Landis Case Thoughts

I am a scientist and know quite a bit about creating and following protocols. As part of my job I set up and maintain quality control of sophisticated instruments (flow cytometers the same instruments that were used in the Hamilton case. This is another whole issue that I have reserved comment on because I know how easily flow data can be miss read and without seeing the raw data I hesitate to draw any conclusion.) as well as helping investigators design experiments, run the instruments, analyze data and troubleshoot. I have also worked for a company that produces toxicology products for solid phase extraction of drugs/compounds found in blood, urine etc. for analysis on HPLC and GCMS as well as the quick initial screening for the presence of all drugs using simple chromatography. I used to design the methods to extract specific molecules of interest out of a sample to produce a clean mass spec or other analysis for the compound in question. I do feel like I am probably immersed enough in this field to speak up without just talking out my ass.

From the New York Times "Don Catlin, the former head of the U.C.L.A. antidoping lab who now runs his own antidoping research facility, said that initial tests of urine samples could produce negative results because none of the tests fail the screening for a high ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone. If a sample comes back below the threshold of four to one, he said, there is nothing to trigger the more sophisticated carbon isotope ratio test. That test examines the atomic makeup of testosterone in the urine and can determine if it is natural or synthetic."

Yeah, so seven samples taken did not have elevated ratios of T:E but one did. That one sample was then tested for synthetic T. C12 vs C13. This alone raises concern since it is the minute difference in C12 and C13 that consitutes synthetic vs natural Testosterone and a lab that is potentially flawed in its proceedures could easily get false results. Now I am no genius but one out of eight are elevated and gets further testing low and behold synthetic T is found. The one out of eight makes the 1:11 sample an outlier in my opinion, inconsistent with the rest of the tested samples. Usually if there is one sample that is not consistent with the rest it is suspect. In this case it became a smoking gun. The other problem is the other 7 B samples that were just tested by the same lab, again if it is a reliable test it should and would have to be reproducible with the same protocol anywhere. Having the same lab preform the test, excluding outside witnesses and coming up the identical results to the original one outlier is very curious. The other 7 samples did not trigger the more sophisticated test because there was no elevated ratio so how come they now test positive for exogenous Testosterone? Yes, yes I know that ratio of total T:E is not indicative of the T's natural or synthetic origins but it is the consistent synthetic finding NOW and the inconsistent T:E from the original tests that raises doubt for me.

Conveniently the French lab does not have to answer to any of this to anyone because they have now destroyed the evidence to which they are using to build a case against Landis. That is very bad and shady science. "It's true because we say it is" will never convince me. Science should be transparent if it is good then they should want independent verification to further solidify their findings and the overall reliability of the methods they use. Besides that there is the whole leaking of information that keeps happening. Wouldn't surprise me if the "results" were leaked before the tests ware even performed. Sheesh!

Landis is the winner of the 2006 TdF weather the French like it or not.

I am all for catching a cheat and keeping the sport clean, but how can it be clean when the ones in charge of the whole process are dirty?