Dope Testing - An utter waste of time

"Marty" wrote in message
...
On Jul 30, 12:29 pm, "
wrote:
On Jul 30, 8:18 am, Davey Crockett wrote:

I thought it was a "tracer molecule" that was placed in the C.E.R.A by
the manufacturer that got The Cobra busted. If that is true, and the
molecule wasn't present, it may have been 10 out of 10 escapes and
he'd be on the podium.
--
Marty

Not according to the drug company.

http://tour-de-france.velonews.com/article/80701

On Jul 30, 1:17*pm, "Frank Drackman" wrote:
"Marty" wrote in message

...
On Jul 30, 12:29 pm, "
wrote:

On Jul 30, 8:18 am, Davey Crockett wrote:
I thought it was a "tracer molecule" that was placed in the C.E.R.A by
the manufacturer that got The Cobra busted. *If that is true, and the
molecule wasn't present, it may have been 10 out of 10 escapes and
he'd be on the podium.
--
Marty

Not according to the drug company.

http://tour-de-france.velonews.com/article/80701

“The fact is that Mircera is an innovative molecule that is both
functionally and structurally different and it can be differentiated
in samples from both naturally occurring erythropoietin and from all
other traditional ESA products,” the company noted in its statement."

Okay. So the drug itself IS the tracer molecule. Then, it is correct
that The Cobra was bitten by his bad doctor. If only he had cheated
in a more traditional manner (i.e. more traditional drugs/blood doping
methods), then he'd be on the podium as a hero instead of going to
jail as a zero.

So who doped and who got away with it? How do we know that the new
hero wasn't dirty? We don't because testing isn't perfect. Even with
a drug that is "both functionally and structurally different and it
can be differentiated in samples from both naturally occurring
erythropoietin and from all other traditional ESA products”, The Cobra
says that he passed 80% of his tests. So, we don't know who is dirty
and who is clean. Which is why I agree - get rid of testing and let
'em race. This bull**** is the same as trying to ban guns in the US.
--
Marty

wrote:
Forget whether he doesn't deserve to win the TdF because he's Dirty
Ricky the Cheating Doper. He doesn't deserve to win because he hasn't
shown enough respect to cheat well.

Snakes aren't renowned for their intelligence.

On Jul 30, 2:57*pm, Marty wrote:

I thought it was a "tracer molecule" that was placed in the C.E.R.A by
the manufacturer that got The Cobra busted. *

There is no "tracer molecule" added. Remember, this is a drug for sick
people and the developer could really care less about inappropriate
use in sport.

By tracer are you refering to the PEG (polyethylene glycol) that is
added to the biologic? That isn't a tracer, it's a molecule that is
attached to the protein to increase the T1/2 (half life) of the drug
in circulation. PEGylation and Albumination are two common means to
slow degredation and elimination of biologics. These additons provide
for improved PK properties which is important for the drug to be
effective and also for patient convenience (e.g. once a month dosing
vs every day or every week). Since biologics are given by injection or
IV infusion patient convenience is a big deal in this area.

Roche, in this case, appear to have provided some reagents and
suggestions on how to develop a urine based test. Amgen has done
something similar to help the labs test for their EPO product. This is
nice but it's not the same as engineering in a specific tag to catch
dopers. Although as cycling fans it sounds nice to "tag" drugs that
could be used to cheat, the reason not to tag drugs is that from the
development perspective adding tags would increase risk of changing
the molecules properties and there is no compelling reason to add risk
just to catch a few cyclists and skiers.

Davey - you may be confusing false negative and false positive rates
as they pertain to these sorts of tests. Regardless, your conclusion
that they are not very sensitive appears to be correct. That doesn't
mean they are useless, just that a lot of cheaters get away due to
false negatives. Also, we can't extrapolate the utility of the EPO
tests to other drugs. They have their own sensitivity and specificity
issues.

Overall the strategy of targeting riders who appear to be going a
little too good and testing the crap out of them looks to have worked.
At least it was good enough to catch the garter snake this time
around.

Mark

On Jul 30, 3:34*pm, Marty wrote:

both functionally and structurally different and it can be differentiated
in samples

Just to be picky - note that "can be differentiated" does not indicate
that it is easy to do so.

In the larger picture, Roche is very interested in positioning their
new EPO type product as "different" and "better" from others. A large
group of lawyers and PR people will have considered the text of their
comments on this matter. They look good for helping the testing lab
and they get to talk about their product too. Good on them.

I'm not anti-Roche BTW, I'd have done the same thing.

So who doped and who got away with it? *

Most of them but who cares? It's pro sports, it's entertainment and
this year's tour (TIOOYK) was entertaining. Heck, we even discussed
specificity and sensitivity of biomarker testing in RBR. That's pretty
much a perfect July!!

Mark

On Jul 30, 1:57*pm, wrote:
On Jul 30, 2:57*pm, Marty wrote:

I thought it was a "tracer molecule" that was placed in the C.E.R.A by
the manufacturer that got The Cobra busted. *

By tracer are you refering to the PEG (polyethylene glycol) that is
added to the biologic? That isn't a tracer, it's a molecule that is
attached to the protein to increase the T1/2 (half life) of the drug
in circulation. PEGylation and Albumination are two common means to
slow degredation and elimination of biologics blah, blah blah who gives a
Cobra's ass.

D'oh! ****, of course. My bad.
--
Marty

On Jul 30, 2:08*pm, wrote:
On Jul 30, 3:34*pm, Marty wrote:

both functionally and structurally different and it can be differentiated
in samples

Just to be picky - note that "can be differentiated" does not indicate
that it is easy to do so.

In the larger picture, Roche is very interested in positioning their
new EPO type product as "different" and "better" from others. A large
group of lawyers and PR people will have considered the text of their
comments on this matter. They look good for helping the testing lab
and they get to talk about their product too. Good on them.

I'm not anti-Roche BTW, I'd have done the same thing.

So who doped and who got away with it? *

Most of them but who cares? It's pro sports, it's entertainment and
this year's tour (TIOOYK) was entertaining. Heck, we even discussed
specificity and sensitivity of biomarker testing in RBR. That's pretty
much a perfect July!!

Mark

Most of them but who cares? It's pro sports, it's entertainment and
this year's tour (TIOOYK) was entertaining.

Exactly my point as to why testing can go away.

A question for all: why was testing started in the 1st place?
--
Marty

In article
,
Marty wrote:

On Jul 30, 2:08*pm, wrote:
On Jul 30, 3:34*pm, Marty wrote:

both functionally and structurally different and it can be differentiated
in samples

Just to be picky - note that "can be differentiated" does not indicate
that it is easy to do so.

In the larger picture, Roche is very interested in positioning their
new EPO type product as "different" and "better" from others. A large
group of lawyers and PR people will have considered the text of their
comments on this matter. They look good for helping the testing lab
and they get to talk about their product too. Good on them.

I'm not anti-Roche BTW, I'd have done the same thing.

So who doped and who got away with it? *

Most of them but who cares? It's pro sports, it's entertainment and
this year's tour (TIOOYK) was entertaining. Heck, we even discussed
specificity and sensitivity of biomarker testing in RBR. That's pretty
much a perfect July!!

Mark

Most of them but who cares? It's pro sports, it's entertainment and
this year's tour (TIOOYK) was entertaining.

Exactly my point as to why testing can go away.

A question for all: why was testing started in the 1st place?

Philosophically, there's a lot of reasons why drugs are banned and
testing is done.

As for the most catalytic moment, you already know but I'll say it to
continue this discussion: Tom Simpson died with amphetamines (and
possibly more) in his blood.

Not that anti-dopers want further justification, but Sudden Espoir Death
Syndrome in the 1990s was another pretty fundamental reminder of what
can happen when riders are willing to experiment with cutting-edge
nonsense to win races.

Before you say that legal, supervised doping would solve that problem, I
would remind you that dose-response is real, and there is more than one
drug where performance enhancement continues to rise as the dose goes
above what a doctor would consider safe levels.

--
Ryan Cousineau http://www.wiredcola.com/
"In other newsgroups, they killfile trolls."
"In rec.bicycles.racing, we coach them."

In article ,
jean-yves herve wrote:

In article ,
Davey Crockett wrote:

Idiots like Davey have recently been doing some arithmetic on the
probability of a rider who tested positive actually being a druggee or
alternatively whether the positive finding was in fact a "False
Positive" and various other deductions made based on same data.

However, these computations were based on the test proceedure having a
very high degree of accuracy. Even at 99 percent the chances that a
positive test result would actually "nail" a doping rider were to say
the least somewhat less than acceptable.

Admittedly the results we were discussing presupposed a "given"
percent of druggees in the universe to be tested - like we were using
an estimated 5 per cent of riders in the Tour de France "Universe"

But along comes a Cocky young Italian who says "Sure I charged up, but
your tests ain't worth **** because I was tested Ten times and came up
Positive only Twice."

Hmmm. Throw out the 98-99 percent effectiveness we were assigning to
the test and change that to 20 percent.

You should stick to reporting about UFOLEP races. Just because Ricco's
8 other tests were reported "negative" that does not mean that the lab
found nothing, only that the rates found were below the positive
threshold. Maybe these thresholds were set a bit high. Any testing
system has to make a compromise between misses and false alarms, whether
you're trying to spot cheaters or to detect obstacles in front a
vehicle. The type of compromise depends on the nature of the problem.
In doping I think most of us would agree that false alarms are simply
unacceptable, so that means that labs have to set the threshold higher
accordingly, and that means in turn that some guys who are charged will
escape detection.

On a long race like the TdF, though, this is less of a problems because
with their new policy of targeting specific riders (I don't remember
reading anything from you on that, btw), then they can put any of the
suspicious non-positives (just below threshold) on their **** list and
keep testing them.

Keep testing until you get a positive.
We already know he is doping.

--
Michael Press

In article
,
wrote:

On Jul 30, 2:57*pm, Marty wrote:

I thought it was a "tracer molecule" that was placed in the C.E.R.A by
the manufacturer that got The Cobra busted. *

There is no "tracer molecule" added. Remember, this is a drug for sick
people and the developer could really care less about inappropriate
use in sport.

By tracer are you refering to the PEG (polyethylene glycol) that is
added to the biologic? That isn't a tracer, it's a molecule that is
attached to the protein to increase the T1/2 (half life) of the drug
in circulation. PEGylation and Albumination are two common means to
slow degredation and elimination of biologics. These additons provide
for improved PK properties which is important for the drug to be
effective and also for patient convenience (e.g. once a month dosing
vs every day or every week). Since biologics are given by injection or
IV infusion patient convenience is a big deal in this area.

Roche, in this case, appear to have provided some reagents and
suggestions on how to develop a urine based test. Amgen has done
something similar to help the labs test for their EPO product. This is
nice but it's not the same as engineering in a specific tag to catch
dopers. Although as cycling fans it sounds nice to "tag" drugs that
could be used to cheat, the reason not to tag drugs is that from the
development perspective adding tags would increase risk of changing
the molecules properties and there is no compelling reason to add risk
just to catch a few cyclists and skiers.

Davey - you may be confusing false negative and false positive rates
as they pertain to these sorts of tests. Regardless, your conclusion
that they are not very sensitive appears to be correct. That doesn't
mean they are useless, just that a lot of cheaters get away due to
false negatives. Also, we can't extrapolate the utility of the EPO
tests to other drugs. They have their own sensitivity and specificity
issues.

Overall the strategy of targeting riders who appear to be going a
little too good and testing the crap out of them looks to have worked.
At least it was good enough to catch the garter snake this time
around.

Keep testing anybody and you will get a false positive.

--
Michael Press