Psychology of doping denials?

Amit wrote:

every dude has jerked off in the last 48 hrs,

Speaking of jerking off, check out the new gear:

http://www.drunkcyclist.com/index1.html

"Darrell Criswell" wrote in message
news
I'm a biologist, there is not really any doubt about the validity of
the test (see
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996456). It much
more precise and valid than fingerprint identification.

OK let's try this again. Firstly, the test does not "detect foreign cells
within" the body. It sticks to the surface antigens of blood cells with
specific minor blood types. That's fine as far as it goes but how is it
detected? If you have antigens circulating in the blood that aren't on the
surface of the blood cell there might be connections off of cell surfaces.
If the testing procedure looks at the blood florescence with a florescence
detector instead of actually taking pictures you cannot tell the difference
between the material flourescing due to connections with actual cell
antigens and as a reaction to something else.

Again - without proper testing which includes thousands of samples and
controls there's no way to really validate the testing.

I want to underscore this one more time: from the article "It was not until
four years ago that a test for EPO became available. Since then
old-fashioned blood transfusions have been making a comeback, despite the
health risks."

If this is so then why has there only been two cases of positives and why
were they both on the same team?

This suggests that either they were the only one's using homologous blood
transfusions, that there really aren't that many people blood doping after
all or that everyone is doing autologous blood packing.

We've already discussed how impractical it is for athletes like cyclists to
draw and store blood.

I'm not saying that Hamilton is innocent, I don't know. What I am saying is
that this whole thing stinks to high heaven and I'd like to know why.

"Darrell Criswell" wrote in message
news
I'm a biologist, there is not really any doubt about the validity of
the test (see
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996456). It much
more precise and valid than fingerprint identification.

OK let's try this again. Firstly, the test does not "detect foreign cells
within" the body. It sticks to the surface antigens of blood cells with
specific minor blood types. That's fine as far as it goes but how is it
detected? If you have antigens circulating in the blood that aren't on the
surface of the blood cell there might be connections off of cell surfaces.
If the testing procedure looks at the blood florescence with a florescence
detector instead of actually taking pictures you cannot tell the difference
between the material flourescing due to connections with actual cell
antigens and as a reaction to something else.

Again - without proper testing which includes thousands of samples and
controls there's no way to really validate the testing.

I want to underscore this one more time: from the article "It was not until
four years ago that a test for EPO became available. Since then
old-fashioned blood transfusions have been making a comeback, despite the
health risks."

If this is so then why has there only been two cases of positives and why
were they both on the same team?

This suggests that either they were the only one's using homologous blood
transfusions, that there really aren't that many people blood doping after
all or that everyone is doing autologous blood packing.

We've already discussed how impractical it is for athletes like cyclists to
draw and store blood.

I'm not saying that Hamilton is innocent, I don't know. What I am saying is
that this whole thing stinks to high heaven and I'd like to know why.

Tom Kunich wrote:
"Darrell Criswell" wrote in message
news
I'm a biologist, there is not really any doubt about the validity of
the test (see
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996456). It much
more precise and valid than fingerprint identification.


OK let's try this again. Firstly, the test does not "detect foreign cells
within" the body. It sticks to the surface antigens of blood cells with
specific minor blood types. That's fine as far as it goes but how is it
detected? If you have antigens circulating in the blood that aren't on the
surface of the blood cell there might be connections off of cell surfaces.
If the testing procedure looks at the blood florescence with a florescence
detector instead of actually taking pictures you cannot tell the difference
between the material flourescing due to connections with actual cell
antigens and as a reaction to something else.

maybe, if there were clumps of antigen floating around in the blood,
about the size of red blood cells. A flourescent antibody in solution
isn't going to read the same way as flourescent antibodies coating a red
blood cell.

Tom Kunich wrote:
"Darrell Criswell" wrote in message
news
I'm a biologist, there is not really any doubt about the validity of
the test (see
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996456). It much
more precise and valid than fingerprint identification.


OK let's try this again. Firstly, the test does not "detect foreign cells
within" the body. It sticks to the surface antigens of blood cells with
specific minor blood types. That's fine as far as it goes but how is it
detected? If you have antigens circulating in the blood that aren't on the
surface of the blood cell there might be connections off of cell surfaces.
If the testing procedure looks at the blood florescence with a florescence
detector instead of actually taking pictures you cannot tell the difference
between the material flourescing due to connections with actual cell
antigens and as a reaction to something else.

maybe, if there were clumps of antigen floating around in the blood,
about the size of red blood cells. A flourescent antibody in solution
isn't going to read the same way as flourescent antibodies coating a red
blood cell.

Jim, I sort of misspoke. What I meant was that there could be something that
they are taking such as injectable vitamins or some such which could connect
to a blood cell on one side and the marker on the other thereby making it
look like it is attached to a cell when it wasn't.

Jim, I sort of misspoke. What I meant was that there could be something that
they are taking such as injectable vitamins or some such which could connect
to a blood cell on one side and the marker on the other thereby making it
look like it is attached to a cell when it wasn't.

Tom Kunich wrote:

Jim, I sort of misspoke. What I meant was that there could be something that
they are taking such as injectable vitamins or some such which could connect
to a blood cell on one side and the marker on the other thereby making it
look like it is attached to a cell when it wasn't.


I wrote this burried in another thread, and modified it today, this is
the best I can come up with:

also, from what I've read, the test uses about 10 antibodies to
different blood group antigens. Minor blood group antigens are usually
small, like point mutations, not nulls, so the antibody(s) are pretty
similar to monoclonals, in that they probably recognize a very small
antigenic difference. The point being that if a supplement adsorbed to
a sub-population of red cells and caused antibodies to bind to it (or
not bind) it would have to be a very specific modification, one that
would be unlikely to affect the binding of the other 10 or so antibodies
on the panel. Using two antibodies with different colors to two
different red-cell surface proteins will show that the same population
of cells is testing differently than the majority (unless someone has
been transfused from two different donors). A modification that might
have taken place either by supplements or by extreme physical stress or
whatever would be expected to affect all the red-cells.

Not all antigens are on different proteins, but again the point is,
depending on the mis-match of the donor and recipient, not all 10 (or
whatever) will automatically be positive, because the test isn't
designed to check all the antigenic differences, and it depends on how
many mis-matched antigens there are between the donor and the recipient.
If they were incredibly well funded and had access to a huge donor
pool and they knew which antigens would be on the antibody panel for the
blood test, they could in theory find a donor that would be "identical".
But in general, it's likely that they will mis-match for a few of them
if a heterologous transfusion took place, because for the most part, the
cheaters are only looking at the major blood group antigens.

So a guilty rider's test might have come back with 4 of the antibodies
on the panel showing a discrepancy. This is the first positive the lab
worker has ever seen or ever heard about. Maybe he was expecting all 10
or so to light up, and that's why he scratched his head and labeled the
test as suspect? Or maybe he was scratching his head because a rider
was showing signs of receiving transfusions from more than one donor and
he didn't have time to sit down and think outside the box?

Gym (having fun outside the box) Gravity

Tom Kunich wrote:

Jim, I sort of misspoke. What I meant was that there could be something that
they are taking such as injectable vitamins or some such which could connect
to a blood cell on one side and the marker on the other thereby making it
look like it is attached to a cell when it wasn't.


I wrote this burried in another thread, and modified it today, this is
the best I can come up with:

also, from what I've read, the test uses about 10 antibodies to
different blood group antigens. Minor blood group antigens are usually
small, like point mutations, not nulls, so the antibody(s) are pretty
similar to monoclonals, in that they probably recognize a very small
antigenic difference. The point being that if a supplement adsorbed to
a sub-population of red cells and caused antibodies to bind to it (or
not bind) it would have to be a very specific modification, one that
would be unlikely to affect the binding of the other 10 or so antibodies
on the panel. Using two antibodies with different colors to two
different red-cell surface proteins will show that the same population
of cells is testing differently than the majority (unless someone has
been transfused from two different donors). A modification that might
have taken place either by supplements or by extreme physical stress or
whatever would be expected to affect all the red-cells.

Not all antigens are on different proteins, but again the point is,
depending on the mis-match of the donor and recipient, not all 10 (or
whatever) will automatically be positive, because the test isn't
designed to check all the antigenic differences, and it depends on how
many mis-matched antigens there are between the donor and the recipient.
If they were incredibly well funded and had access to a huge donor
pool and they knew which antigens would be on the antibody panel for the
blood test, they could in theory find a donor that would be "identical".
But in general, it's likely that they will mis-match for a few of them
if a heterologous transfusion took place, because for the most part, the
cheaters are only looking at the major blood group antigens.

So a guilty rider's test might have come back with 4 of the antibodies
on the panel showing a discrepancy. This is the first positive the lab
worker has ever seen or ever heard about. Maybe he was expecting all 10
or so to light up, and that's why he scratched his head and labeled the
test as suspect? Or maybe he was scratching his head because a rider
was showing signs of receiving transfusions from more than one donor and
he didn't have time to sit down and think outside the box?

Gym (having fun outside the box) Gravity