Ferrari was right: EPO & orange juice

[StyrbjornSterki]

Dr. Ferrari Was Right, a chapter from Spitting in the Soup
Exploring how the deals made behind closed doors keep drugs in sports

...EPO deaths made for good news stories, even if there was no autopsy evidence that EPO was actually killing cyclists. However, the New York Times knew the connection between EPO and the apparent boomlet in dead cyclists was speculative, and admitted so a week later. Backtrack­ing, the Times ran a correction: “A picture caption last Sunday with an article about a stamina-building drug linked to athletes’ deaths misstated what is known about the death of the Dutch cyclist Johannes Draaijer. An autopsy did not specify the cause, and it is not known conclusively whether he had used the drug.”...

...In a New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) article on the thera­peutic uses of EPO published on May 9, 1991, 10 days before the Times piece, hematologist Dr. Allan Erslev wrote that erythropoietin “appears to be almost nontoxic.”...

...[T]he story of EPO killing loads of cyclists became a “flagship myth” for anti-doping interests. It was a story manufactured and spread by the press with the intent of scaring athletes....

...López also looked at 20 academic texts that offered evidence against the claim that EPO killed a bunch of cyclists in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The articles commonly pointed to genetic heart defects as the most likely cause of the deaths. None of these studies cited EPO as a potential or actual cause...

...As López sees it, the role of the EPO deaths in the war on drugs in sport is analogous to the role fictional weapons of mass destruction played in the justification of the United States’ invasion of Iraq in 2003. “There was a war to be waged, and the people waging that war needed justification, an excuse, a solid reason,”...

...My own search of medical literature finds plenty of warnings about the dangers of too much EPO. And there are many examples of pharma­ceutical companies paying physicians kickbacks to overdose patients, a process that inadvertently accelerates the growth of deadly tumors. However, I found no documented instances of EPO killing already healthy humans, athletes or otherwise....

...[E]ven massive amounts of EPO don’t automatically lead to death. A 2006 paper described two hospitalized South Korean heart-attack patients who accidentally received nearly 10 times their prescribed dose of EPO—318,000 units instead of 33,000. Both patients were smokers, and one had a history of hypertension and diabetes. After discovering the overdose, the hospital closely monitored the patients for symptoms such as elevated blood pressure, nausea, vomiting, shock, and thrombo­sis (which had already put them in the hospital). Despite the overdose, doctors reported that the two patients experienced none of the negative expected side effects from toxic levels of EPO....

...The EPO-kills story “was useful for the anti-doping campaign,” López explained. “So it didn’t matter if the evidence was good enough or not because it was conducive” to the anti-doping missionaries’ goal of imposing a new purity on sports. In fact, López feels that anti-doping campaigners are acting in good faith, rather than willful hypocrisy. “I don’t think that they lied on purpose,” López told me. “But what they did was create a truth out of circumstantial and scattered evidence. And they believed in their own creation.” ...

 

[bigcog]

Dr. Ferrari Was Right, a chapter from Spitting in the Soup
Exploring how the deals made behind closed doors keep drugs in sports

...EPO deaths made for good news stories, even if there was no autopsy evidence that EPO was actually killing cyclists. However, the New York Times knew the connection between EPO and the apparent boomlet in dead cyclists was speculative, and admitted so a week later. Backtrack­ing, the Times ran a correction: “A picture caption last Sunday with an article about a stamina-building drug linked to athletes’ deaths misstated what is known about the death of the Dutch cyclist Johannes Draaijer. An autopsy did not specify the cause, and it is not known conclusively whether he had used the drug.”...

...In a New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) article on the thera­peutic uses of EPO published on May 9, 1991, 10 days before the Times piece, hematologist Dr. Allan Erslev wrote that erythropoietin “appears to be almost nontoxic.”...

...[T]he story of EPO killing loads of cyclists became a “flagship myth” for anti-doping interests. It was a story manufactured and spread by the press with the intent of scaring athletes....

...López also looked at 20 academic texts that offered evidence against the claim that EPO killed a bunch of cyclists in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The articles commonly pointed to genetic heart defects as the most likely cause of the deaths. None of these studies cited EPO as a potential or actual cause...

...As López sees it, the role of the EPO deaths in the war on drugs in sport is analogous to the role fictional weapons of mass destruction played in the justification of the United States’ invasion of Iraq in 2003. “There was a war to be waged, and the people waging that war needed justification, an excuse, a solid reason,”...

...My own search of medical literature finds plenty of warnings about the dangers of too much EPO. And there are many examples of pharma­ceutical companies paying physicians kickbacks to overdose patients, a process that inadvertently accelerates the growth of deadly tumors. However, I found no documented instances of EPO killing already healthy humans, athletes or otherwise....

...[E]ven massive amounts of EPO don’t automatically lead to death. A 2006 paper described two hospitalized South Korean heart-attack patients who accidentally received nearly 10 times their prescribed dose of EPO—318,000 units instead of 33,000. Both patients were smokers, and one had a history of hypertension and diabetes. After discovering the overdose, the hospital closely monitored the patients for symptoms such as elevated blood pressure, nausea, vomiting, shock, and thrombo­sis (which had already put them in the hospital). Despite the overdose, doctors reported that the two patients experienced none of the negative expected side effects from toxic levels of EPO....

...The EPO-kills story “was useful for the anti-doping campaign,” López explained. “So it didn’t matter if the evidence was good enough or not because it was conducive” to the anti-doping missionaries’ goal of imposing a new purity on sports. In fact, López feels that anti-doping campaigners are acting in good faith, rather than willful hypocrisy. “I don’t think that they lied on purpose,” López told me. “But what they did was create a truth out of circumstantial and scattered evidence. And they believed in their own creation.” ...

So all those cyclists in the 90's who got up in the middle of the night to cycle on a trainer to stop their blood getting thick were wasting their time. Lol

 

[GraftPunk]

So, does todays news of his conviction, suspended sentence, and mild fine actually mean anything of substance?

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/dr-ferrari-found-guilty-of-doping-by-italian-court

 

[May0maniac]

Re:

So, does todays news of his conviction, suspended sentence, and mild fine actually mean anything of substance?

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/dr-ferrari-found-guilty-of-doping-by-italian-court

They also revoked his medical license for 18 months.
It's not a lot, but what do you expect, it's the first time that he has been found guilty, they should revoke his medical license, but that wouldn't really harm him.

 

[Benotti69]

Re: Re:

So, does todays news of his conviction, suspended sentence, and mild fine actually mean anything of substance?

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/dr-ferrari-found-guilty-of-doping-by-italian-court

They also revoked his medical license for 18 months.
It's not a lot, but what do you expect, it's the first time that he has been found guilty, they should revoke his medical license, but that wouldn't really harm him.

He is not practicing medicine and I doubt he has practiced medicine for a long long time.

He is coaching riders in what pharmaceuticals to take to enhance their performance.

 

[Alex Simmons/RST]

There's really no need to make up stuff about whether exogenous EPO use is or is not dangerous. It's still doping and that should be sufficient on its own.

Whether something is toxic or poisonous is always a mater of dose. Water is toxic with a sufficient dose. So is orange juice.

Negative health impacts or potential negative health impacts are one reason substances may be prohibited, but it's not a requirement.

 

[MarkvW]

Re:

So, does todays news of his conviction, suspended sentence, and mild fine actually mean anything of substance?

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/dr-ferrari-found-guilty-of-doping-by-italian-court

Guessing that "suspended" implies conditions, and conditions implies supervision (or the power to supervise). Maybe he might be subject to unannounced searches, etc. Could cramp his style. Would be interesting to hear from an Italian on this.

 

[benzwire]