I just wanted to get guys in this forum, much smarter than most of us on this entire topic to pipe in with respect to the motive of leaking the data given that it was being used for research purposes.
I’d also be curious to know:
How was the link made between the 6 year old sample and the rider ?
I am saying that there MAY have been someone with a reason to set this up (chain of custody plus Equipe bias), but it MAY be that the chain of custody was clearly followed adhered to. It would be nice if someone in the lab can prove this. I have seen nothing to this effect
Just cause a test is valid a few hours, days or weeks after the sample is taken, does it make it valid 6 years later. The WADA scientist from the Montreal lab cited in Velonews says that EPO cannot suddenly appear if it was not there in the first place. But still, does the test hold after 6 years in the freezer ? As far as I understand, since this test is only 5 years old, there is no way of knowing if it is valid 6 years later, without scientific peer reviewed study as one poster alluded to.
What if it was not there in the first place in the A samples ? If the samples are tampered with can they appear in the B samples ? I would think yes…
*“We are extremely surprised that urine samples could have been tested in 2004 and have revealed the presence of EPO,” Ayotte said in an interview with VeloNews on Tuesday. “EPO - in its natural state or the synthesized version - is not stable in urine, even if stored at minus 20 degrees.” *
…
*“I don’t dispute their findings,” Ayotte said. “If there’s residual EPO after five years, it was properly identified. We are not that lucky here.” *
She doesn’t seem to think that even if EPO was present in 1999, that it would be detectable now. It’s up to the Parisian lab to prove that it is, otherwise you really have to consider tampering/substituting of samples.
German National Anti-Doping Agency chief Dr. Roland Augustin is not so sure. “Can one be certain that in samples deep-frozen for years, there were no biological changes, no aging processes that could falsify the result?” he said to news agency sid. “That has not been sufficiently determined scientifically.”
"She doesn’t seem to think that even if EPO was present in 1999, that it would be detectable now. It’s up to the Parisian lab to prove that it is, otherwise you really have to consider tampering/substituting of samples. "
Eric, this is what I was thinking too and wanted to get the views of the pundits on this thread.
"She doesn’t seem to think that even if EPO was present in 1999, that it would be detectable now. It’s up to the Parisian lab to prove that it is, otherwise you really have to consider tampering/substituting of samples. "
Eric, this is what I was thinking too and wanted to get the views of the pundits on this thread.
There have been no difinitive studies on how long EPO markers last in frozen urine samples or if they break down at all. It is known that similar proteins last 5-10 years.
What is beyond doubt is that storing urine for 5 years will not produce rhEPO markers out of thin air.
This is a reputable lab used by WADA and the IOC. it is regarded as one of the top 3 in the world for doping control testing. If their tests show a positive then you can be sure that they found something. If Lance Armstrong wants to accuse them of wrongdoing then he needs to provide some evidence other than the fact that the scientists who tested his samples were stinky Frenchmen called Jean Francois or something.
It’s up to the test creators to prove that their test is infallible. It isn’t up to other people to prove that their test is faulty. And LA isn’t the only one that has doubts about the test.
the textbook knowledge about EPO from Pub-Med won’t get you very far in this setting.
From pubmed this month, the following article from a respected peer reviewed journal. While I dont expect the general audience to follow all the details. Pay attention to the sentence “We have identified several urinary proteins with which the monoclonal EPO antibody used in the current test has non-specific binding.” This means false positives. This is why we have a scientific process.
New urinary EPO drug testing method using two-dimensional gel electrophoresis.
Khan A, Grinyer J, Truong ST, Breen EJ, Packer NH.
Proteome Systems Ltd., 1/35-41 Waterloo Road, North Ryde NSW 2113 Australia. akhan@proteome.org.au
We present a two-dimensional electrophoresis (2DE) method for the detection of the drug, recombinant erythropoietin (rHuEPO) in urine and its separation from endogenous erythropoietin (HuEPO). This method involves a one-step acetonitrile precipitation of the proteins in urine, addition of an internal standard, two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2D PAGE), a single Western blot and chemiluminescent immunodetection. RESULTS: The 2DE method separates HuEPO and rHuEPO isoforms by both iso-electric point and molecular mass. We have identified several urinary proteins with which the monoclonal EPO antibody used in the current test has non-specific binding. The iso-electric points of these cross-reactive proteins overlap with HuEPO and rHuEPO however, they separate distinctly by the 2DE method. Alpha-2-HS-glycoprotein (HSGP) was identified by peptide mass fingerprinting as one of the urinary cross-reacting proteins, and commercially available purified HSGP was chosen to be added into urine samples as an internal standard prior to separation. Software (EpIQ) was specifically developed that applies four separate criteria to the detection of the migration of rHuEPO and HuEPO relative to the internal standard. CONCLUSION: The combination of sample preparation, two-dimensional separation, internal standard, standardized blotting procedures and image analysis software enables the 2DE test for rHuEPO in urine to be performed reproducibly and accurately.
Question the ethics of the testers, question the science of the test, question the motives of the governing bodies.
Why bother having a drug testing policy at all if its impossible to ever convict a cheat?
Crono…a question for you…if the new findings show that its possible for human EPO to produce rhEPO like markers and thus false positives, is it possible for this false positive to pass the 80% threshold required for a positive test result?
I have read that kidney disease can cause human EPO to show up as rhEPO in small amounts, but nowhere near enough to meet the 80% threshold.
And what about the fact that Rutger Beke just got his “positive” test for EPO overturned? Isn’t this the same urine test? What does that say about this test? (I’m really asking…I don’t enough about this sort of thing to know if this has any bearing on the LA test or not).
Other respected labs have questioned the Parisian lab’s ablility to test 5 year old urine.
Just as there is a lot of anecdotal evidence that Lance doped, there is plenty of anecdotal evidence that L’Equipe and others have quite a distain for Lance, and therefore have a motive for nefarious activities.
It was worth it to read all the way to the end of the thread just to see you use “nefarious” in a sentence. Maybe it is because the Marines around me think that fu#$% can be used as noun, verb and adjective. No one appreciates descriptive language anymore.