage 8 or 9 and then again around stage 12. That would be assuming the test is adequate to return a positive for every dosing which we know it is not. I hope they do identify all his tests with the relevant numbers. It would be quite informative to see if the percentage of his rhEPO spikes on certain days and then falls off, still there but below the level deemed sufficient to call "positive". Looking at the forms L'Equipe published you can see riders with numbers in the 60's, 70s, even 80's that were not called positive but probably are indicative of EPO usage.


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## Jesse D Smith (Jun 11, 2005)

*Please correct me if I'm wrong bc I may be wrong*



Tomakit said:


> Weren't these urine samples tested in 1999?


These are the facts as I understand them. If I'm mistaken, please let me know because I want to know the truth, not merely reinforce what I "think" is the truth. 
Lance's '99 samples were tested for banned substances other than EPO since they didn't have the ability to test for it at that time. 
According to the rules, if the A samples turned out negative for all banned substances, the b samples are destroyed. Riders can voluntarily give permission for their negative b samples to be used in testing. Lance said he didn't give this permission. So the fact that his b sample even still exists indictates two possibilities. 

a. Who ever retained the samples violated the rules. Why did they violate the rules? 

b. Lance was positive on his A sample for a substance other than EPO, so they were obligated to retain the b sample, yet nobody said a word, not the labs, not the UCI, not USA cycing, not the French Ministry of Sport, not L'Equipe, nobody. 

If your goal is to see if you can detect EPO in samples that have been frozen for a length of time, you'd have take a known positive EPO sample, freeze it for a period of time, then test it and see if it still tests positive.
None of this was the case as I see it.


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## dagger (Jul 22, 2004)

*Also what was LA's hemotacrit levels?*

If he went in for the prologue he would have had to been on the juice for a while and would have elevated levels.


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## magnolialover (Jun 2, 2004)

*How does it feel now?*



dagger said:


> If he went in for the prologue he would have had to been on the juice for a while and would have elevated levels.


HAHAHAHAHA!!!!! How does it feel to be a Lance Fan-Boy now folks?!?! 

It is unfortunate that this does appear to be a bit of muckraking by the French lab that completed the testing, and the downside to this is that Armstrong can't actually 'prove' himself to be negative since there is no "A" sample. 

I guess those 7 wins are now "virtual" eh?


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## Bryan (Sep 19, 2004)

magnolialover said:


> HAHAHAHAHA!!!!! How does it feel to be a Lance Fan-Boy now folks?!?!
> 
> It is unfortunate that this does appear to be a bit of muckraking by the French lab that completed the testing, and the downside to this is that Armstrong can't actually 'prove' himself to be negative since there is no "A" sample.
> 
> I guess those 7 wins are now "virtual" eh?



Shocking!!!  Magnolialover is the last person on this board whom I would expect to write an anti-Lance post!!!


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## Live Steam (Feb 4, 2004)

If this was just a test to determine if EPO can, for lack of any real scientific knowledge, remain in state while frozen, then why would they need to know anything about the subject urine's corresponding identity? Why would they need to retain a listing of matching numbers to names? Wouldn't all they need to know is that all of the samples came from Tour rides in 1999? I guess they would further need to know what samples went together, but I don't see the need fo identities, since the purpose of the test was not to find guilt, but just to confirm the validity of a test.


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## asgelle (Apr 21, 2003)

Live Steam said:


> If this was just a test to determine if EPO can, for lack of any real scientific knowledge, remain in state while frozen, then why would they need to know anything about the subject urine's corresponding identity? Why would they need to retain a listing of matching numbers to names? Wouldn't all they need to know is that all of the samples came from Tour rides in 1999? I guess they would further need to know what samples went together, but I don't see the need fo identities, since the purpose of the test was not to find guilt, but just to confirm the validity of a test.


And if you would bother to do a little reading, you would know that, the lab did not have a list of names corresponding to the samples. Just as you suggest, all the lab knew was that the samples were from riders in the '99 Tour.


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## magnolialover (Jun 2, 2004)

*See, now...*



Bryan said:


> Shocking!!!  Magnolialover is the last person on this board whom I would expect to write an anti-Lance post!!!


I was very "careful" in my wording, because at no time in my post did I actually say anything bad about Lance. I asked how it feels to be a Lance Fan-Boy now. 

I also went on to say that the lab screwed up most likely, and that it was unfortunate that Lance could never actually prove his innocence for lack of an "A" sample. And with the "virutal" statement of wins, there now hangs a cloud over his wins because of this unfortunate incident.

Please go back, actually read what I wrote, and there is nothing in there anti-Lance. Thanks for playing.


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## Live Steam (Feb 4, 2004)

Look, why would anyone need a corresponding list of names? All this test was to determine was if EPO can be readily traced from old, frozen samples. The only factor needed was to know that all of the samples came from Tour riders in 1999. Also how do you know who corresponded with whom? How did L"Equipe come about this information? Since you seem to think you know the most about this, why don't you fill us in? How did this trashy tabloid get the following?
1. the list of samples tested?
2. the results of the tests?
3. the corresponding numbers for each test?
4. how did they know the tests were being conducted in the first place?
5. is your screen name pronounced a$$ gel?


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## Live Steam (Feb 4, 2004)

OK you're not an idiot! How does it feel to be out of the closet?


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## asgelle (Apr 21, 2003)

Live Steam said:


> Look, why would anyone need a corresponding list of names? All this test was to determine was if EPO can be readily traced from old, frozen samples. The only factor needed was to know that all of the samples came from Tour riders in 1999. Also how do you know who corresponded with whom? How did L"Equipe come about this information? Since you seem to think you know the most about this, why don't you fill us in? How did this trashy tabloid get the following?
> 1. the list of samples tested?
> 2. the results of the tests?
> 3. the corresponding numbers for each test?
> ...


http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id=news/2005/aug05/aug23news3
Read, Learn


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## ttug (May 14, 2004)

*funny story*

I think the testing as they call it is wonderful.

I mean, they violate testing protocols, release private info and then of course, cant be certain, but we think etc etc.

Best of all, how about Leblancs "idea" of downgrading all wins when a rider is found to test positive....So, to the chase, Lance would lose his 7 titles, Virenque would be expelled in totum, Pantani would well, who cares, he died before they "cared", Riis, etc etc etc etc 

Man, this would be really cool....... I say go for it, violate all protocols, and nail everyone. Dont get burdened by facts when runnning a circus is paramount.


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## Live Steam (Feb 4, 2004)

That doesn't answer #5


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## il sogno (Jul 15, 2002)

Live Steam said:


> How did this trashy tabloid get the following?
> 1. the list of samples tested?
> 2. the results of the tests?
> 3. the corresponding numbers for each test?
> ...



If they're such a trashy tabloid why are we all so "steamed" over this?


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## dagger (Jul 22, 2004)

*Have you noticed...*



ttug said:


> Man, this would be really cool....... I say go for it, violate all protocols, and nail everyone. Dont get burdened by facts when runnning a circus is paramount.


That those in the left wing of our society probably will think that LA is guilty and side with the french on this.


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## Live Steam (Feb 4, 2004)

Traitors


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## dagger (Jul 22, 2004)

*Doesn't feel good*



magnolialover said:


> I was very "careful" in my wording, because at no time in my post did I actually say anything bad about Lance. I asked how it feels to be a Lance Fan-Boy now.
> 
> I also went on to say that the lab screwed up most likely, and that it was unfortunate that Lance could never actually prove his innocence for lack of an "A" sample. And with the "virutal" statement of wins, there now hangs a cloud over his wins because of this unfortunate incident.
> 
> Please go back, actually read what I wrote, and there is nothing in there anti-Lance. Thanks for playing.


Nothing anti-Lance just a bit smug...so no problem just somebody who feels vindicated by french "terrorism".

Just like it didn't feel good about Tyler...since I am a Tyler Fan boy too. No doubt that the lab and L'Equippe were acting in a conspiracy. If they wanted to get to the truth they would have followed protocol. They knew damn well they probably couldn't have proved LA was guilty by playing by the rules.


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## il sogno (Jul 15, 2002)

-I think the testing as they call it is wonderful.
-I mean, they violate testing protocols, 

Who violated protocols? The lab? L'Equipe? They are a newspaper and have nothing to do with the actual testing. 


-release private info and then of course, cant be certain, but we think -etc etc.

The lab can't release information they did not have in the first place and (how many times does this have to be said) they did not have the names.



-Best of all, how about Leblancs "idea" of downgrading all wins when a -rider is found to test positive....So, to the chase, Lance would lose his -7 titles, Virenque would be expelled in totum, Pantani would well, who -cares, he died before they "cared", Riis, etc etc etc etc 

-Man, this would be really cool....... I say go for it, violate all protocols, -and nail everyone. Dont get burdened by facts when runnning a -circus is paramount

I agree with you here let's nail everyone. There's no room for cheaters in any sport especially one as physically demanding as cycling.


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## magnolialover (Jun 2, 2004)

*Terrorism?!?!*



dagger said:


> Nothing anti-Lance just a bit smug...so no problem just somebody who feels vindicated by french "terrorism".
> 
> Just like it didn't feel good about Tyler...since I am a Tyler Fan boy too. No doubt that the lab and L'Equippe were acting in a conspiracy. If they wanted to get to the truth they would have followed protocol. They knew damn well they probably couldn't have proved LA was guilty by playing by the rules.


That's a good one right there. Terrorism... Hmm... Let me get back to you on that one.

I think that it is sad, and I do feel a bit uneasy about how this information came out, because as we all know, it's not the French who are out to get Armstrong, as he himself has said time and again, but the French media in particular, and the French legal system. I do believe that the protocols were not followed, and that these tests were meant to be scientific research without the "donor" names never being known, but of course, they have become known, well, at least one of them has become known. 

The bad thing about this, is that Armstrong actually CAN'T prove his innocence on this one, because there are no additional samples to review. They only had the B sample to test anyway, and in everything that I've read on this so far, there is some disagreement on whether or not EPO can be detected in urine after such a long time. One group says no, one group says yes, and so on and so forth.

They promoted this one to l'Equipe because it's sensational, and it sells papers, and they've been trying to nail Armstrong for so long, that this was too good to pass up. How do we even know that the samples that allegedly came up positive are even his?? There are so many holes in this story, that it's sad.

Unfortunately, most people will jump on board and believe it, and that's when it stinks to be a Lance fan-boy, because after all that he's done for the sport, and cancer, a lot of people are only going to remember that he got "popped" for being EPO positive. Sad but true. I'd like to see him take this to court so that he could either clear his name, or be "found" guilty....

Tyler is another story, and that had nothing to do with the French. I think Tyler has no chance in clearing his name, and he might as well hang it up. Although I'm sure after he serves his 2 year suspension, there will be a few domestic teams willing to hire him. 

It's funny that whenever an American riders gets busted for, or accused of doping, we all come out and proclaim how that possibly can't be. So and so is such a good person and all, blah blah blah... Although just conversely, whenever a foreigner gets popped, you all just assume that always to be the truth anyway, so there's no outrage.

Doping is a scourge on the sport of cycling, and the less cheaters we have, the better.


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## Mel Erickson (Feb 3, 2004)

No, I haven't noticed. I don't detect a right/left dichotomy.


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## dagger (Jul 22, 2004)

*False positives aren't funny*



magnolialover said:


> It's funny that whenever an American riders gets busted for, or accused of doping, we all come out and proclaim how that possibly can't be. So and so is such a good person and all, blah blah blah... Although just conversely, whenever a foreigner gets popped, you all just assume that always to be the truth anyway, so there's no outrage.
> 
> Doping is a scourge on the sport of cycling, and the less cheaters we have, the better.


and I honestly believe that there are and has been proven that there are people being accused of EPO use when they actually haven't been proven. There have been athletes who tested positive and then absolved under further scrutiny. Unless they start testing large numbers of people then the science is not going to be accurate(such as in Tyler's possible chimera).


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## Bocephus Jones II (Oct 7, 2004)

dagger said:


> Because posters' history is public and you will find that the one's who have been consistent anti LA will also be found in the political forums posting anti-right messages. How people think, affects all aspects of their beliefs.


I don't see the correlation. Personally I think we have 4possible scenarios here:

1) The majority of professional athletes in all sports dope to some extent and are good at fooling drug tests
2) The tests that are used to catch doping athletes are flawed and many innocent athletes are being accused of doping but are actually clean
3) The tests work fine, but doping athletes are often good liars and will deny to their dying day that they doped even when presented with incontravertable evidence otherwise
4) Someone intentionally is trying to frame athletes so that the publilc thinks they are dopers

Using Occams Razor which one is most probable? Probably 3.


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## dagger (Jul 22, 2004)

*Then do the research*



Mel Erickson said:


> No, I haven't noticed. I don't detect a right/left dichotomy.


Because posters' history is public and you will find that the one's who have been consistent anti LA will also be found in the political forums posting anti-right messages. How people think, affects all aspects of their beliefs.


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## Blue Sugar (Jun 14, 2005)

You seem to know a lot about the subject. Question- What test does the story refer to? My understanding was that no dirct test for EPO existed in 1999, only the hermatocrit test. Thats how they got Pantani. Has a direct test since been invented? What test are they testing the reliability of?




Old_school_nik said:


> sample where you aren't certain what is in the control from the get go. I read the same article about the debate on whether EPO can even last in frozen urin from that many years ago... but still if you don't know the urin has EPO in it in 1999, before you freeze it, how can you use it as a control sample? Its really bad science IMHO.
> 
> Besides that there are serious chain of custody issues with samples and lab docs say they can't confirm who the samples were from evenif there are codes on the vials.
> 
> ...


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## ttug (May 14, 2004)

*answer D*



Bocephus Jones II said:


> I don't see the correlation. Personally I think we have 4possible scenarios here:
> 
> 1) The majority of professional athletes in all sports dope to some extent and are good at fooling drug tests
> 2) The tests that are used to catch doping athletes are flawed and many innocent athletes are being accused of doping but are actually clean
> ...


ALL OF THE ABOVE


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## Bocephus Jones II (Oct 7, 2004)

ttug said:


> I think its all a bit nuts really.
> 
> Everyone is searching for the unmoved mover: A perfect test and a world where nobody ever cheats.
> 
> ...


agree...I don't really care. Let's watch a bike race. I think a lot of the outrage over this kind of thing stems from the way we put these riders up on pedestals.


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## Blue Sugar (Jun 14, 2005)

So there's now a direct test for EPO, not just the hermmatocrit test used in 1999?




Americano_a_Roma said:


> Just to clarify a couple things: that figure I posted was from the Nature article describing the protocol used to test urine samples, published back in 2000; it's an example of the test used in the current case, but has no bearing on the results of the LA test.
> 
> From cyclingnews.com, day before yesterday: The retrospective testing was carried out since December 2004 on the entirety of the Tour de France 1999 B samples, and determined twelve positive samples - six of which belonged to Lance Armstrong.
> 
> ...


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## ttug (May 14, 2004)

*left, right no z axis??*



dagger said:


> and I honestly believe that there are and has been proven that there are people being accused of EPO use when they actually haven't been proven. There have been athletes who tested positive and then absolved under further scrutiny. Unless they start testing large numbers of people then the science is not going to be accurate(such as in Tyler's possible chimera).


I think its all a bit nuts really.

Everyone is searching for the unmoved mover: A perfect test and a world where nobody ever cheats.

Well, it aint so. Life is not fair and yet we are all going to make it to another day.

Personally, I could not care less where they are from, who they sleep with and what they snort, its really pointless and kind of well .....boring


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## Mel Erickson (Feb 3, 2004)

Well, since it's your claim how 'bout you do the research? My guess, and yes it's a guess, is that it's all over the board. BTW, how would you classify my leanings? Lot's of people, including myself, will play devils advocate when asking questions. Also, I haven't made up my mind yet on this one.


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## rocco (Apr 30, 2005)

dagger said:


> That those in the left wing of our society probably will think that LA is guilty and side with the french on this.


Wrong! Steam could verify that.


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## rocco (Apr 30, 2005)

dagger said:


> Nothing anti-Lance just a bit smug...so no problem just somebody who feels vindicated by french "terrorism".
> 
> Just like it didn't feel good about Tyler...since I am a Tyler Fan boy too. No doubt that the lab and L'Equippe were acting in a conspiracy. If they wanted to get to the truth they would have followed protocol. They knew damn well they probably couldn't have proved LA was guilty by playing by the rules.


"terrorism" is a bit much... Don't you think you may be getting a little too far out over the front your skies now?


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## rocco (Apr 30, 2005)

ttug said:


> ALL OF THE ABOVE


I agree... Because there's plenty of evidence to support it.


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## txzen (Apr 6, 2005)

Live Steam said:


> If this was just a test to determine if EPO can, for lack of any real scientific knowledge, remain in state while frozen, then why would they need to know anything about the subject urine's corresponding identity?


Here's a better question:

If you want to determine if EPO can be detected in the urine many years later, WHY would you test samples that have an UNKNOWN EPO content? It doesn't make any sense scientifically. What you need is a control - say a urine sample from a cancer patient that had been frozen that amount of time. 

You don't develop a test by testing unknowns.


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## txzen (Apr 6, 2005)

Blue Sugar said:


> So there's now a direct test for EPO, not just the hermmatocrit test used in 1999?



Yes. As detailed in my post above, they are looking for two different forms of EPO. The recombinant one that you inject has different sugar residues on it than the endogenous one. The proteins themselves are identical, but the final form is not.

This highlights the difficult of the test, especially when you take into account the fact that different people produce quite varying amounts of EPO and that under some circumstances either endogenous EPO can be modified to look like recombinant, or that contaminating proteins in the urine may give a false positive.

There have been at least two high-profile cases where a positive was later overturned.


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## dagger (Jul 22, 2004)

*Isn't part of the problem that they were trying to fix is in the mathematical models*



Americano_a_Roma said:


> Just out of curiosity, how is the test as you describe it different from the one in the original Nature paper. I imagine that they've refinded and automated the protocol, and possibly characterized more types of recombinant EPO, but it still looks like isoelectric focusing to detect differential post-translational modifications specific to the organism of origin.
> 
> Also, do you know what organism they produce this stuff in (I assume they use cultured cells, not animals)? If I were producing a bunch of protein I'd use bacteria, but I don't know if the product would be pharmaceutical grade... And why, specifically, is recombinant EPO differentially glycosylated? Is it organism specific or cell-type specific? Quick Robin, to PubMed!


Don't the models help determine the ranges in which the bands fall within?


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## dagger (Jul 22, 2004)

*Terrorism is correct*



rocco said:


> "terrorism" is a bit much... Don't you think you may be getting a little too far out over the front your skies now?


Because L'Equip wanted to create pandemonium and hysteria. Anyway after today I am finished with this subject because it doesn't mean anything.


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## magnolialover (Jun 2, 2004)

*Lack of evidence though..*



dagger said:


> and I honestly believe that there are and has been proven that there are people being accused of EPO use when they actually haven't been proven. There have been athletes who tested positive and then absolved under further scrutiny. Unless they start testing large numbers of people then the science is not going to be accurate(such as in Tyler's possible chimera).


As I've stated in other cases, when you lack evidence to back up your assertions, then you've got nothing really. People have not been accussed of EPO use, they've been busted using EPO, and that has been proven. There is new evidence out there now saying that it might be possible that the EPO tests provide false positives, and that is currently under review. There is only one athlete thus far that has tested positive and then absolved for EPO use, and that was the Belgian triathlete. Nobody else has been absolved. 

I'm willing to cut LA some slack here since he has about a million negative tests over time, and also because he can't go back and ask for his second sample to be either confirmed or denied in this case. So it's a bit of a "gray" area.

Tyler's possible chimera and bullshit like that, well, let's just look at it. So far, the UCI and WADA have run the test presumably thousands of times since Athens in 2004. Now, I really love it when people claim that the test can have however many false positives come out of yet, and yet, we have only seen 2 positives come out of that test. Where are all of these other "false positives" that so many people seem to think will come out of this test? They aren't there.

Chances are good, Tyler did it. If he gets off in September, I'll then say he didn't. So at this point in time, he has been proven guilty, and it's still under appeal. We'll see in September.


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## Dwayne Barry (Feb 16, 2003)

dagger said:


> If he went in for the prologue he would have had to been on the juice for a while and would have elevated levels.


Surely Lance and/or Ferrari have them. The UCI probably doesn't because they wouldn't have tested him everyday, but you can bet any top rider is testing himself every morning of a race to ensure he is not over the 50% mark. You would also expect to see his hematocrit drop off as the race progressed.


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## FTF (Aug 5, 2003)

dagger said:


> Because L'Equip wanted to create pandemonium and hysteria. Anyway after today I am finished with this subject because it doesn't mean anything.


 I guess fox news is guilty of terrorism then, esp. when they released the names of "terrorists" who were not terrorists?


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## rocco (Apr 30, 2005)

dagger said:


> Because L'Equip wanted to create pandemonium and hysteria. Anyway after today I am finished with this subject because it doesn't mean anything.


Hey I think lots of nasty things have occured here. I've been saying everyone is looking dirty on this one. I think this scandle may rank high among all time sports scandles but calling it terrorism lacks nuance and perspective. I would call the bad actors on this thing zealots. 

When "officials" or "authorities" do these kind of things they are just as suspect as the one they are accusing. As far as I'm concerned at this point I would say that some insider or insiders may very well have juiced the piss. It seems just as plausible as anything. The anti-doping people are humans too. They are just as susceptible to temptation as everyone else. Cyclists aren't the only cheats in this world. 

Keep in mind that cheats and misguided zealots exist outside of France. There've been many crooked cops and prosecutors in this country who were guilty of extremely unethical practices too. 

Remember that it's just sports and people acting like big @ssholes. That all seems fairly banal to me. It doesn't really mean anything. 

If Leblanc wants to scorch the earth, piss on his own show and downgrade at least 75% of all the past TDF winners over the last 40 years then let him. Some other great bike race just might take it's place. Many ***** about the primacy of the TDF over the whole of cycling anyway. Many say as Paris goes so does the whole of France but cycling is bigger than that. Cycling is bigger than Amoury, L'equip, Leblanc, LNDD, WADA, Pound, UCI or any of those things. Let them make themselves irrelevant.


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## mellowman (Apr 17, 2004)

txzen said:


> Here's a better question:
> 
> If you want to determine if EPO can be detected in the urine many years later, WHY would you test samples that have an UNKNOWN EPO content? It doesn't make any sense scientifically. What you need is a control - say a urine sample from a cancer patient that had been frozen that amount of time.
> 
> You don't develop a test by testing unknowns.


LNDD was NOT using the urine samples from '99 to DEVELOP the new test. The new test is already developed. LNDD was using the urine samples from '99 to BENCHMARK the new test vs the old (circa '00) EPO urine test. So they used what real world sample they had from riders who might have doped from a time before there was a test for EPO in urine. The benchmark was still research though and has not been publicly release by the lab.

Futhermore, despite what Armstrong would like the public to believe from last night Larry King Live. Neither LNDD, nor the WADA, nor the French ministry of sport has confirmed the leak test result OR that Armstrong was positive for EPO. ONLY L'Equipe newspaper has said this from leaked documents and "investigative" journalism. Lance better watch his words more or LNDD/WADA/UCI might interpret what he said has an authorization to release the research findings and identify him (if it really is him) and I don't think Lance really wants that to happen.


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## magnolialover (Jun 2, 2004)

*Terrorism???*



dagger said:


> Because L'Equip wanted to create pandemonium and hysteria. Anyway after today I am finished with this subject because it doesn't mean anything.


Terrorism? You have got to be ****ingkidding me!!! This is the stupidest thing I have ever seen claim on this website, and that is a lot of craziness to have sifted through.

Pandemonium? Only in the 1/2 of the .005% of the people in the world that would actually care about this.

Hysteria? The only people getting hysterical about this are the Lance Fan-Boys. Lance of course is not even hysterical about it, but adamant that he did not dope, ever... 

Let's take a look at a real definition of terrorism shall we?

Definitions of "terrorism" generally involve some or all of the following:

A terrorist act is generally unlawful. 
It is violent and may be life threatening. 
The violence is politically motivated. 
The direct targets are civilians. 
The direct targets may not be the main targets. 
The main targets may be one or more nation-states, governments, or societies; or a political, ethnic, or religious group, or an industry or commercial operation, within those societies. 
The objective is usually to intimidate the main targets. 
There may or may not be a claim of responsibility. 
The perpetrator is usually a non-state entity. Where there is direct state involvement, the state actors are clandestine or semi-clandestine. See State terrorism. 

Terrorism expert A.P. Schmid of the United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention has proposed a short legal definition for use by the UN, namely that an act of terrorism is "the peacetime equivalent of a war crime". Although the term is often used imprecisely, there have been many attempts by various law enforcement agencies and public organizations to develop more precise working definitions of terrorism.

And a whole lot more information can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism

So before you go spouting off about this being "terrorism" please at least learn about what you're talking about. To say that this was an act of terrorism not only denigrates the memory of people who have died because of terrorist acts, but it shows stupidity beyond reason.


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## ttug (May 14, 2004)

*Why EPO???*



Dwayne Barry said:


> Surely Lance and/or Ferrari have them. The UCI probably doesn't because they wouldn't have tested him everyday, but you can bet any top rider is testing himself every morning of a race to ensure he is not over the 50% mark. You would also expect to see his hematocrit drop off as the race progressed.



So, by 1999, is EPO is pretty much the "cutting edge" drug of enhancement? I doubtthat.

However, why would a person a well funded team, use a drug that is not really the "best" at that time? Then, again, taking the drug during the race as some have asserted, thats really, well.....wrong. From what I recall, it does not quite work that way. In fact, the metaphor everyone wants to use is Popeye and the spinach can. Skinny guy, getting whipped, breaks open a can of spinach, ingests the spinach and KABOOM, he becomes invincible.

Yuh, I do have this image, Lance is fading on the Mountain, one syringe and KABOOM, he flies away!!!!! WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG

Again, I have no feelings for the athlete. Its the utterly laughable way in which folks want to depict the use of performance enhancing drugs. No protocols were used, its known to have errors and gee, in the current environment we all know that there is absolutely no bias at all on either side of the fence.

COME ON.......Gotta go train ON MY BIKE NOW, I would love to tell ya how much I really care about our cycling eunich and his odyssey of cancer survival. WHO CARES????? Its a bike race. Its fun, if they dope, they will croak after a while anyway. SO WHAT???


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## wipeout (Jun 6, 2005)

Dang, IBM just called me up and said that the results from my 1985 urine re-re-testing have shown that I used too much caffeine and that this level was deemed unacceptable. As a result, I would have been fired and now owe them 2 years of salary. Come to think of it, the caller sounded French.. Hmm.


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## atpjunkie (Mar 23, 2002)

*retro penalties*

so we'll strip Anquetil, retest and strip Fignon, Simpson, ............

actually I don't mind if they strip Virenque, I hate that guy.

it's why they'd never retroactively do such, Virenque is a national treasure.


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## il sogno (Jul 15, 2002)

*Or Traiteurs???*

A French delicatessen or caterer. Yum!


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## Bocephus Jones II (Oct 7, 2004)

wipeout said:


> Dang, IBM just called me up and said that the results from my 1985 urine re-re-testing have shown that I used too much caffeine and that this level was deemed unacceptable. As a result, I would have been fired and now owe them 2 years of salary. Come to think of it, the caller sounded French.. Hmm.


Really...I heard they caught some French guy trying to exhume the body of George Washington the other day. He was going to try and prove once and for all that he did indeed smoke hemp.


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## Phnlwyr (Aug 8, 2005)

Bocephus Jones II said:


> Really...I heard they caught some French guy trying to exhume the body of George Washington the other day. He was going to try and prove once and for all that he did indeed smoke hemp.


I heard the same thing, but the proposed test can only determine if he took a drag, not if he inhaled. 

I do believe that if a French team won the World Series or the Super Bowl seven years in a row, we Americans would leap at the opportunity to cry foul at the slightest suggestion of tomfoolery. Those events are, afterall, two of the most "American" sporting events. The same logic (though perhaps flawed) would apply with the French and the TDF. An American has dominated their national event for seven straight years. That's 7years Francios! So, I cannot really blame the French for their zeal in trying to stick it to LA. They're still chicken sh!t frogs lovers, but national pride is national pride. No sweat, we'll talk about it over beers in Iraq. Oh, that's right, they declined to participate.


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## Mel Erickson (Feb 3, 2004)

The problem with this reasoning is, due to the sorry state of drug testing and drug policies in the NFL and MLB, our papers wouldn't have anything to dredge up and acuse them with.


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## djg (Nov 27, 2001)

il sogno said:


> If they're such a trashy tabloid why are we all so "steamed" over this?


Folks are probably steamed or not (or more or less) for different reasons. Both those who suspect (or want to believe) guilt and those who suspect (or want to believe) innocence might be perturbed by the somewhat murky circumstances in which this testing was done and in which the identification was made. Many who are interested one way or another may be steamed because there seem to be technical questions on the table which they (or most 'em, at any rate) are not equipped to discuss in any kind of serious way.

Personally, I'm concerned less about the paper than about what seems to me an abuse of science, which is a kind of thing I worry about even when Lance is out of the picture entirely.


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## supercrank (Feb 20, 2004)

"What they wanted to do was to see if this test would still work to detect EPO in 5-year old samples. It would be impractical to take samples from treated and untreated athletes, freeze them, wait 5 years and then do the test. So they did the next best thing: they took all the samples from the 1999 tour, figuring that some would be illegal and some would be normal."

I understand this. However, I'm arguing that the results of the testing may not be scientifically valid, and thus should not be accorded the same gravity as results from freshly tested urine. I agree that it would be much more labor intensive to perform a prospective analysis on known rHuEPO positive samples and negative controls over a 5 year period, yet something along these lines is exactly what is required to validate the results of their testing (especially if the UCI and WADA are thinking of instituting retrospective testing on old samples). Unfortunately, L'Equipe is not held to this standard.

I did a quick pubmed search and found a paper which documented stability of erythropoetin in serum (not urine) frozen at -20C for 14 days, but nothing beyond this. Refrigerated recombinant human EPO for injection has been demonstrated to be stable with stable glycosylation (and thus, probable stable isoelectric point) over a 3-6 week period, but this is not EPO in urine that has been frozen for 5 years. One paper reported significant degradation of serum BNP at -20C over a 2-4 month storage time, while other peptides can remain stable at this temperature over a three year period. I have not yet found anything which describes stability of urinary EPO electropherograms over a long time period, though researchers in the field seem to think that they should remain stable.

What this tells me is that the French study has simply demonstrated that erythropoetin can be detected in urine that has been frozen for 5 years, and that one can probably distinguish different isoforms in these samples. My OPINION is that without better direct or indirect evidence that this test's results are highly reproducible over the lifespan of a 5 year old urine sample, one cannot comment on the sensitivity or specificity of the assay as a test for recombinant EPO abuse 5 years ago. Lance's 6 positives out of 17 samples are a BIG statistical anomaly, but frankly, I don't know what to make of them, especially considering the dubious manner in which the info for this story was obtained.

disclaimer: I'm totally biased. If a story like this had come out pointing the finger at Virenque prior to his confession, I probably would have turned a blind eye toward the holes in the evidence.


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## Guest (Aug 27, 2005)

*Will anyone's opinion of Armstrong really change..............*

Some very good points made here both for and against Mr. Armstrong. Thank you Americano a Roma, txzen and Supercrank for some science lessons and extended research for a lay-person when it comes to what's involved in EPO testing. Many others made some compelling points for and against (once I read past the name calling and mud slinging).

But from what I read, it looks like those Pro-LA have not been shaken (although I have been a bit rattled) and the Con-LA have what they've been hoping for. Anyone here feel differently about the man now than they did a month ago because of this?

My biggest problem with all of this is:
1) How neatly it has come together so that Mr. Armstrong cannot scientifically refute the findings, and;
2) I personally would give the investigative journalists more credibility if they would not have been associated with the French press (yes, I think the French press is biased), and;
3) Armstrong's speech in Paris (which makes much more sense to me in this light, but much of which seemed weird for him to say at the time and in the context of winning his 7th).

I wasn't much of a Mr.Armstrong fan until last year (for many of the reasons stated in this thread - Brash, Cocky, Cold, etc.). However, as a very recent testicular cancer survivor, I owe much of the quality of my recovery, the will to get out of bed after several hours of chemotherapy and walk on the damned treadmill or climb on my $#%@!! trainer and a (usually) positive outlook throughout my treatment to Mr. Armstrong personally. More than a few times it was, "Christ, if he can ride 6 Tours, let alone win, I can do another 10 minutes". 

His days on the bike are over. If he doped and it can be proven to the extent that it was for Hamilton (my luck to be a big Hamilton fan - and I accept the "fact" he doped) and others recently, officially take away his title and legacy. period. Don't sugar coat it and don't get wishy-washy.

But what now? From what I've read it's something like "the results of these tests prove he used EPO but not officially and therefore he keeps his titles". Who wins and who loses with that statement?

I'm guessing for the majority of cycling fans, this is about our biggest sporting event and whether Mr. Armstrong legitimately deserves his titles. For a few others, it means a bit more. 

Bill
a/k/a - one of the bigger "Lance Fan-Boy(s)"


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## Dwayne Barry (Feb 16, 2003)

ttug said:


> So, by 1999, is EPO is pretty much the "cutting edge" drug of enhancement? I doubtthat.


What does that have to do with anything? Cutting edge, who knows? It works and it was undetectable at the time. Only in the last few years have there become non-EPO drugs that would boost red blood cell levels (Aranesp, Hemasyst I believe are a couple) plus I think there are now some "artificial" hemoglobin type drugs.


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## Dwayne Barry (Feb 16, 2003)

ttug said:


> So, by 1999, is EPO is pretty much the "cutting edge" drug of enhancement? I doubtthat.


What does that have to do with anything? Cutting edge, who knows? It works and it was undetectable at the time. Only in the last few years have there become non-EPO drugs that would boost red blood cell levels (Aranesp, Hemasyst I believe are a couple) plus I think there are now some "artificial" hemoglobin type drugs.


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## ttug (May 14, 2004)

*the point....*



Dwayne Barry said:


> What does that have to do with anything? Cutting edge, who knows? It works and it was undetectable at the time. Only in the last few years have there become non-EPO drugs that would boost red blood cell levels (Aranesp, Hemasyst I believe are a couple) plus I think there are now some "artificial" hemoglobin type drugs.



If by 1999, EPO was a common drug, THEN, there must have been/should have been, a "better" drug for the purposes stated. WHY use a "common" drug when as a pro, you have access to "the best". Or so one would think blah blah blah


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## Dwayne Barry (Feb 16, 2003)

ttug said:


> If by 1999, EPO was a common drug, THEN, there must have been/should have been, a "better" drug for the purposes stated. WHY use a "common" drug when as a pro, you have access to "the best". Or so one would think blah blah blah


Who do you think is developing these drugs?
What makes you think EPO isn't the "best" still for boosting RBC levels?


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