columbia, bmc, radioshack, slipstream ...internal testing - Balco

[tubularglue]

Headquartered in Burlingame, California, BALCO was founded in 1984. Officially, BALCO was a service business for blood and urine analysis and food supplements.

I wonder what companies these teams use for internal analysis ?

 

[tubularglue]

Catlin, this name keeps popping into my head

Shortly after, Don Catlin, MD, the founder and then-director of the UCLA Olympic Analytical Laboratory and now head of the Los Angeles-based nonprofit organization Anti-Doping Research, succeeded in identifying and developing a testing process for tetrahydrogestrinone (THG). Now able to detect the new substance, he tested 550 existing samples from athletes, of which 20 proved to be positive for THG. Later that year, the Chicago Tribune named Catlin Sportsman of the Year. [2]

On September 3, 2003 agents of the Internal Revenue Service, Food and Drug Administration, San Mateo Narcotics Task Force, and USADA conducted a house search at the BALCO facilities. Beside lists of BALCO customers in a BALCO field warehouse they found containers whose labels indicated steroids and growth hormones. In a house search at Anderson's place two days later, steroids, $60,000 in cash, names lists and dosage plans were found."

wikpedia

 

[tubularglue]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/12/sports/othersports/12cycling.html?fta=y

up and digging, mulitple posts

about sample taken / not taken / payment / let go

Don Catlin, the prominent antidoping scientist who was supposed to run Armstrong’s program, said Wednesday that they had decided earlier in the day to part ways, without Catlin’s analyzing a single blood or urine sample from Armstrong. The program was too complex and too costly, Catlin said, and the decision to terminate it was mutual.

“In the real world, when you try to implement a program as grandiose as what you had in mind, it just becomes so complicated that it’s better not to try,” Catlin said, adding that a contract with Armstrong had never been signed. “We’re all disappointed, but it’s just not going to be possible.”

Before the Tour Down Under in Australia last month, Armstrong said that his customized antidoping program was under way, but he began to back off his initial announcement to publish all of his biological data online. A news release by Astana on Jan. 18, the first day of the race, said that Armstrong would be tested about every three days by Catlin’s program. At that point, Catlin said, Astana had paid him a “small contribution” to begin taking samples.

Only one sample was taken, said Oliver Catlin, the chief executive of the Anti-Doping Sciences Institute, Don Catlin’s for-profit laboratory based near Los Angeles.

must of been a hell of a sample that he did not take ?

then read:

Catlin said he was still running the antidoping programs for two professional cycling teams, Team Columbia and Garmin-Slipstream.

 

[I Watch Cycling In July]

What are you getting at here tubular? You think it might be worth the press or the authorities talking to Catlin to see if he knows anything...or you think Catlin is caught up in this in some way?

I think it would be interesting to hear Catlin's views on whether Lance changed his tune about how extensive the testing program should be, after the big media circus announcing the plan.

 

[BroDeal]

What are you getting at here tubular? You think it might be worth the press or the authorities talking to Catlin to see if he knows anything...or you think Catlin is caught up in this in some way?

I think it would be interesting to hear Catlin's views on whether Lance changed his tune about how extensive the testing program should be, after the big media circus announcing the plan.

There is every chance that the real reason that the testing program never went forward is that Catlin realized that Armstrong wanted a sham program or restrictions that would have prevented the program from being effective. I cannot see that Catlin would know anything. He might have an opinion on Armstrong's blood values from last year.

 

[tubularglue]

i always found these associations as very odd.