Doping - Sciency stuff

saunaboy

Hi all,

Was sat this morning reading all the stuff on Lance vs Hamilton etc & discussing with the Mrs about doping. I'm a scientist who in a previous life used to design & validate blood tests for artificial substances & therefore maybe have a strange perspective on the issue. Here's my take anyway & if you disagree then do your worst, it'll waste a few hours before the Zoncolan kicks off.

Doesn't the business with Contador & the 'positive but not really positive' test for Clenbuterol not mean that there's a case for the UCI stating not only a) banned substance list b) allowable limits but also c) straight & clear regs on what measurement criteria can be used. As a full-on nerd this bugs me. For most tests there are different detection limits for analytes and it's very common for a positive on one analyser to be a negative on another. I know of one common clinical test where one manufacturer read 2.5-3x more than others and was still approved for use. You could monitor patients with it (meaning if you went from 20 pg/mL to 100 pg/mL it would flag up), but not be able to compare with results from anywhere else as the numbers would be 3 x lower on the other system.

This would obviously allow clued up docs to microdope. if you knew a) allowable level and b) half-life of your drug, then after 30 secs on a calculator you could know how much to dope at a certain point to allow a reliable pass when you knew the athlete would likely be tested.

But in a sport where doping has been endemic and accepted for years, isn't this preferable to cases taking 2 years to go through WADA etc because of technical ambiguity? I realise I'll probably be hammered for this...

The levels should be set at the limits where all labs in the system would be able to detect, and anything less than that is a negative because you couldn't guarantee the fairness of the testing. Regardless of a test result showing probable infringement, it would be discounted & not registered or publicised if it read lower than the defined limit. In my admittedly biased opinion it's wrong to have a rider banned for 2 years beause he was tested in Munich, and another not caught because he was tested in Geneva.

Just a few thoughts anyway. [/i]

P_Tucker

I don't pretend to understand the sciency stuff, but I'll tell you for free that as long as

1. The testing isn't foolproof
2. There is money involved

then there will be cheating. Of course, as Dan Staite showed us 2 isn't necessary either.

saunaboy

no testing is foolproof, but the tests are validated to the point where a false test would be flagged & the retest should confirm to a level of statistical confidence.

The money thing is a red herring. Like footy fans being surprised matches are fixed because 'these days' there's too much money. That's never happened before has it...

http://www.planetworldcup.com/CUPS/1978 ... v_per.html

P_Tucker

saunaboy wrote:

no testing is foolproof, but the tests are validated to the point where a false test would be flagged & the retest should confirm to a level of statistical confidence.

No, I mean foolproof in the sense that a rider can't dope and return a negative result. Which must be the situation in about 99% of tests.

Redhog14

In all sport there exists agreed levels of what is and what is not allowed.
I don't condone doping or cheating but it is a fact of life, it goes on:
F1 - teams are always trying to interpret the rules as to what is "allowed"
Rugby - They use roughhouse tactics on key opponents when in a ruck or maul in the hope a ref/touch judge is not able to spot it.
Football - Free kick infringements, barracking the ref to name but a few.
Look at Tennis, I used to hate the contstant arguing with the umpires over the line calls, Hawkeye technology introduced has made it a much better spectator sport as result.

As far as Contador is concerned he will never live this down and that is a shame, as the OP suggests had he been tested by different means and in a different location, both of which are approved by UCI, we would not be having this debate. I have no doubt they are all at it, as all sportsmen seek an advantage over their rivals, thats is how they make a living. As is the case in many facets of life the degrees of seperation are the points of reference rather than a black and white outcome. The UCI and WADA need to draw a line in the sand then we know where we stand.

saunaboy

depends on three main things usually

1) precision of test. If you have a max variance of 10% at the minimum negative level, say 10 pg/mL, then you are as likely to get a 9.0 as an 11.0. So you would set the allowable level to account for this.

2) Other factors eg. disease states & spanish beef is where discussion is needed to set the limits. It was daft (and unfair) to send Contador's blood to a lab who tests way more sensitive than anyone else, especially so for a substance that had a no tolerance rule. There were people discussing how much beef you would have to eat to get a positive (on bodybulding forums if I remember right) and it's just nonsense. A limit should be set where inadvertent dietary intake is ignored.

3) change. If you have a kit where 1:2000 tests are false by chance, then the B sample should deal with it to a statistically sound level.

P_Tucker

Redhog14 wrote:

In all sport there exists agreed levels of what is and what is not allowed.
I don't condone doping or cheating but it is a fact of life, it goes on:
F1 - teams are always trying to interpret the rules as to what is "allowed"
Rugby - They use roughhouse tactics on key opponents when in a ruck or maul in the hope a ref/touch judge is not able to spot it.
Football - Free kick infringements, barracking the ref to name but a few.
Look at Tennis, I used to hate the contstant arguing with the umpires over the line calls, Hawkeye technology introduced has made it a much better spectator sport as result.

As far as Contador is concerned he will never live this down and that is a shame, as the OP suggests had he been tested by different means and in a different location, both of which are approved by UCI, we would not be having this debate. I have no doubt they are all at it, as all sportsmen seek an advantage over their rivals, thats is how they make a living. As is the case in many facets of life the degrees of seperation are the points of reference rather than a black and white outcome. The UCI and WADA need to draw a line in the sand then we know where we stand.

Agree completely. The current testing regime appears to stop people killing themselves from "overdosing" on EPO and having their hearts stop in the middle of the night. Thus it's entirely successful. The rest is morality and thus entirely pointless.

saunaboy

redhog-

agree totally. same goes for things like hanging behind cars. Obviously I'm a big lad & not a toned TDF rider but I reckon I'd see more benefit from hiding behind a team car & getting a sticky bottle every 5 min than I would with a shot of something before I rode.

same principle though. clear & defined rules, with nothing tested outside of them being even looked at. If someone fails - banned with no questions.

No_Ta_Doctor

Well I think there are a couple of different arguments there...

Firstly, as you state, Clenbuterol is on the list of substances with no acceptable lower limit - any amount is a positive test. This list contains (or should contain) only substances that are both non-natural to the human body (e.g. not testosterone) and uncommon as contaminants (i.e. it's unlikely they can get into your body unless you took them on purpose).

Clenbuterol's status wrt the second clause there is questionable, and we've seen cases where clenbuterol contamination of meat has been an acceptable defence - though these have largely involved geographical locations where clenbuterol contamination is far more common (S. America and the Far East).

In Contador's case the principle of strict liability means that he has to show how the substance entered his blood stream in a manner which was impossible for him to control. In my eyes he failed to do that, he only managed to show it was possible.

As far as testing equipment goes, the b test also returned a positive, and Contador hasn't contested this. The test itself is fine.

Should there be a uniform specification for test equipment and protocol, to ensure a "level playing field" in tests (i.e. to ensure that because Contador's result wouldn't have been caught at a less sophisticated lab the actual result was deemed below a detection threshold)? I don't see why. Doping is a roulette game. Which riders are tested, which labs perform their tests and which tests they perform are all factors. The fact that a single lab can now test far lower than was previously supposed doesn't make the test result less certain, and athletes now know that the detection level they might be exposed to is lower than they thought. That's a good thing.


Personally I don't think cheating by doping and cheating by other means (sticky bottles, drafting, car hanging) are equatable at a fundamental level. the health aspects of huge epo use are well documented, and thankfully now prevented, but opening up the possibility of a vast battery of microdosing products being used with no possibility of testing them at low levels is a bad move for several reasons:

Firstly it sends the wrong message - we don't mind if you dope, just go easy on it
Secondly riders will push to the allowable limit, which will have been raised to conform to the lowest certain threshold of the least accurate equipment
Thirdly most substances have possible side effects, some will be amplified by other substances, a cocktail of microdosing substances could well be damaging to health (see recent Danish research on the cocktail effect of various plastic softeners).

Lastly, you might be interested in this site for good scientific discussion of doping:
http://www.sportsscientists.com/