I still don't Understand The Bio Passport

[franciep10]

How does it work I have no Idea, does it work I don't know have any riders been caught using the Passport system

 

[Kennf1]

The riders give blood samples throughout the year. The UCI collects the data, creates a database and determines whether abnormal variations exist, then does nothing about it.

 

[BroDeal]

The passport is a fraud.

Anne Gripper was able to take down almost all the top riders on Astana in 2007 using minimal data to target riders. For some reason the UCI only targeted Astana even though there were performances from other riders that were just as over the top as the Astana riders'. After having such success in 2007, the UCI stopped the targeted testing and put the bio passport in place. The result: Nothing.

Forget about sanctioning riders based upon abnormalities in a rider's longitudinal data. The passport should have provided a wealth of information to target test suspicious riders.

The refusal of the UCI to test for CERA says everything we need to know about the UCI and doping. Fuentes was recommending CERA years before, so it has been in use even when the drug was in clinical trials. Presented with the opportunity to test the 2008 Giro and 2007 TdF samples for CERA, the UCI probably could have eliminated a large number of riders in one fell swoop. But instead it decided to protect the dopers.

 

[whiteboytrash]

What didn't the Reb and Pfaffenburger come up on the bio passport ? ie Shouldn’t they have been removed from competition that way rather than been caught by regular testing ?

 

[PuncturedTyre]

The passport is a fraud.

Anne Gripper was able to take down almost all the top riders on Astana in 2007 using minimal data to target riders. For some reason the UCI only targeted Astana even though there were performances from other riders that were just as over the top as the Astana riders'. After having such success in 2007, the UCI stopped the targeted testing and put the bio passport in place. The result: Nothing.

Forget about sanctioning riders based upon abnormalities in a rider's longitudinal data. The passport should have provided a wealth of information to target test suspicious riders.

The refusal of the UCI to test for CERA says everything we need to know about the UCI and doping. Fuentes was recommending CERA years before, so it has been in use even when the drug was in clinical trials. Presented with the opportunity to test the 2008 Giro and 2007 TdF samples for CERA, the UCI probably could have eliminated a large number of riders in one fell swoop. But instead it decided to protect the dopers.

I am sad to say this, but absolutely spot on.

 

[BigBoat]

What didn't the Reb and Pfaffenburger come up on the bio passport ? ie Shouldn’t they have been removed from competition that way rather than been caught by regular testing ?

They mircrodose epo and get the same hematocrit every week. Or blood dope with their own blood and then use volume expanders to hemodilute post race.

 

[BigBoat]

Quote from Cuttingedgemuscle forum:

The passport is an individual electronic record of a pro rider, in which the results of all controls over a period of time are collated.
The Passport uses biological indicators....haematological parameters(Crit and hgb and others) and urinary steroidal profile( ie:test and test to epi-test ratio).

The blood passport doesn't follow products, but the athlete. The KEY to fooling this lame attempt by WADA to stop doping is to keep your passport the same or very nearly so all year long and that takes knowledge and is somewhat tricky to do...but it certainly can be done and will be.

First of all if you keep your crit high and the same all year...ie: 48-49% you will NOT be caught if you use dynepo.
It's "changes" in blood parameters /indicators that they look at.


Some top pro's will no longer allow their crits to ever drop to their old normals of 40-43%? Year round dynepo use has now started!!! Mark my words on this post>>>the "Passport" will soon discover that most top pro's have a crit of 48-49%!..and they will attribute this to hypoxic tent use on a consistent basis. HA!


Then it is VERY EASY to jack to 55% or more crit from 48-49% with autologous blood doping right before a race starts. Even going to 52% gives a good advantage and it is easy to dilute down to 48-49% with volume expanders/saline bolus's and desmospray to help keep it in the system a longer.
They don't do controls right before a race starts...and they never will. You have plenty of time to blood dope before the race start..PLENTY!
I can slam in 5 units of packed cells in trauma patients in the OR in 15 minutes with a couple good blood pump and that will raise your crit at least 6%.
The blood you slam in is not high in retics...it's your own normal blood taken months or years ago and frozen. They won't use blood high in retics from the building phase of an epo cycle.

OF COURSE using hypoxic tents is a cover up.....and of course they have to report where they are....but that doesn't change the cover up. They can say their crit and hgb has been on the high side all year because of their hypoxic tent.

Sure you have to tell them where you are ie: altitude ...but that doesn't mean you have to wait around for them to show up...and let them show up because any pro with half a brain will no longer be using alpha and beta epo but only dynepo which cannot be tested for because it is human identical. They can only test parameters if a rider is on dynepo ....and that is why they came up with this Passport.
You mentioned hgb mass...this is MCH or mean corpuscular volume...... it's the mass of hemoglobin in a red blood cell. It is diminished in microcytic anemias, and increased in macrocytic anemias. Using volume expanders after a race and before a possible control will not have any affect on hgb mass.

Retic percentage after autologous blood doping will be normal, as long as you use blood that is normal in retic numbers... so they cannot detect a change in retics after plasm expanders use to drop your hgb and Hct back to your so called "normal". Red cell mass will be normal too if that is what you referring to when you mentioned red cell mass.
Hgb is the AMOUNT of heme and globin in a given total volume sample of whole blood(including the plasma).
If you dilute the whole blood to 49% crit you dilute the hgb per sample as well... You also reduce the number of retics. All parameters stay within normal ranges for your "normal" 48-49% crit he he he. The key is to use volume expanders to dilute to your "normal" and not any lower.

almost all men have a 1 to 1 ratio... it's a hell of a lot greater than 40%.
Using publicly available documents, only 3 of nearly 500 cases since 2004 had T/E ratio at 4 to 1 or greater.
In several studies, the distribution of results in Caucasian athlete populations shows generally a mean T/E ratio LESS than 2 to 1 whereas in Asian populations the mean T/E ratio is significantly lower. In fact not a few Asian men can take a pretty decent dose of test for weeks and not go above 3 to 1.

WADA suspect exogenous T use with a T/E ratio of 4:1. This is over six standard deviations for the expected norm of 1:1 in the general population.
If you looked at blood work in your job as much as I do you would know that almost all men have a 1 to 1 ratio....4 to 1 is very generous and the old 6 to 1 limit was a joke. There is room to dope with testosterone with a 4 to 1 ratio limit...the key again is to keep your T to epi T ratio the same all the time.

But.....very few guys will bother with testosterone doping now....they will simply use "growth" which helps a great deal in recovery and there is no test for growth.



Landis was caught because his T to epi T ratio was above 10 to 1...then they took samples and sent for mass spectrometry where they determined exogenous T use.
They do not do mass spectrometry unless the T to epi T ratio is out.

They will also continue to use Adrenocorticotropic hormone which will raise cortisol levels a hell of a lot within 30 minutes of injection and this too cannot be detected.


....and of course they will continue to use dynepo but now year round, and the will also continue to use autologous blood.

 

[flyor64]

^^^^I just learned a lot more than I ever knew about this...

 

[hfer07]

How does it work I have no Idea, does it work I don't know have any riders been caught using the Passport system

Bioboat explained very well!!
I recall Ricardo Ricco on an advertising campaign being "supported of the Biological Passport--- the same Ricco who claimed to have a "natural" hematocrit above 50%.... Mark my words: as soon as this Bio passport crap is set to go, you are going to see new 20 to 25 y.O. cyclists with 95 V02 & 65% crits dominating the peloton & "BEING OK BY UCI PASSPORT STANDARDS
___________________UCI IS F***NG UP THE SPORT___________________

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

The riders give blood samples throughout the year. The UCI collects the data, creates a database and determines whether abnormal variations exist, then does nothing about it.

I think you pretty much nailed it there buddy!

The UCI says they have some anomalies and will soon be handing out suspensions. My guess is the days before the Tour when they will gain the most publicity from it. My other strong speculation is that no major riders will be on such a list. No big names what so ever. It will be a few riders and domestiques you've heard of, sure. But mostly sacrificial lambs. Either riders too dumb or too poor to do what BigBoat posted, or just thrown under the bus otherwise (more products than Dynepo by the way. Dynepo can be seen and highly suspected, such as the Rasmussen case, but not within WADA guidelines. Newer products are out than this).

Many true dopers will still go scott free. Just as an example, Basso was riding for CSC and their anti-doping program (very similar to bio passport) when doping under Fuentes and never tested positive for anything. Unless of course you believe his "only intended to dope" nonsense, which even he later apologized for as "behaving like an a**". When asked by a rider hoping to dope about beating the internal anti-doping program to Carlos Santuccione, the good doctor casually stated "no worries, that's not a problem." Because for someone like him, what Big Boat posted is very true.

Hemoglobin and blood volume testing, and long-term wattage output is something that needs adding to the passport. But the real thing that needs to be done is the culture of doping needs to be stopped on a social level - teams, team doctors, managers, riders to each other and honor codes, and pressure needs to be put on them by sponsors, and even legal authorities. And they need to really hit them in the pocket book. But the UCI won't even enforce the anti-doping charter they had everyone sign, and until Vinokourov the mega doper, never even considered it.

Until the UCI does a flush and gets someone like Sylvia Shenk in there, little is going to happen.

 

[Escarabajo]

I guess that just using probabilities can get some of the cheaters. Some Doctors told me that the male average for hematocrit level is 42-43%. So just by targeting those in the high 40's will yield some good results. Again I am very ignorant about this topic but it should be simpler than we paint this to be.

I have always dreamed of a cancelled mountain stage in the Tour de France and just test everybody in the morning (Just Dreaming). We would catch most of the cheaters at once.

 

[franciep10]

Quote from Cuttingedgemuscle forum:

The passport is an individual electronic record of a pro rider, in which the results of all controls over a period of time are collated.
The Passport uses biological indicators....haematological parameters(Crit and hgb and others) and urinary steroidal profile( ie:test and test to epi-test ratio).

The blood passport doesn't follow products, but the athlete. The KEY to fooling this lame attempt by WADA to stop doping is to keep your passport the same or very nearly so all year long and that takes knowledge and is somewhat tricky to do...but it certainly can be done and will be.

First of all if you keep your crit high and the same all year...ie: 48-49% you will NOT be caught if you use dynepo.
It's "changes" in blood parameters /indicators that they look at.


Some top pro's will no longer allow their crits to ever drop to their old normals of 40-43%? Year round dynepo use has now started!!! Mark my words on this post>>>the "Passport" will soon discover that most top pro's have a crit of 48-49%!..and they will attribute this to hypoxic tent use on a consistent basis. HA!


Then it is VERY EASY to jack to 55% or more crit from 48-49% with autologous blood doping right before a race starts. Even going to 52% gives a good advantage and it is easy to dilute down to 48-49% with volume expanders/saline bolus's and desmospray to help keep it in the system a longer.
They don't do controls right before a race starts...and they never will. You have plenty of time to blood dope before the race start..PLENTY!
I can slam in 5 units of packed cells in trauma patients in the OR in 15 minutes with a couple good blood pump and that will raise your crit at least 6%.
The blood you slam in is not high in retics...it's your own normal blood taken months or years ago and frozen. They won't use blood high in retics from the building phase of an epo cycle.

OF COURSE using hypoxic tents is a cover up.....and of course they have to report where they are....but that doesn't change the cover up. They can say their crit and hgb has been on the high side all year because of their hypoxic tent.

Sure you have to tell them where you are ie: altitude ...but that doesn't mean you have to wait around for them to show up...and let them show up because any pro with half a brain will no longer be using alpha and beta epo but only dynepo which cannot be tested for because it is human identical. They can only test parameters if a rider is on dynepo ....and that is why they came up with this Passport.
You mentioned hgb mass...this is MCH or mean corpuscular volume...... it's the mass of hemoglobin in a red blood cell. It is diminished in microcytic anemias, and increased in macrocytic anemias. Using volume expanders after a race and before a possible control will not have any affect on hgb mass.

Retic percentage after autologous blood doping will be normal, as long as you use blood that is normal in retic numbers... so they cannot detect a change in retics after plasm expanders use to drop your hgb and Hct back to your so called "normal". Red cell mass will be normal too if that is what you referring to when you mentioned red cell mass.
Hgb is the AMOUNT of heme and globin in a given total volume sample of whole blood(including the plasma).
If you dilute the whole blood to 49% crit you dilute the hgb per sample as well... You also reduce the number of retics. All parameters stay within normal ranges for your "normal" 48-49% crit he he he. The key is to use volume expanders to dilute to your "normal" and not any lower.

almost all men have a 1 to 1 ratio... it's a hell of a lot greater than 40%.
Using publicly available documents, only 3 of nearly 500 cases since 2004 had T/E ratio at 4 to 1 or greater.
In several studies, the distribution of results in Caucasian athlete populations shows generally a mean T/E ratio LESS than 2 to 1 whereas in Asian populations the mean T/E ratio is significantly lower. In fact not a few Asian men can take a pretty decent dose of test for weeks and not go above 3 to 1.

WADA suspect exogenous T use with a T/E ratio of 4:1. This is over six standard deviations for the expected norm of 1:1 in the general population.
If you looked at blood work in your job as much as I do you would know that almost all men have a 1 to 1 ratio....4 to 1 is very generous and the old 6 to 1 limit was a joke. There is room to dope with testosterone with a 4 to 1 ratio limit...the key again is to keep your T to epi T ratio the same all the time.

But.....very few guys will bother with testosterone doping now....they will simply use "growth" which helps a great deal in recovery and there is no test for growth.



Landis was caught because his T to epi T ratio was above 10 to 1...then they took samples and sent for mass spectrometry where they determined exogenous T use.
They do not do mass spectrometry unless the T to epi T ratio is out.

They will also continue to use Adrenocorticotropic hormone which will raise cortisol levels a hell of a lot within 30 minutes of injection and this too cannot be detected.


....and of course they will continue to use dynepo but now year round, and the will also continue to use autologous blood.

Big boat, okay shorten a little please

 

[BigBoat]

Big boat, okay shorten a little please

The UCI takes blood samples and tracks the total amount of hemoglobin per sample and looks for variations in the amount of heme per cell, as well as number of rectics.

Blood doping does not shift the amount of hemoglobin in a red blood cells MCH, and hemoglobin mass per sample of whole blood is neither affected by hemodiluting which is like increasing plasma volume to lower the hemoglobin concentration so hemoglobin mass will read lower after an autologous blood transfusion.

Basically, as long as the rider dilutes their blood after autologous blood transfusions for a race or takes blood out aftwards their fine.

Also, the UCI is looking for too low or too high a rectic count (immature red cells). As long as this stays normal (by blood doping with properly stored blood) they cant be caught using this method.

Testosterone can still be low dosed, and I do believe somebody was recently caught for that. You dont need it though, but Adrenocorticotropic hormone is undetectable and they can still use that which raised cortisol levels and boost that way.

 

[BigBoat]

As long as they dont do total blood volume comparisons (total amount of blood in the whole body) they will never stop blood doping because blood values can ALL be manipulated.

 

[bikepure]

jeasus big boat, that is concise.

searching for differences. but if the base line is already raised at test 1!!!!!!!!!

even if no one were doping, the hidden results and cloak and dagger leave us all thinking there is a UCI old school cover up.


http://www.bikepure.org

 

[bikepure]

is there no test for HGH?

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

The test for HGH is either still in trials, or unreliable, or only works for something like 1 day.

While I think he's too negative, BigBoat is correct and to be thanked for sharing such details. Total blood volume and long term wattage testing is the real key to true "biological passport". A cynic might even argue that right now current team-based biological passports are implemented by teams to make sure their riders don't test positive in doping controls, not necessarily to stop doping.

As I said before, it's money, and the culture of doping - teams, trainers, doctors, and especially riders and sponsors - that are the real key to getting doping to stop.

 

[BigBoat]

is there no test for HGH?

Its half life in the body makes it hard to test for, lowering dosages, careful timing of the dosages makes it undetectable.

 

[quadsRme]

so hgh can only be found in the blood versus the urine?

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

I don't think that's the case. I believe the issue is that the test will only catch someone who injected a fairly large dose of it within a day or so. So it will be easy to microdose, and if you take it in the morning (which nearly zero controls are taken), your odds of getting caught are close to nothing.

I don't even know if the test has been implemented.

 

[BroDeal]

I don't think that's the case. I believe the issue is that the test will only catch someone who injected a fairly large dose of it within a day or so. So it will be easy to microdose, and if you take it in the morning (which nearly zero controls are taken), your odds of getting caught are close to nothing.

I don't even know if the test has been implemented.

There was a study that came out last year that concluded that HGH was only effective if used in combination with testosterone, so maybe you only need to test for testosterone. Of course such studies have a tendency to have very poor design...

 

[davidg]

Then it is VERY EASY to jack to 55% or more crit from 48-49% with autologous blood doping right before a race starts. Even going to 52% gives a good advantage and it is easy to dilute down to 48-49% with volume expanders/saline bolus's and desmospray to help keep it in the system a longer.
They don't do controls right before a race starts...and they never will. You have plenty of time to blood dope before the race start..PLENTY!
I can slam in 5 units of packed cells in trauma patients in the OR in 15 minutes with a couple good blood pump and that will raise your crit at least 6%.

Excellent informative post. What I am not clear on is, if you blood dope before the race to raise crit to >50% wont that show in a test if you cannot dilute before the control?

 

[krebs303]

How do they hide the injection sites? intravenous injection sites leave tracks on me for a week. or do they inject between their toes like heroin users?

 

[flyor64]

Excellent informative post. What I am not clear on is, if you blood dope before the race to raise crit to >50% wont that show in a test if you cannot dilute before the control?

Good question...was wondering the same thing. Haven't they fixed it now that the rider stays in sight of the tester once notified until the test is complete?

 

[franciep10]

The UCI takes blood samples and tracks the total amount of hemoglobin per sample and looks for variations in the amount of heme per cell, as well as number of rectics.

Blood doping does not shift the amount of hemoglobin in a red blood cells MCH, and hemoglobin mass per sample of whole blood is neither affected by hemodiluting which is like increasing plasma volume to lower the hemoglobin concentration so hemoglobin mass will read lower after an autologous blood transfusion.

Basically, as long as the rider dilutes their blood after autologous blood transfusions for a race or takes blood out aftwards their fine.

Also, the UCI is looking for too low or too high a rectic count (immature red cells). As long as this stays normal (by blood doping with properly stored blood) they cant be caught using this method.

Testosterone can still be low dosed, and I do believe somebody was recently caught for that. You dont need it though, but Adrenocorticotropic hormone is undetectable and they can still use that which raised cortisol levels and boost that way.

Thanks for the info but I have to ask how do you know these stuff Adrenocorticotropic, are you some type of scientist or something