fmk_RoI said:
Such a pity
WADA pulled funding from such
a solidly researched project before it could be
validated.
There were several reasons for this, one of them being that the cat--or blood--was already out of the bag. Since riders now knew the risk of storing blood in this kind of bag, they were likely to avoid it. There are also in principle more direct ways of demonstrating transfusion, based on cellular/molecular changes in the blood, which don't depend on what the blood is stored in, and which can even be applied to frozen samples, which would not be the case for the DEHP test. (There is some solid research in this area, too, but it hasn't led to a test yet).
But because DEHP is an environmental pollutant, and is now pervasive in society, there have been literally tens of thousands of individuals whose urine levels have been determined, so I repeat, there is very solid research. This research has established a mean level that is far below what a rider transfusing blood would frequently demonstrate. The test could have been used, and AFAIK, it's still possible to use it as supplementary evidence if not as a standalone test. But as I have pointed out numerous times here, the most recent just a few days ago wrt Froome, WADA goes out of its way to avoid false positives, to the point of making it fairly easy for riders to avoid real ones.