How much does testing cost?

No_Ta_Doctor

Was just wondering how much a blood/urine test costs for s rider, and whether it's the amount/effort of that which means there are relatively few tests carried out at the TdF (not seen figures for this year, but past years have had only a couple of hundred, if I remember rightly).

I'm interested in breaking down where the costs accrue, there are various parts of the process that might be quite expensive:

Testing equipment - minimal, a syringe and a bottle or two
Testing personnel - a bit higher assuming we need a qualified medical professional of some sort, plus a bureaucrat or two present
Refrigerated transport of tests to lab/storage
Long term storage of tests - probably quite high, a fridge freezer might not be that expensive in itself, but if you need to keep samples for the 8 year statute of limitations and you have a lot of samples....
Transport/accommodation of testing personnel
Lab time/ lab equipment - probably the most expensive bit, depending on equipment needed and time taken per test
Bureaucratic time - form filling/secretarial time etc - probably adds up a bit

If I'm right that the really expensive bit is the lab equipment/time and that there's probably a limit on the number of samples that can be handled at full capacity, would it not be possible to institute some sort of system of blanket sampling, and then test at leisure later, plucking samples both randomly and in some form of targeting (stage winners, jersey holders, GC leaders, all team samples from a team where a rider fails a test etc)

That way all riders/teams would know their blood was in the testing process and liable to be tested, and that if anything suspicious was found re performance/team performance etc it could be pulled and tested later. Surely that would provide a much bigger deterrent than randomised sampling? Currently, if you don't get tested at the end of a stage you know you've slipped through the net. With blanket sampling you'd know that a later test was always possible, including as yet undeveloped tests for as yet unbanned substances.

Would that be beyond the bounds of practicality? Is there a physiological limit to how much blood the testers could take by repeated testing (surely they only need a few ml)? Would there be a problem with finding a suitable vein to tap with 21 tests in as many days?

I'm sure the riders would hate it, but it might work as a method of getting the most effective deterrent for the money. Any objections?

BikingBernie

The costs depend on the test. For example, IRMS testing is much more expensive than a T/E ratio test, which is why a IRMS test often isn't done unless a T/E ratio test has already indicated that something is amiss. (As with Landis). In addition, there is no single test, every substance demands it's own test, and just consider how many different doping products could be tested for.

Lots of info here:

http://www.wada-ama.org/Documents/About ... sts_EN.pdf

No_Ta_Doctor

Interesting reading (well skimming to be more precise...)

I suppose though it begs the question of which tests are performed on random samples / stage winner samples at the current time? Do they do the big expensive tests, or just the cheap ones? And do they take enough blood/urine to run the full array of tests, or do they have to select which tests are to be performed?

As I thought, storage costs look quite high, though surely not entirely prohibitive. It also looks like batching the samples, with perhaps an increased number of samples going to test, would cut the cost per sample on some of the more expensive tests.

In short, a blanket sampling system for the big stage races could be workable, though blanket testing would be very expensive. Perhaps Mr. Murdoch could be persuaded to part with some cash to finance the former, with his team's clean image surely he'd like to ensure they're riding against clean competitors?