I’m just trying to get the image of yellowish popsicles out of my mind.
The first time I ever heard of EPO was when my father received it during his radiation treatments. Could the metabolites be a remnant of his previous cancer treatments?
I have no dog in this race (bicycling dog, funny image), but I think there are a few erroneous points that need to be cleared up here.
The double blind was still in effect. Lance neutralized it by releasing his numbers. As (to my knowledge) no one else released theirs, no one else can be tied to those other positives.
The lab did not have the information because the lab did not want it and did not look for it. There is no question that L’Equipe is anti-Lance. That is why they dug up the info, but it was all readily available info.
This is critical. Does anyone else have access to this info or know where we could find it?
I could be a question of degree. There is evidence that the chemicals do degrade. It is possible that only the very heavily doped samples still contain enough to get a positive.
We really can’t say anything about the freezers one way or another, but the fact that they had so many of the numbers match up makes it unlikely that this is just a labelling error. Also, you mention the chance of error, which is what the second sample is there to prevent. Though there is a possibility of error on one sample, six is really pushing it.
Then it wasn’t a double blind test since he couldn’t have them(the numbers) if it were.
Besides, once the testing protocals have been violated, how can we trust the integrity of the samples?
He’s in a high-risk group, so to speak, in that he’s among a population where the doping is fairly common. He tests positive six times, not once. If a gay man tests positive for AIDS six times, he should probably lay off the unprotected sex.
So he’s connected to the tested samples because he forfeited his anonymity (sp?).
Given this and all the testimony that seems to be out there, the OP’s conclusion does sound defensible.
FYI: Read Gerd Gigerenzer’s Calculated Risks to learn about this sort of thing. Every woman should read that book to understand the risks of breast cancer screening.
Meh. Bad analogy. The six tests came from, apparently, six legs of the same race. They aren’t what you’d call independent samples. * If * there was something in his blood that was causing a false positive, then it’s likely to be in all six samples taken from that period.
But to continue your analogy, because he’s in the high risk group, they’ve apparently scrutinized this guy’s pee as closely as science allows for the past six years. Including, one imagines, with this latest test. And they’ve found nothing. And he’s kept on winning. It’s totally within the realm of possibility that the dopers are simply keeping one step ahead of the scientists. It’s also possible that there’s just nothing to find. I dunno.
It’s also totally possible that Lance won the first Tour(s) while using EPO and then, once the spotlight was on him, had to compete without it. To me, that would be somewhat disappointing, but also be pretty impressive.
No, it’s not a bad example. This isn’t a case of sampling from a population, this is a case of applying Bayes’s rule.
You’re going to have to explain that one to me. Six samples increase our confidence that the test is positive for something. But as the article points out, the test has been known to generate false positives based on naturally occurring substances in some people. So six tests doesn’t increase our confidence that the substance was EPO or that the test itself is not flawed.
Sure. If you want to get in a serious discussion about the validity of the test, you’re more than welcome to go there. Briefly, some individuals do have a genetic disposition towards producing certain isoforms from their own natural EPO that will come back as positives in this EPO test. However, this is a long-standing and persistent trait. It’s like blood type or something similar, it won’t shift around during the course of your life-time. The reason that the Belgian triathlete was able to get off was by demonstrating that he was an individual like this and that he naturally always produces a positive EPO control even though he isn’t using synthetic EPO. IF this were true for Lance Armstrong, he would have produced positive EPO controls at the start of this year’s Tour, all of his warm up races, etc. because, again, it’s a consistent and invariable trait for each individual.
fiveyearlurker, you work in a research lab, don’t you? Frankly, this is a slightly different deal. While a research lab can afford to organize hundreds of vials with hand-written tape, whatever, the lab that produced this test processes thousands of samples monthly from French and international sport. Their tracking processes are doubtlessly more sophisitcated.
Finally, for everyone bringing up the issue of other riders being doped, I haven’t disagreed with you. Dope is a major problem and it infiltrates the peloton to a tragic level. I’ve never pitted Mr. Armstrong for being doped. It’s his actions regarding dope that I’ve criticised.
No, it isn’t double blinded, but it is blinded where it matters. This is so that lab technicians, etc. can’t screw the results. People have criticized the results because it was a French lab, and as we all know, the French are raving lunatics with a single goal in life, to falsely impeach Lance Armstrong, so that’s why they are labled by number rather than name.
Sorry to have such broken up posts, but I’ve been leaving my computer for class. Anyway, I understand you’re point regarding not being completely independent samples, but they were spread out over three weeks. No, it isn’t possible that this false test is a result of left ever metabolites from his cancer treatment. The creators of the IMMULITE assay readily admit that it can only detect EPO use from a sample collected within three to four days after EPO use. The only plausible cause of a false positive on this test is being an individual that naturally produces EPO which looks like synthetic EPO in the isoform urine assay. Again, this is a permanent trait and would lead to him always producing a positive result for this test, including all throughout this year’s Tour.
It’s that silent “w”. 
I guess, once again, I’d need to see the science here. Is it absolutely established that there’s no legal dietary supplement that might cause these proteins to appear in the urine? Assuming that Lance was given EPO during his cancer treatments, how long would it take for the markers to disappear? Days? Years? Would the stress of a long race release it from stored resources in the body?
Again, if we’re asserting that doping is rampant during the races, what would account for so few positives showing up from the 1999 race? (In the lack of other evidence, I’m sort of assuming that the six other positives belonged to six tests from one other individual.) You might convince me that Lance was using, but can you convince me that he was the only one, or that he was using more than anyone else? Frankly, I find it much easier to believe in a fluke of biochemistry than that everyone else on the Tour was Simon Pure.
I think some enormously salient issues are these were performed for experimental purposes, and the samples are six fucking years old. Had they been stored at -80 deg C or in LN2 I’d be a bit more confident, but dilute samples of protein in unbuffered aqueous solution do NOT remain stable indefinitely at -20 deg C, especially if the door to the freezer is opened and closed on a regular basis. These lab freezers are frost-free, but a fair amount of temperature cycling does occur due solely due to traffic, and if it’s in a testing lab, there’s a ton of traffic.
If I freeze aliquots of any growth factor such as this and intend to use it to do an actual experiment, I store them at -80 deg C, and throw them out after a year if they’re not used up, usually in orders-of-magnitude (even several orders-of-magnitude) higher concentrations than one would expect to find in a urine sample, in a pH7.2-7.4 buffered saline, and I add carriers/stabilizer to prevent degradation and adhesion to the sample tubes to boot. Proteins can be highly stable, but at low concentration, in a solution with a pH potentially as low as 5.0 (or high as 8.0), containing urea, at relatively high temperature, I would be highly sceptical of the result unless I knew for 100% certain that the samples had been undisturbed and kept in some temerature moderating vessel (like these Stratacoolers). Given that these samples were meant to be analyzed within days or weeks of collection, I highly doubt they’ve been stored with such care. Likely they’ve sat in the back of some freezer in a typical cardboard cryostorage box, getting shuffled around as people rummage about inside to get at their samples of interest, set aside on a shelf at room temp. to make room occasionally, stuffed back in. Repeat about 1000 times over a 6-year span.
So when somebody says they can detect traces of EPO in someone’s urine sample that’s that old, and has been stored in that manner, it’s a remarkable claim in itself, never mind who the claim is being made about. Questions about mishanding or tampering are perfectly legitimate, and absolutely need to be addressed with the highest standards of forensic care before going public with such potentially libelous claims. Add that the test results were not obtained under the ausipices of a sanctioned body for the purposes regulating competition, and leaked to a hostile news source, and my level of sceptisicm, plus the bullshit meter, has been pinned.
So I’m calling major fucking bullshit on the whole story. If it weren’t for the idiotic extremes slanderers in this forum and elsewhere are willing to go to tar somebody for the sin of being too fucking good, I would never have dignified the notion with an even remotely carefully thought-out response. “Told you so”? Fuck off. This is a smear campaign, a pathetic manifestation of a national sports culture tainted with an inferiority complex bred generations ago.
I think some enormously salient issues are these were performed for experimental purposes, and the samples are six fucking years old. Had they been stored at -80 deg C or in LN2 I’d be a bit more confident, but dilute samples of protein in unbuffered aqueous solution do NOT remain stable indefinitely at -20 deg C, especially if the door to the freezer is opened and closed on a regular basis. These lab freezers are frost-free, but a fair amount of temperature cycling does occur due solely due to traffic, and if it’s in a testing lab, there’s a ton of traffic.
If I freeze aliquots of any growth factor such as this and intend to use it to do an actual experiment, I store them at -80 deg C, and throw them out after a year if they’re not used up, usually in orders-of-magnitude (even several orders-of-magnitude) higher concentrations than one would expect to find in a urine sample, in a pH7.2-7.4 buffered saline, and I add carriers/stabilizer to prevent degradation and adhesion to the sample tubes to boot. Proteins can be highly stable, but at low concentration, in a solution with a pH potentially as low as 5.0 (or high as 8.0), containing urea, at relatively high temperature, I would be highly sceptical of the result unless I knew for 100% certain that the samples had been undisturbed and kept in some temerature moderating vessel (like these Stratacoolers). Given that these samples were meant to be analyzed within days or weeks of collection, I highly doubt they’ve been stored with such care. Likely they’ve sat in the back of some freezer in a typical cardboard cryostorage box, getting shuffled around as people rummage about inside to get at their samples of interest, set aside on a shelf at room temp. to make room occasionally, stuffed back in. Repeat about 1000 times over a 6-year span.
So when somebody says they can detect traces of EPO in someone’s urine sample that’s that old, and has been stored in that manner, it’s a remarkable claim in itself, never mind who the claim is being made about. Questions about mishanding or tampering are perfectly legitimate, and absolutely need to be addressed with the highest standards of forensic care before going public with such potentially libelous claims. Add that the test results were not obtained under the ausipices of a sanctioned body for the purposes regulating competition, and leaked to a hostile news source, and my level of sceptisicm, plus the bullshit meter, has been pinned.
So I’m calling major fucking bullshit on the whole story. If it weren’t for the idiotic extremes slanderers in this forum and elsewhere are willing to go to tar somebody for the sin of being too fucking good, I would never have dignified the notion with an even remotely carefully thought-out response. “Told you so”? Fuck off. This is a smear campaign, a pathetic manifestation of a national sports culture tainted with an inferiority complex bred generations ago.
When I saved my pee in the freezer for six years, they called me crazy. Well who’s crazy now doctor? <i>Who’s the crazy one now???</i>
Sorry about the double-post. Not sure how that happened.
Some may find some more relevant info in this long thread.
At least you might between the usual did/didn’t stuff.
threemae, I’m not trying to be an asshole or anything, but what’s with you and Lance Armstrong? Did he run over your dog when you were a kid or something? Just wondering.