The Sidebar Thread

[aphronesis]

That when people are shouting down your evidence chain, it makes GL's account both plausible in the context of the times on its face and a credible means of covering for more in that it sticks close to possible to truths. That's all.

 

[djpbaltimore]

No, I still doubt that he was prevented from getting a blood transfusion due to HIV (as you all are telling me that LeMond has suggested). If he needed one to save his life, he would've been given one based on the odds at the time (i.e. there was a very small chance of getting HIV from blood). People were still getting blood transfusions when people had no idea whether the blood was safe or not (prior to 1985). It suggests that his condition on the hematologic front was stable enough that he did not absolutely require any further medical intervention. It suggests that his kidney was still functioning normally despite the pellet damage.

Overall, no one has yet made any cohesive argument that he is likely to have received EPO in 1987 after he got shot. He was not in the right cohort for the clinical trial and the drug was obviously not even FDA approved. Which is not to say that this was impossible, just very, very, very unlikely. Is anybody actually arguing that LeMond was likely to have gotten EPO in 1987 at the hospital? (I have answered all questions given to me, it is time some of you do the same IMO)

 

[Tonton]

Re:

No, I still doubt that he was prevented from getting a blood transfusion due to HIV (as you all are telling me that LeMond has suggested). If he needed one to save his life, he would've been given one based on the odds at the time (i.e. there was a very small chance of getting HIV from blood). People were still getting blood transfusions when people had no idea whether the blood was safe or not (prior to 1985). It suggests that his condition on the hematologic front was stable enough that he did not absolutely require any further medical intervention. It suggests that his kidney was still functioning normally despite the pellet damage.

Overall, no one has yet made any cohesive argument that he is likely to have received EPO in 1987 after he got shot. He was not in the right cohort for the clinical trial and the drug was obviously not even FDA approved. Which is not to say that this was impossible, just very, very, very unlikely. Is anybody actually arguing that LeMond was likely to have gotten EPO in 1987 at the hospital? (I have answered all questions given to me, it is time some of you do the same IMO)

I'm not here to talk about LeMond, but your first sentences are extremely false. You must not have been old enough then. In '85, '86,'87, AIDS created a panic. It ruined the career of Fabius, French PM at the time, because many were contaminated. There was no way to ensure that blood donors were HIV-free. Methods of detection were archaic. The odds were unknown. In the case of a friend of mine, hemophiliac, who got transfusions during appendicitis surgery, well the odds got against him. Your opening statement is very wrong my friend.

 

[djpbaltimore]

Serotyping is not archaic. 1985 was when it was approved for use. As I noted, it was not foolproof. Sorry for your friend.

 

[hrotha]

Re: wooo.oh

As long as he talks like a sexist pig I will reserve the right to call him a pig. Simples.

And yet those who like to hurl accusations of 'sexism' around would probably regard this sort of thing as being just an example of 'positive female empowerment'.

https://twitter.com/jessicavalenti/status/494591618519805953?lang=en-gb

I reserve the right to call it offensive, divisive misandry, pure and simple.

Yes, you reserve the right to call it misandry. Doesn't mean you're right, but go ahead.

Anyway, you're aware that the man tears that t-shirt is referring to are specifically the tears of men like you, right?

 

[Robert21]

Re: wooo.oh

Yes, you reserve the right to call it misandry.

At least you accept that it is divisive and is intended to be offensive.

That's a start.

Personally, I don't go along with this nonsense that only males can be 'sexist', only white people can be 'racist', 'misogyny' is universal but 'misandry' doesn't even exist, and so on. But then I still believe in all those things that contemporary feminists despise so much, such as reason, logic and empiricism...

 

[hrotha]

Don't put words in my mouth.

 

[Robert21]

Re:

Don't put words in my mouth.

So you don't think it could ever be regarded as being offensive? Somehow I doubt that you would say the same if you saw someone wearing a T-shirt saying 'I bathe in female tears', or even just 'I bathe in feminist tears'.

Winston sank his arms to his sides and slowly refilled his lungs with air. His mind slid away into the labyrinthine world of doublethink. To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again: and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself. That was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word ‘doublethink’ involved the use of doublethink.

 

[hrotha]

Of course I wouldn't, because the historical and sociological context of such a t-shirt would be completely different.

 

[Robert21]

Re:

Of course I wouldn't, because the historical and sociological context of such a t-shirt would be completely different.

What you mean is "I would find a T-shirt saying 'I bathe in female tears' to be offensive, but not one saying 'I bathe in male tears', because the historical and sociological context that my world view embodies is based on the constructs of the dominant feminist cultural hegemony."

The problem with this was highlighted by the feminist 'philosopher' Sandra Harding when she tried to claim that not only was objectivity impossible (a "myth invented by neurotic males to satisfy their perverted psychological needs") all 'ways of knowing', including science, are just social constructs that cannot claim to be 'true'.

It follows that the relativistic constructs of feminism cannot claim to express any ultimate truths either, so what constitutes 'sexism', even whether it is 'good or bad', is merely a matter of social convention, with what is held to be 'true' simply being that the the most influential or vociferous say it is.

Yes, I know that Harding has argued that such 'Post-Enlightenment, European, white male logic' is exactly what contemporary feminism aims to overthrow. But therein in lies the the irrationality and the whiff of totalitarianism that so characterises contemporary feminist 'thought'. The, 'the truth is whatever we say it is' relativism, the intolerance of 'thoughtcrime', the aim of controlling thought via the restriction of language, Orwell drew out the blueprint for totalitarian thought, and contemporary feminism is following it to the letter!

 

[aphronesis]

All feminist thought? Is there a "dominant feminist hegemony"; has it already overshot the inconvenience and implicit/explicit bias of centuries under various dominant male "hegemonies".?

 

[Robert21]

Re: wooo.oh

One of the characteristics of Thoughtcrime is that it remains in the head of the thinker and does not need to come out of their mouth.

But the thoughtcriminal is always betrayed by their actions:

Whether he went on with the diary, or whether he did not go on with it, made no difference. The Thought Police would get him just the same. He had committed — would still have committed, even if he had never set pen to paper — the essential crime that contained all others in itself. Thoughtcrime, they called it. Thoughtcrime was not a thing that could be concealed for ever. You might dodge successfully for a while, even for years, but sooner or later they were bound to get you.

Another quote from Nineteen Eight-Four that came to mind reading some of the comments on here.

Orthodoxy means not thinking — not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.

 

[sniper]

regardless, the implication of you doubting it is that (you think) Lemond may have lied about it.

So either Lemond really was a candidate for EPO treatment, or he's pretending to have been one.
We d/won't know. And so, again, it becomes a bit of a moot point: in both scenarios, he is not unlikely to have gotten EPO as he and his people had access to it. It would explain the rumors and the newspaper article about Lemond introducing EPO, something you haven't accounted for. It would explain Lemond investing in Montgomery Securities, something you haven't accounted for, either.

Further down the line, EPO explains (the particular nature of) his 89 and 90 seasons, something iron shots, anti-allergy injections, flu injections, and vitamin pills really cannot account for.

It also explains the remarkable inconsistencies (if not outright lies) in Lemond's own accounts about doping in general and EPO in particular.
For instance, there is one interview from 1999 where he says he only took vitamin pills, and another interview where he says he was needle adverse. Both are directly contradicted by several earlier press releases that have him taking different kinds of injections in 89, 91, and 93.
There is another interview where he says that he never had his blood examined for *two whole years* after the shooting. Which is so far-fetched I don't even know where to begin. And that all in the context of talk about EPO/doping. It simply looks as though he's not. at. all. comfortable with the topic, and has made stuff up as he goes along.

 

[hrotha]

dominant feminist cultural hegemony

*dies*

I'm done.

 

[Robert21]

Re:

All feminist thought? Is there a "dominant feminist hegemony"; has it already overshot the inconvenience and implicit/explicit bias of centuries under various dominant male "hegemonies".?

No all feminist thought perhaps. From what I have read some even now accept that evolutionary biology has an important role to play in explaining gender differences.

As to the dominant feminist cultural hegemony, yes feminist ideology, in hand with post-modern relativism, is totally dominant in some areas. One example is in what passes for academia these days, especially in the humanities. (Just read up on 'The Science Wars' to see what a corrosive effect this has had on academic standards. For example, see Sokal and Bricmont's Intellectual Impostures or Gross and Levitt's Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science.)

Another 'shooting fish in a barrel' example is The Guardian newspaper in the UK, which is dependent on its comments section to drawn in readers, but is totally intolerant of anything that does not accept its dominant feminist standpoint 100%. (No surprise that Jessica 'I bathe in male tears' Valenti is a regular contributor.)

Its influence is also dominant in the social media, which is what led to the shameful Tim Hunt episode. It can even be seen on forums such as this where many seem to accept that any accusation of 'sexism' must be true, cannot be challenged and deserves the harshest possible punishment.

 

[Robert21]

Re:

dominant feminist cultural hegemony

*dies*

I'm done.

Quick, take a quick look at The Guardian, that will bring you back to life. (And show you what I am on about.)

 

[aphronesis]

Sokal is old, old news. I'll give you Valenti, but the Graun is only one culture and there's the risk of replicating what it might seem to exaggerate and distort. Reading this discussion though and knowing many of the discussants, I feel you'll have more traction with the particulars. But that's just me. What seems to be emerging is the need to distinguish and negotiate difference/equality.

 

[Robert21]

Re:

What seems to be emerging is the need to distinguish and negotiate difference/equality.

There's the rub. For years we have been told that feminism was essentially egalitarian, focused on achieving equality of treatment.

It is now clear that 'equality' increasingly means 'treating women in a preferential manner'. Hence it is OK for Sutton to be a forthright as he likes with his male riders, but needs to treat his female riders with a much higher level of deference and respect if they are not going to hurl charges of 'sexist' at him.

Same with the doctors dispute in the UK, where new contracts are being brought in that base a doctor's salary and rate of promotion on their level of clinical experience and expertise. Fair enough one might think, but apparently this 'discriminates' against women, many of whom work part time, like to take long career breaks (often to have children) and who think that they should get the same salary increases and promotions as male doctors who work 60 hours a week plus, year in and year out, as though time spent playing with their children contributes to their skills as a doctor as much as working with patients and doing further training would!

 

[gillan1969]

Re: Re:

What seems to be emerging is the need to distinguish and negotiate difference/equality.

There's the rub. For years we have been told that feminism was essentially egalitarian, focused on achieving equality of treatment.

It is now clear that 'equality' increasingly means 'treating women in a preferential manner'. Hence it is OK for Sutton to be a forthright as he likes with his male riders, but needs to treat his female riders with a much higher level of deference and respect if they are not going to hurl charges of 'sexist' at him.

Same with the doctors dispute in the UK, where new contracts are being brought in that base a doctor's salary and rate of promotion on their level of clinical experience and expertise. Fair enough one might think, but apparently this 'discriminates' against women, many of whom work part time, like to take long career breaks (often to have children) and who think that they should get the same salary increases and promotions as male doctors who work 60 hours a week plus, year in and year out, as though time spent playing with their children contributes to their skills as a doctor as much as working with patients and doing further training would!

depends what you mean by 'preferential'....

 

[sniper]

echoes, good post.

For a good hint at the use of EPO in the Netherlands in 88, check this post on Van Gennep:
viewtopic.php?p=1906774#p1906774

That said, I totally agree with your assessment that wrt epo in 88 in the Netherlands/Belgium there is a burden of evidence which has not yet been met satisfactorily.

Imo the case of Greg Lemond is (much) different, however, in as far as there are serious rumors about him introducing EPO, including a 1990 whistleblower article. In other words: there is already a reasonable suspicion (beyond his performances). Then if you go look at the available data, it all points in the direction that those rumors aren't just random smoke.
The assumption that he took EPO just answers so many questions and is supported by so much contextual data (do ask if you want me to expand).
For me it's occam's razor.

The only question for me personally is when he got onto the EPO program.

1986 doesn't seem out of reach (see articles linked above, suggesting it was circulating in the States already in that year). It's also the year that Lemond keeps referring to as his strongest year ever.

1987: in the hospital, quite likely (see Sidebar thread for recent discussion)

1988: no idea what happened there.

1989 Giro and beyond: very likely.

 

[djpbaltimore]

I have been consistent throughout. I don't think LeMond has a very good grasp on medical situations because he is an athlete and not a medical doctor. When did I ever suggest that he was lying? EPO is not a treatment for any condition that he ever was known to have had, ergo he would never have been likely to receive EPO treatment as part of his medical care. You have never explained that salient point. EPO is not a treatment for traumatic loss of blood, because it does not restore RBC in a short amount of time and makes the blood sludgy which can lead to fatal heart issues in bed-ridden patients. Show a link where EPO is used on gun shot trauma patients in ICU. Otherwise, quit making medical claims that you cannot support with evidence.

 

[sniper]

Re:

I have been consistent throughout. I don't think LeMond has a very good grasp on medical situations because he is an athlete and not a medical doctor. EPO is not a treatment for any condition that he ever was known to have had, ergo he would never have been likely to receive EPO treatment as part of his medical care. You have never explained that salient point. EPO is not a treatment for traumatic loss of blood, because it does not restore RBC in a short amount of time and makes the blood sludgy which can lead to fatal heart issues in bed-ridden patients. Show a link where EPO is used on gun shot trauma patients in ICU. Otherwise, quit making medical claims that you cannot support with evidence.

That's fair enough. I'm not in a position to challenge you on that.
So you think he was getting neither blood transfusions nor EPO in 1987, even if he really had 70% blood volume loss and 19 hematocrit?

 

[gillan1969]

Re:

echoes, good post.

For a good hint at the use of EPO in the Netherlands in 88, check this post on Van Gennep:
viewtopic.php?p=1906774#p1906774

That said, I totally agree with your assessment that wrt epo in 88 in the Netherlands/Belgium there is a burden of evidence which has not yet been met satisfactorily.

Imo the case of Greg Lemond is (much) different, however, in as far as there are serious rumors about him introducing EPO, including a 1990 whistleblower article. In other words: there is already a reasonable suspicion (beyond his performances). Then if you go look at the available data, it all points in the direction that those rumors aren't just random smoke.
The assumption that he took EPO just answers so many questions and is supported by so much contextual data (do ask if you want me to expand).
For me it's occam's razor.

The only question for me personally is when he got onto the EPO program.

1986 doesn't seem out of reach (see articles linked above, suggesting it was circulating in the States already in that year). It's also the year that Lemond keeps referring to as his strongest year ever.

1987: in the hospital, quite likely (see Sidebar thread for recent discussion)

1988: no idea what happened there.

1989 Giro and beyond: very likely.

let's run with it sniper

so presuming it gave him benefits which outstrip your standard PEDs...what was he doing on a season-long basis (as his results were pretty consistent) in 82, 83, 84 and 85?

btw '88 he was being crap as you might expect after having been shot the previous year and so being down on the miles (which is of course why he ended up at ADR)

 

[sniper]

Re: Re:

...
btw '88 he was being crap as you might expect after having been shot the previous year and so being down on the miles (which is of course why he ended up at ADR)

yeah, agreed.
I meant to say "no idea what happened EPO-wise" (i.e. whether or not he had some that year).
I think 1988 is irrelevant in the wider scheme of things, for the reason you mention.

so presuming it gave him benefits which outstrip your standard PEDs...what was he doing on a season-long basis (as his results were pretty consistent) in 82, 83, 84 and 85?

It outstrips your standard PEDs in terms of practicality, first and foremost. And perhaps only in terms of practicality.
Performance-wise, I have no idea how much benefit he may or may not have gotten from EPO compared to his previous non-EPO program. (Cf. DamianoMachiavelli's earlier post suggesting a blood transfusion program may have been similarly effective, performance-wise.)

btw, generally I don't think the plausibility of Lemond using blood transfusions in the late 70s/early 80s should be discussed in this thread. Better to wait for the Lemond thread to reopen, imo.

edit: only just saw Maxiton's post. Max, please take this post off if you think it doesn't belong here.

 

[djpbaltimore]

I am surprised that he did not receive a transfusion of any kind based on his claimed blood loss. But if they thought a transfusion was medically unnecessary for survival, maybe they did not want to risk the small (but not zero) risk of getting HIV. But, if his blood loss was life threatening, they would've transfused him. It would be medically unethical not to do so.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2652237/