DarkSpeedWorks wrote:
Pretty interesting article, and the reader comments are even more on point.
Is it that different from the amgen-sponsored Tour of Calif?
And then, I think, how many USAT age group athletes are even tested? We all know that the numbers are very, very, very low. Heck, half the AG (male) field could be on low-T therapy and nobody would be the wiser ...
The Amgen thing is debatable. I'm probably biased here because Amgen is the largest employer in my hometown of Thousand Oaks, and I have lots of friends who work there. A lot of folks have speculated that the ToC sponsorship was a "penance" of sorts on the part of Amgen for the abuse of EPO. It's hard to know how much money Amgen might have actually made from "off-label" use of EPO by athletes, and I've heard both that it was substantial and that it was minimal, and I have truly no idea what to believe.
I do know that Amgen eventually helped to develop some of the tests that were used by various labs to detect exogenous EPO in both blood and urine. As well as tests for some of their other drugs. There was a clamor for a while that they should have put some sort of easily detectable marker in it, but i gather that this would have then required going through the FDA approval process all over again.
I have no real idea what of this is true and what is just hearsay, so I'd direct you to this article:
http://www.cyclingnews.com/...ership-with-cycling/ However, I will say that Amgen has never taken out ads - like Cenegenics does, for example - in airline magazines or on other sites advertising, "Do you have low RBC? Epogen is for you!"
Beyond that, I think Dr. Elliott's reply to the question posed is pretty starkly different from the sort of reply that NuMale made to my article...
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