# Bitches, I told you so... (Lance Armstrong related) **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 24, 2005, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bitches-i-told-you-so-lance-armstrong-related/318421 "2005-08-24T14:12:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Boo\_Boo\_Foo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@Boo\_Boo\_Foo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boo_Boo_Foo)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2005, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bitches-i-told-you-so-lance-armstrong-related/318421/121 "2005-08-26T04:32:24Z")
> [@Loopydude](#): > > It would be easier for individual riders to build their own hypobaric chambers than extract their own epo in their basement, I’m guessing. You would need affinity columns or some sort of reasonably sophisticated chromatography setup, concetrators of some sort (maybe AMICON centrifuge filters - and, uh, a centrifuge), you’d need a way to assay lots for activity so you don’t either screw the pooch or give yourself erythrocytopenia, keep everything sterile and preserved, etc. While I don’t doubt the riders could be trained to do the work in a few years, it would be tough to manage, and the costs in supplies would be huge. Not to mention the fact that a home EPO-extraction lab would probably be difficult to conceal for long, much less explain. Thanks for that. Hence, what are the chances that there are labs performing this service on a large scale on behalf of Pro Tour Teams do you think? Or is recombinant EPO really the only viable option at a commercial level? In closing however… do you think it’s theoretically possible to extract enough EPO from your own urine that you could reinject it to artificially raise your haemotocrit levels to the magic 50-52% mark? I’m told you’re allowed a 2% margin of error in the UCI regulations and that 50% is the cutoff mark before you’re ruled out of a race on medical grounds but not given a suspension. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2005, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bitches-i-told-you-so-lance-armstrong-related/318421/122 "2005-08-26T05:27:57Z")
> [@PunditLisa](#): > > He won [i[this\* year, when he was under a great deal of scrutiny. And he obviously tested clean. Absolutely, positively, certifiably clean. You’re not going to get anywhere in this debate till you realise that there ain’t no such thing. The whole tour has been under a great deal of scrutiny for several years. Several riders have been caught or as good as caught by other means _while testing absolutely positively certifiably clean_. David Millar comes to mind. > [@](#): > > Now, if a dude can win the TdF this year without PED’s, why is it so damn implausible that he could have won it 7 years ago without PED’s, when he had fitness, training, AND age on his side. It’s not. But it has nothing to do with this debate because no one’s saying he dopes because he wins. It’s a fundamental misunderstanding that happens every time we have this debate. > [@](#): > > Unless someone comes up with proof, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. What will constitute proof? **Threemae** , unless you were in France a few weeks ago racing around on your tricycle, you don’t have a rooster in this cockfight. So why the hostility? [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2005, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bitches-i-told-you-so-lance-armstrong-related/318421/123 "2005-08-26T05:29:20Z")
Sorry that last line is not mine, it’s a bit left over from what I was quoting of PunditLisa. ---
**Author:** ![Fiveyearlurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/da6949/32.png) [@Fiveyearlurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiveyearlurker)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2005, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bitches-i-told-you-so-lance-armstrong-related/318421/124 "2005-08-26T12:06:27Z")
> [@threemae](#): > > **lurker** , I think the most important question here is, what exactly would you propose could cause a false positive on this test, outside of cases such as the Belgian triathlete where he always produced basic isoforms in his urine. That there was some vast conspiracy to plant EPO in the blinded test tubes? That someone managed to track down Armstrong’s sample numbers, sneak into the lab, unfreeze the samples, place EPO in them, add EPO to six other random samples, and then add trace amounts to a bunch of others so that they would come back “weak positives” and never get reported? Really, I understand how it’s possible, but what’s more likely? That Armstrong was doped with a shit-load of EPO and that EPO will survive for a few years at -20 C or the above conspiracy. It doesn’t need to be insidious. Again, I guess you can doubt my expertise, and anyone who has ever run more than five gels in their lives can jump in and support or refut this, but sometimes bands just appear. Gels, be they Southern, Western (2D is just a more impressive Western), Northern or DNA are notorious for giving bands that aren’t supposed to be there. About a month ago, I pulled up a band of exactly the size I was looking for on a DNA gel. It would have been a huge finding. Problem is that I sequenced the band and it turned out to be the gene for prostaglandin E. What the hell the gene for prostaglandin was doing in this sample, I have no idea, but had I gone just by the gel, I would have concluded that I had an interesting finding that I didn’t have. I avoided this by repeating the experiment several times and not being able to pull that band up again, leading me to question it and sequence it. Lest you question my gel abilities, you’ll always see talks where people present their data, and just ignore bands that don’t make sense. There is even a term for them; they’re called “artifacts” and they pop up all the time. Sometimes bands just appear. It’s called false positives. Which is why I say if they could repeat this with another LA sample, I would have been a lot more impressed. One gel doesn’t mean a thing. ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2005, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bitches-i-told-you-so-lance-armstrong-related/318421/125 "2005-08-26T13:57:38Z")
> [@Boo Boo Foo](#): > > Thanks for that. Hence, what are the chances that there are labs performing this service on a large scale on behalf of Pro Tour Teams do you think? Or is recombinant EPO really the only viable option at a commercial level? > > In closing however… do you think it’s theoretically possible to extract enough EPO from your own urine that you could reinject it to artificially raise your haemotocrit levels to the magic 50-52% mark? I’m told you’re allowed a 2% margin of error in the UCI regulations and that 50% is the cutoff mark before you’re ruled out of a race on medical grounds but not given a suspension. Well, as far as facilities go, I supppose, though I don’t think it probable. I’ve heard of grad students setting up some positively state-of-the-art LSD or meth labs in a loft, so I guess one has to keep the “mother of invention” factor in mind. As for harvesting human EPO, in the seminal [paper](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=18467&query_hl=3) on the subject, Miyake, et al. got about 10mg of EPO from _2550 liters_ of urine from people with aplastic anemia, a condition characterized by abnormally high levels of circulating erythropoietin (the EPO conc. in the urine collected was around 1-2 IU/ml - to put this in perscpective, dosing for anemics is around 20 IU/kg, 3 times per week). Getting EPO from one rider in useful amounts is going to be a chore. But no matter. Just get a boatload of urine from whoever; it’s all the same protein. It’s got to be handled reasonably carefully and processed quickly, because, as we’ve been discussing, urine isn’t the best stuff to keep EPO lying around in. So sure, it’s _possible_ one could be collecting urine from scores of people and passing big vats of it over columns and so forth, but this is not a small operation. The whole reason EPO was one of the first recombinant proteins brought to market is because this process, while not a total money loser, is a huge, messy, costly pain in the ass. Can it be done? Sure. Is it likely? I personally really don’t think so, but who knows. ---
**Author:** ![PunditLisa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/4af34b/32.png) [@PunditLisa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PunditLisa)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2005, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bitches-i-told-you-so-lance-armstrong-related/318421/126 "2005-08-26T15:55:25Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > You’re not going to get anywhere in this debate till you realise that there ain’t no such thing. The whole tour has been under a great deal of scrutiny for several years. Several riders have been caught or as good as caught by other means _while testing absolutely positively certifiably clean_. David Millar comes to mind. “Or as good as caught” doesn’t fly with me. There’s either proof or there isn’t. In Armstrong’s case, there isn’t. The “evidence” presented is laughable. There are strict protocols re labeling, logging, handling of material, etc. that labs need to follow. Reporters are neither trained nor qualified to run drug tests. And they are biased. Therefore, their “conclusions” are worthless. > [@](#): > > It’s not. But it has nothing to do with this debate because no one’s saying he dopes because he wins. We’re having this debate because people are claiming LA dopes but have failed to offer proof. And even if one day someone offers up some empirical data to support these claims, it still does not make me a “bitch” for being healthily skeptical. Rational people should be skeptical, especially when the source is so clearly biased. > [@](#): > > What will constitute proof? A positive test for PEDs by a reputable lab. ---
**Author:** ![threemae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5f9b8f/32.png) [@threemae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/threemae)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2005, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bitches-i-told-you-so-lance-armstrong-related/318421/127 "2005-08-26T16:38:29Z")
> [@Fiveyearlurker](#): > > It doesn’t need to be insidious. Again, I guess you can doubt my expertise, and anyone who has ever run more than five gels in their lives can jump in and support or refut this, but sometimes bands just appear. Gels, be they Southern, Western (2D is just a more impressive Western), Northern or DNA are notorious for giving bands that aren’t supposed to be there. Yes, and twelve distinct bands of them just hapen to consistently be in the exact location where synthetic EPO shows up, in urine, which doesn’t contain a lot of protein anyway. And remember, the lab doesn’t have to really do any extraction to run these samples. They aren’t putting Lance Armstrong in a blender, grinding him up, and using chromatography to get out the EPO. They’re running a straight 2-d gel from his urine. Again, what’s more likely here? The director of the French lab, the Canadian lab, and all of the other anti-dope labs agree that synthetic EPO bands don’t, “just show up,” in _their_ samples. ---
**Author:** ![threemae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5f9b8f/32.png) [@threemae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/threemae)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2005, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bitches-i-told-you-so-lance-armstrong-related/318421/128 "2005-08-26T16:41:24Z")
> [@PunditLisa](#): > > “Or as good as caught” doesn’t fly with me. There’s either proof or there isn’t. In Armstrong’s case, there isn’t. The “evidence” presented is laughable. There are strict protocols re labeling, logging, handling of material, etc. that labs need to follow. Reporters are neither trained nor qualified to run drug tests. And they are biased. Therefore, their “conclusions” are worthless. Jesus H. Christ. 120 odd posts into this thread. You think that L’Equippe ran the 2-d gels? Jesus H. Fucking Christ. Reread the thread. Please. Fer’ Chrissakes that was a stupid comment. ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2005, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bitches-i-told-you-so-lance-armstrong-related/318421/129 "2005-08-26T16:41:33Z")
> [@PunditLisa](#): > > The “evidence” presented is laughable. It may or may not be laughable, but it is most certainly experimental, and simply _should not_ hold weight when determining guilt or innocence. There is, IMO, considerable reasonable doubt about the integrity of the entire procedure, from storage, to handling, to interpretation of data, to the manner in which the data was revealed. No one has any business declairing guilt about anyone based on this data, even if it could be proven to be 100% correct, in no small part because it can’t be, by the lab’s own admission. What’s laughable is the lack of anything resembling integrity and due process. We know results we should never have known about a test that is not officially sanctioned and cannot be further verified about an individual who just happens to be the best cyclist in history. Unacceptable. Dubious techniques, dubious motivation, dubious ethics, insufficient regulatory oversight, probably non-actionable, and most certainly worth maintaining the highest standards of privacy over. The fact we know any information about individuals whose samples were being used for validation of an assay that has not been fully vetted by the appropriate regulatory bodies is no better than illegal search-and-siezure, IMO. And when people show so much enthusiasm for catching an individual that they sacrifice integrity in the process, serious questions about evidence tampering are most certainly NOT out of line. ---
**Author:** ![Fiveyearlurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/da6949/32.png) [@Fiveyearlurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiveyearlurker)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2005, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bitches-i-told-you-so-lance-armstrong-related/318421/130 "2005-08-26T17:01:04Z")
> [@threemae](#): > > Yes, and twelve distinct bands of them just hapen to consistently be in the exact location where synthetic EPO shows up, in urine, which doesn’t contain a lot of protein anyway. > > And remember, the lab doesn’t have to really do any extraction to run these samples. They aren’t putting Lance Armstrong in a blender, grinding him up, and using chromatography to get out the EPO. They’re running a straight 2-d gel from his urine. Again, what’s more likely here? The director of the French lab, the Canadian lab, and all of the other anti-dope labs agree that synthetic EPO bands don’t, “just show up,” in _their_ samples. It wasn’t “consistent”. It happened once with one sample. I’m making one simple statement that an n of 1 is nice, but no conclusions should be drawn. Any number of things can happen to make a false positive once. If it comes up positive from three to five independent samples, then I’ll conclude that he is doping. ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2005, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bitches-i-told-you-so-lance-armstrong-related/318421/131 "2005-08-26T17:05:07Z")
Whether the science is bad or good, reliable or unreliable is not nearly as important to me as the incredible breach of ethics that has gone on here that allowed _L’Equipe_ to even make this an issue. ---
**Author:** ![Lamar\_Mundane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lamar\_Mundane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamar_Mundane)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2005, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bitches-i-told-you-so-lance-armstrong-related/318421/132 "2005-08-26T17:23:37Z")
If he is guilty, then he sure is a good actor - he does the righteous indignation thing really well. He has shown up on all the big TV interviews sans lawyers, plus he is speaking to print reporters freely. It seems to me he is either setting himself up for a big fall, or else he is, you know, innocent. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2005, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bitches-i-told-you-so-lance-armstrong-related/318421/133 "2005-08-26T17:34:20Z")
> [@Loopydude](#): > > I’d like to think I’m _not_ at all talking out of my ass on the subject of EPO storage. Just to be sure that this “expertise” of yours was acquired naturally, would you mind peeing in this cup? 😉 What’s the difference between the natural stuff and the recombinant stuff? ---
**Author:** ![Fiveyearlurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/da6949/32.png) [@Fiveyearlurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiveyearlurker)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2005, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bitches-i-told-you-so-lance-armstrong-related/318421/134 "2005-08-26T17:43:04Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > Just to be sure that this “expertise” of yours was acquired naturally, would you mind peeing in this cup? 😉 > What’s the difference between the natural stuff and the recombinant stuff? The amino acid sequences are the same, but post-translational modifications would be different. I believe that they are glycosylated differently, meaning that sugars are attached to the protein in different conformations. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2005, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bitches-i-told-you-so-lance-armstrong-related/318421/135 "2005-08-26T17:48:26Z")
But it still works the same way? ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2005, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bitches-i-told-you-so-lance-armstrong-related/318421/136 "2005-08-26T18:09:38Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > What’s the difference between the natural stuff and the recombinant stuff? Post-translational modification. Human EPO and recombinant EPO have the same amino acid sequence, but chinese hamster ovary (CHO) and baby hamster kidney (BHK) cells, which have been used to produce it in large quantities _in vitro_, make slightly different modifications to that amino acid chain once it’s been polymerized and mostly folded than the human kidney cells that naturally produce EPO in adults. Specifically, human cells normally modify EPO so that specific sorts of sugar chains are added to four particular amino acids (three different asparagines, which provide the N-links and one serine, which provides the O-link), though there is a natural heterogeneity in the number of sugar subunits (specifically sialic acid) that get tacked on. CHO and BHK cells do a pretty good job, but after they process EPO, it’s not quite the same as the human variety. You can find characteristic differences in sialation, in particular, which are due in part to the basic biochemistry of the cells, and in part to the batch process and the contiditinos the protein is exposed to in culture. These differences can be seen with a sufficiently sensitive assay. It’s actually somewhat surprising to me that a 2D protein gel electrophoresis method would be favored over a chromatography or mass spectrometry method, but maybe it’s a convenience thing, I don’t know. Anyway, depending on the numbers of these sugars, and where they are, there will be mass and charge differences between EPO glycoforms, and those glycoforms can be resolved on a 2D gel, which first separates proteins by charge, and then by apparent size. ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2005, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bitches-i-told-you-so-lance-armstrong-related/318421/137 "2005-08-26T18:10:56Z")
On preview, my post is a long-winded vsn. of what **FYL** said. ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2005, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bitches-i-told-you-so-lance-armstrong-related/318421/138 "2005-08-26T18:12:01Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > But it still works the same way? Yes. There may be slight differences in immunogenicity, and so forth, but for the most part recombinant EPO and native human EPO are remarkably similar. ---
**Author:** ![Fiveyearlurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/da6949/32.png) [@Fiveyearlurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiveyearlurker)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2005, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bitches-i-told-you-so-lance-armstrong-related/318421/139 "2005-08-26T18:21:37Z")
> [@Loopydude](#): > > On preview, my post is a long-winded vsn. of what **FYL** said. Yeah, but mine was the extent of my knowledge, and I get the feeling you knew more than you wrote! ---
**Author:** ![threemae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5f9b8f/32.png) [@threemae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/threemae)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2005, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bitches-i-told-you-so-lance-armstrong-related/318421/140 "2005-08-26T18:39:58Z")
> [@Loopydude](#): > > It may or may not be laughable, but it is most certainly experimental, and simply > _should not_ hold weight when determining guilt or innocence. There is, IMO, considerable reasonable doubt about the integrity of the entire procedure, from storage, to handling, to interpretation of data, to the manner in which the data was revealed. Well, what exactly do you mean by guilt or innocence? If this were a criminal trial over doping, there are certainly, “shadows of a reasonable doubt” and I wouldn’t hesitate to acquit Mr. Armstrong if I were on a jury. But this isn’t a criminal trial. As observers of the sport, we’re well within out rights to decide if Mr. Armstrong is a doper or not. Now the evidence is pretty overwhelming that he is. 95 to 5, I’d venture. And what will result from all of this? Nothing. There’s not a snowball’s chance in hell that he’ll be sanctioned for this because the A sample was used up back in 1999, and he shouldn’t be because athletes have a right to due process and A and B sample testing with the same positive results. I’ve said this earlier in the thread if you had bothered to read it. You don’t disagree that it’s now clear that it’s more likely than not that Armstrong doped, do you? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bitches-i-told-you-so-lance-armstrong-related/318421.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bitches-i-told-you-so-lance-armstrong-related/318421.md?page=8)