• The Cycling News forum is looking to add some volunteer moderators with Red Rick's recent retirement. If you're interested in helping keep our discussions on track, send a direct message to @SHaines here on the forum, or use the Contact Us form to message the Community Team.

    In the meanwhile, please use the Report option if you see a post that doesn't fit within the forum rules.

    Thanks!

Did EPO use really kill some riders?

Page 12 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
Re:

sniper said:
More like game set and match on your capacity to read.
If I describe Wiggins as an asthmatic, or Froome as a badzilla patient, does that mean I *believe* wiggins is asthmatic and froome really had bilharzia?
Lol.

More deflection. You clearly claimed that LeMond was a kidney patient which made him extremely suitable for "legally" experimenting with EPO, Once you were caught you started claiming that naturally the kidney issue was only a ruse used by LeMond to legitimize his EPO-use should he ever get caught. Nothing wrong with my reading abilities, but definitely something wrong with your line of reasoning.
 
Oct 16, 2010
19,912
2
0
Visit site
Re: Re:

GJB123 said:
sniper said:
More like game set and match on your capacity to read.
If I describe Wiggins as an asthmatic, or Froome as a badzilla patient, does that mean I *believe* wiggins is asthmatic and froome really had bilharzia?
Lol.

More deflection. You clearly claimed that LeMond was a kidney patient which made him extremely suitable for "legally" experimenting with EPO, Once you were caught you started claiming that naturally the kidney issue was only a ruse used by LeMond to legitimize his EPO-use should he ever get caught. Nothing wrong with my reading abilities, but definitely something wrong with your line of reasoning.
If that's the impression you got from my posts, I apologize for creating the misunderstanding and I'll try to explain myself better:

I don't know exactly which of Lemond's kidney problems were real and which were not.
I would argue it's to some extent inconsequential. The main point I've been wanting to make is that Lemond had a near-ideal backstory in case any unwanted details about the use of certain substances would ever see the light of day.
Being anemic and having (vagueley specified) kidney problems would have been the near-ideal backstory in case rumors of his EPO use would ever emerge.
Much like Froome's asthma and bilharzia, or Wiggins pollen allergy.
Should, unexpectedly, any dodgy values or other unwanted information (kenacort TUEs) ever see the light of day, Froome and Wiggins made sure they have a backstory.
That has little to do with proof or evidence, but it is (imo) why sick pro-athletes being at the top of their game warrant (additional) scrutiny.

Then, if you look at the inconsistencies in the kidney issues (and there are a couple as I pointed out), it feeds the suspicion that it was just a backstory rather than something real. This, again, has a parallel in Wiggins pollen allergy and Froome's asthma/bilharzia. To paraphrase Dr. House says: truth begins in lies, half-truths and inconsistencies.

And to further the parallel:
Why didn't we hear about Froome's asthma until 2013?
Why didn't we hear about Lemond's kidney problems until 1989?
 
Jul 5, 2009
2,440
4
0
Visit site
No, no, and no.

Greg's "kidney problems" amount to a single anecdote about how and why he doesn't like injections including how he'd try to avoid antibiotic injections as a kid when he had kidney infections (read: urinary tract infections).

He was anemic and was administered two injections of iron which solved the problem (I've documented several reliable sources). Nothing to do with kidneys whatsoever.

The only inconsistency was Lemond claiming three rather than two injections in an interview 25 years after the event.

So no backstory. No cover for rumors. Nothing like Wiggins. Nothing.

John Swanson
 
Oct 16, 2010
19,912
2
0
Visit site
Re:

You don't know if he was anemic.
Last time I checked horse's mouth claims don't count as fact in a discussion on doping, so why not stop selling it as such.
Next you're gonna claim Froome really had bilharzia.

Greg's "kidney problems" amount to a single anecdote about how and why he doesn't like injections including how he'd try to avoid antibiotic injections as a kid when he had kidney infections (read: urinary tract infections).
indeed, as I said above, *vaguely specified*, meaning open to different readings.
Do you have evidence for your "urinary tract" reading?
No you don't, so again, stop referring to it as fact.
Next you're gonna claim Froome really had asthma.

The only inconsistency was Lemond claiming three rather than two injections in an interview 25 years after the event.
Good, although somewhat surprising, to see you backtrack on this. Previously you said it was no inconsistency.
Not that it matters much, I mean 2 or 3, who cares...but as it's an inconsistency, how can you possibly claim as fact that he got 2, not 3, injections.
Next you're gonna claim Wiggins really had pollen allergy.

Nothing like Wiggins.
Agreed to disagree.
 
Re:

sniper said:
My point exactly. No facts, just inconsistencies.
And that's Lemonds problem. Not yours or mine.

Hey another LeMond thread that I didn't know of...

Sniper, you should leave out the "inconsistency". We're talking about a man who once forgot to bring his yellow jersey to the starting line. And yet, you're asking him to remember precisely what happened 30 years ago.

Yep. It's LeMond's problem if he looses his shoes or keys or phone... and yet you're turning this against him as if he was doing this on purpose. Stop acting as if you were his wife.
 
Re: Re:

sniper said:
You don't know if he was anemic.
Last time I checked horse's mouth claims don't count as fact in a discussion on doping, so why not stop selling it as such.

Interesting. Not unreasonable. Personal statements are evidence, and as evidence can be evaluated. They are not facts, this is true.

Oh...wait.

Being anemic and having (vagueley specified) kidney problems would have been the near-ideal backstory in case rumors of his EPO use would ever emerge.

If you followed your own advice you'd not be "selling" a hypothetical about a future rumor as fact. "...his EPO use" is not established. One might say "there is a rumor that he used EPO". That's very different from "rumors of his EPO use". The former establishes it as a rumor, the latter asserts a rumor about an established fact. But you know this.

You may also be aware that rumors are not facts. Yet you seem all too willing to use them in a discussion. Why? You seem to have stringent rules for how others conduct their arguments, but none for yourself. And we are to believe you are making your points in good faith?

Not buying it.
 
EPO isn't a treatment for anemia, it's a treatment for chronic anemia. Chronic anemia doesn't mean he's just not eating enough cheeseburgers, it means there's an underlying systemic disorder, such as hypothyroidism, cancer or cirrhosis of the liver. And the first-tier treatment for chronic anemia is always a treatment for the underlying disorder, not the administration of EPO.

What's the reference for this "research," a Ouija board?
 
Regarding Anna Lisa Draaijer.
Might it be that she actually signed a quitclaim under US law years ago with PDM and ain't allowed to speak about Johannes EPO usage anymore since then? Just asking since I ain't got no clue how that exactly works in the US justice. But it would make sense then, that she rejected her claims towards the Spiegel magazine and Kathy Lemond wouldn't it!?
 
Re:

Djoop said:
As if an epo injection, which alters your blood values, would be remotely compareable to drinking a glas of orange juice.
Ferrari did not compare an EPO injection (of what dosage, do you say?) to drinking a glass of orange juice (also of indeterminate size). He compared abuse of both.
Djoop said:
Like an amateur demagogue he tried to manipulate the audience but his overconfidence only exposed his depravity.
Hill-fuggin-larious. Hoist by your own petard.
Djoop said:
Probably made the comment in anger.
None of the people there that day suggest he was angry. Placid, actually.
Djoop said:
Without the 50% limit, we would have probably seen quite a few EPO deaths long before the first fool tried to digest 50 liters of orangejuice.
The H-limit came in in 1997, IIRC. EPO, it was in widespread use at that stage for at least five years, less widespread use for some unknown time period before that, another five years maybe, let's say. So possibly a decade but at least half a decade and yet ... well where are the bodies on the mortuary slabs? What has López got wrong?
 
Re:

staubsauger said:
Regarding Anna Lisa Draaijer.
Might it be that she actually signed a quitclaim under US law years ago with PDM and ain't allowed to speak about Johannes EPO usage anymore since then? Just asking since I ain't got no clue how that exactly works in the US justice. But it would make sense then, that she rejected her claims towards the Spiegel magazine and Kathy Lemond wouldn't it!?
Let's see your evidence that she took a claim in the US against a Dutch cycling team sponsored by a Dutch company over the death of a Dutch subject in a Dutch town. You must have her name in court records listing the case, is that it?
 
Re: Re:

bigcog said:
fmk_RoI said:
I have a feeling some will be looking for this thread today...

Why ?
Take a look at Robin Parisotto's and FMK's twitter accounts, there is some discussion about the rEPO deaths.

Here is one approach to put the 1987-1990 deaths in perspective I can't recall having seen.

According to the widely cited New York Times article from 1991 ("Stamina-Building Drug Linked to Athletes' Deaths"), five Dutch cyclists died mysteriously in 1987, allegedly as victims of recombinant erythropoietin. At that time, there were around 300 patients been treated with rhEPO worldwide for the clinical trials, nobody else. If we assume that these five were the only mysterious rhEPO-deaths, the "patients treated - mysterious deaths" - ratio is around one cyclist dead for every seventy rhEPO patients.

If we compare the situation to the mid-1990's to the years before the health tests, it is fair to assume that practically every endurance type of sport had rhEPO-problem and from the published accounts we know that many athletes were elevating their hematocrit levels to low 60's and even beyond (Riis, 64 %) and this type of attitude must've been widespread. The product was very available and correspondingly the number of people treated with the hormone was in the six figure-levels both in Europe and in the United States.

If the (extremely clumsy but illustrative) 1:70 ratio would have any predictive validity, there should've been up to a few thousand deaths, but mysterious deaths pretty much ended in 1990, as Bernat López demonstrated in his essay. Instead of a few thousand deaths, why not even one or two professionals for the whole period of 1991-1996? At least I see a problem here for the standard panic-fueled story.

Of course the clumsy ratio doesn't address the issue whether cyclists might've had access to the drug in 1987, and it is possible that the group of Dutch who gained access to the substance in the late 1980's got the dosage wrong and the survived generation learned from their mistakes and used aspirin, night alarm clock etc. But how many Dutch cyclists used the substance if five managed to die in only one year? Only the 5? 50? 500? Why didn't the country win every trophy in the world if the drug use was so prevalent in that country? Another issue never addressed is that if anyone somehow managed to buy the (then expensive) rhEPO or get access to the powerful drug via other connections during the pre-pharmacy era, why didn't he spend a a few guldens to monitor his hematocrit levels and instead elevated his hematocrit blindly up to 70%'s?

One last point is that it is strange that when some people sometimes address the issue, they are under the impression that the death of Johannes Draaijer in 1990 started the spate of the mysterious deaths, when it started the KNWU inquiry, public interest and moral panic, but was almost the last mysterious death. I don't even think that Greg LeMond is intentionally lying when he discusses the issue in one of his lectures and talks about "100 deaths" between 1990 and 1995:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLVOCV5Nlms&feature=youtu.be&t=21m7s
(Kathy LeMond claims in the same video from 25:57- that Annalisa Draaijer would've admitted to her that her late husband Johannes Draaijer was on a EPO-program).
 
Re: Re:

Offtopicish, but there has been allegations against Dr. Rob Pluijmers that he offered steroids to speed skaters in the 1980s being (if true) very inside the doping culture:

https://www.volkskrant.nl/nieuws-achtergrond/arts-schaatsbond-bood-doping-aan-erkennen-twee-voormalige-profschaatsers-voor-het-eerst~bad3c7b4/
(browsed it quickly through, I don't speak Dutch)

The only connection to the topic is that he commented the rHuEPO deaths in the early 1990s being skeptical about the connection while interestingly telling in 1990 knowing that at least some cyclists had taken the drug.

Edit: English language link below
https://nltimes.nl/2018/12/19/fmr-dutch-skaters-say-union-doctor-offered-doping-80s
 
Re: Re:

Aragon said:
Offtopicish, but there has been allegations against Dr. Rob Pluijmers that he offered steroids to speed skaters in the 1980s being (if true) very inside the doping culture:

https://www.volkskrant.nl/nieuws-achtergrond/arts-schaatsbond-bood-doping-aan-erkennen-twee-voormalige-profschaatsers-voor-het-eerst~bad3c7b4/
(browsed it quickly through, I don't speak Dutch)

The only connection to the topic is that he commented the rHuEPO deaths in the early 1990s being skeptical about the connection while interestingly telling in 1990 knowing that at least some cyclists had taken the drug.

Edit: English language link below
https://nltimes.nl/2018/12/19/fmr-dutch-skaters-say-union-doctor-offered-doping-80s
There was an earlier report in that series, about the disappearance of some samples, which is worth skimming in Translate.
 
Jul 29, 2016
634
1
0
Visit site
Re:

StyrbjornSterki said:
Anabolic steroids (injectables moreso than orals or topicals) also cause an increase in red blood cells and hematocrit. Not as profound as the increase cause by EPO, but there is a blood vector effect nonetheless.

Believe it or not, but also smoking is increasing red blood cells ;).
 
Re: Re:

lartiste said:
StyrbjornSterki said:
Anabolic steroids (injectables moreso than orals or topicals) also cause an increase in red blood cells and hematocrit. Not as profound as the increase cause by EPO, but there is a blood vector effect nonetheless.

Believe it or not, but also smoking is increasing red blood cells ;).
It's still a net loss because haemoglobin has an affinity for carbon monoxide that is 210 times as high as its affinity for oxygen. The blood of an average cigarette smoker at sea level is capable of transporting only as much oxygen as a non-smoker's at 1500 metres because much of the haemoglobin already is bound to carbon monoxide and unavailable for transport of oxygen.

One of the risks to men on HRT (and illicitly using AASs) is that their Hct easily can go over 50 as a result of the steroids, which puts them at risk of being diagnosed polycythemic. So it is not uncommon for those using AASs for athletic performance to be regular blood donors to keep their Hct in cheque.
 
From the link you posted: EPO works better on trained bodies than transfusions.
The title of another article on the Foothill research is "medicine better than blood doping".
http://leiden.courant.nu/issue/LD/1.../18?query=epo&period=1980-1990&sort=relevance
I wonder how they know this if they only tested it on anaemic patients. I would like to read the original article from the Calgary herald but I cant find it. I think its also strange that Mandin is a speaker at a doping seminar in Monte Carlo a year later where he explains the dangers for athletes (high blood pressure and blood clots).

The old Dutch articles I have read so far indicate that EPO was easy to get with a prescription in The Netherlands after January 1989. Around that time it was also bought over the border in Belgium and Germany. A member of the IOC medical staff confirmed in Monte Carlo that it was easy to get with a prescription in several countries.
The only ones i found denying this seem to have an agenda.
Old topic, but since the comments made by Dr. Henry Mandin at the 1989 Monte Carlo seminar are referred sometimes as "proof" that there existed known research with athletes or healthy people treated with EPO by the summer of 1989 or even during the Calgary Winter Olympics in February 1988 (where he commented on the topic), it should be stated such research did not exist.

In the manuscript of his Monte Carlo-presentation, Dr. Mandin not only does not refer to any research with healthy subjects, but uses data from seriously ill patients, and clearly writes in the "abstract" of his presentation that "[o]ne can only speculate on the response of an athlete to rHu-EPO". It is simultaneously true that he seems to believe that at least anemic athletes can benefit from the hormone.
 
  • Like
Reactions: fmk_RoI

TRENDING THREADS