Free Floyd Landis

60% of TDF Riders Medically Cleared to Dope

2006-09-09T11:41:00.000-07:00

Yep that's right. 60% of this year's Tour participants possessed clearances to consume banned substances. Of the 13 positive tests during the TDF (13? I only heard of one!), twelve were excused by a medical clearance. Guess which one was the odd man out? That's right, Floyd Landis....

This is utterly bizarre to me. Utterly.

LINK

Tragedy Strikes The Landis Household

2006-08-19T11:14:00.000-07:00

57 year old David Witt, restaurateur and stepfather of Amber Landis, Floyd's wife, died Tuesday of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Witt, an amateur cyclist, was roommates with Floyd Landis in the 90's, introduced Landis both to his then-future wife Amber as well as road racing. Witt married Amber's mother after Amber and Landis were married. Witt was present in Paris when Landis won the Tour. (link)

My sincere condolences go out to the Landis and Witt families.

Terrible terrible news.

I can't help but think this is quickly becoming a tragedy of a most Shakespearean order.

I also can't help but refuse to accept dismissals of any connection between Witt's death and Landis' fate in the Tour. Witt and Amber's mother, Rose, has just opened a fine dining establishment in San Diego named Hawthorn's, an establishment whose success would undoubtedly be at least partly premised on Floyd's fame. Hawthorn's reportedly was decorated in Landis memorabilia. The doping scandal undoubtedly would have negatively affected any such restaurant traffic, and, further, Landis would be unable to be any sort of benefactor or investor in the restaurant after losing the Yellow Jersey, the cash prize, and the otherwise inevitable parade of commercial endorsements. Landis' fate in the Tour could have been a sign of an ultimate lost hope.

I also wonder aloud...my brother and I both independently worked in a number of restaurants during our younger years--both of us in Southern New Jersey and Philadelphia, later he on the NJ coast and in Southern California, and I later in North Carolina. We have also had many friends who have worked or continue to work in the industry. One thing that was common in our experience was that the restaurant industry, no matter where we went, was always some strange portal to organized criminal enterprise. Drug distribution and money laundering in particular. Corrupt organizations where it wasn't so strange to see the occasional uniformed police officer just hanging out, making you wonder why in the heck that officer was just "hanging out" with "friends."

My brother and I both grew up in a neighborhood where the families of many of our best friends were alleged to be members of the mafia. We instead saw our friends, real, genuine people, but in hindsight we also didn't really think too much about things that now seem more than just sketchy. We both have found the restaurant industry in general to be a world infused with crime, dependent upon it, equivalent to it, where many owners compromised certain principles to take a risk to go into business, if the owners weren't somewhat creepy themselves. It might be an owner who's suddenly become a restaurant owner because of a gambling debt. Or it might be an owner who was punished by bosses and sent away to run a restaurant where he otherwise wouldn't want to go. Or an owner who like running things, all sorts of things.

Whenever I hear a restaurateur committed suicide I immediately wonder how easily the conclusion of suicide was reached. It's not a rational reaction but rather a *conditioned* one.

I'm not a religious man in the least but maybe I may just say a prayer for Floyd and Amber, a prayer without regard to guilt or innocence. At this point I don't care whether he did this or that. I just wonder about his well-being. Having survived the deaths of three of my closest friends in a 10 year span, deaths that derailed so many aspects of my life, being so unprepared in my youth to cope with the death of a close friend, I wish Floyd strength.

Pound, Dick: A Story of a One-man Jury

2006-08-15T10:57:00.000-07:00

Fresh from the comments box (thanks Robert) is a fascinating story on the life and times of one Dick Pound. "The Difficulty of Watching Pound Throw His Weight Around," by Sally Jenkins, Washington Post, 13 August 2005
The Story

Someone Ask Landis if He Eats a Lot of Millet

2006-08-15T05:47:00.000-07:00

Another item from the speculative coincidence department:
apparently a diet high in millet is highly associated with thyroid dysfunction. Yes eating millet can cause goiter leading to hypothyroidism. But you have to eat a lot of it over a long period of time, exactly the sort of conditions I explained may be necessary to stimulate a dietary-based false positive on the IRMS.

Poll: Innocent or Guilty?

2006-08-14T22:22:00.000-07:00

Lance's Food Kept Secure During Tour

2006-08-08T22:15:00.000-07:00

According to WFAA.com, Lance Armstrong's food during the tour was protected from tampering. I can't help but think of Landis accepting that six pack from the crowd after stage 16. What else did Landis accept?

I can be quite cynical and I have a sensitive bullshit meter, and for some reason, Landis still isn't setting off that bullshit meter. I like to observe facial ticks and other paralinguistic cues when people talk (I'm irrepressibly analytical I'm afraid). I've watched these interviews and my lie detector isn't going off. There are so many things that do make me suspicious, and I don't always trust either my analysis or my intuition, but usually at least one of them is right (usually the latter). I am pretty convinced that Tyler Hamilton doped and certainly would not be shocked to learn if Armstrong did. Armstrong has all the markings of a guy who lusts for power, who has a sort of age-old deep-seated anger that really drives him to achieve, to endure pain like no other. If anything that lust leaves me in awe. But Landis, despite being a Phonak cyclist with a pair of positive IRMS samples, my intuition is saying he didn't do it.

But then there's one thing that bothers me. Landis appeared to resist, almost seemed to fight against, holding the maillot jaune well before stage 16. That tactic seems suspect, namely because the jersey comes with extra testing.

Puttin' our heads together: Whatever happened to the WADA lawsuit?

2006-08-08T22:06:00.000-07:00

After the UCI backed the Vrijman report this past March the WADA contemplated aloud about suing the UCI. Does anyone know what happened to that suit? Please share in the comments section if you know. (The contributions in the comments section of this blog are highly informative & thought-provoking.) Thanks in advance.

Diet Can Elevate Test Results, But How Much Is Unknown

2006-08-06T11:02:00.000-07:00

According to Saudan, et al (2006), a diet rich in maize, sugar cane, millet or pineapple can elevate test results designed to show the presence of exogenous steroids.

Does that mean that if Floyd Landis ate a heaping helping of sugarcane after stage 16 he could have triggered a false positive for the IRMS?

Saudan, et al (2006) speculate that such a diet couldn't do such a thing. However they admit that there's much to be learned, and they also admit in their study that diet in experimental subjects was not monitored, logged, etc. So, in other words, the study assumes that there is some increase in dietary ¹³C but makes no strides to monitor the correlation between intake of certain foods and the degree to which ¹³C is elevated in tests. As the test was conducted, people who lived in Africa elevated their ¹³C by as much as 3%, certainly not enough to trigger a false positive.

But it is interesting to note that the % increase in ¹³C increased linearly the entirety of the time the test subjects were on this Kenyan diet. There's no decay in the increase, even over a 3 month period. Ostensibly, then, if one were on this diet for a year, then one might see a 12% increase in ¹³C, two years, 24% increase, and so on. The study lends itself to this interpretation.

If Floyd Landis ate somewhat like a Kenyan for three months, consuming some amount of sugarcane and millet, he could have elevated his ¹³C levels by 3%. That would have put his test results at 30% above test error, still leaving him 5% away from dubious test results. But if he's been eating loads of millet sweetened with sugarcane for a few years, it very well may have put him in false positive territory.

Several questions remain: how much does the intake of *any* amount of exogenous steroids elevate one's testable ¹³C levels? In other words, how uncommon is it for someone taking any amount of steroids to test as low as Landis did? Another question: how much sugarcane or millet or pineapple would it take to trigger a false positive? Some cyclists are fanatical about their diets, and many aspects of their diets are aspects that have witnesses. If the guy ate millet breakfast lunch and dinner there would be many individuals who could confirm it. Further, what effect does alcohol, a product of fermented sugar, have on the IRMS?

Whil;e the IRMS is a very good test, there are ways a false positive may be arrived at. The ways in which a false positive result is possible seem apparent yet they are poorly understood.

One thing is clear: if I ever get my knee healthy and try to compete at cycling, I'm going to eat lots and lots of millet and pineapple and give myself a natural means of supplementing with androsterone.

Seriously, though, the moral should be that if the UCI wants to test cyclists they should bear the burden of keeping record of each cyclist's diet.

(Short communication: Christophe Saudana, Matthias Kamberb, Giulia Barbatic, Neil Robinsona, Aurélien Desmarcheliera, Patrice Mangina and Martial Saugya. Longitudinal profiling of urinary steroids by gas chromatography/combustion/isotope ratio mass spectrometry: Diet change may result in carbon isotopic variations. Journal of Chromatography B, Volume 831, Issues 1-2 , 2 February 2006, Pages 324-327.)

Landis Maintains Innocence

2006-08-06T09:46:00.000-07:00

Floyd Landis responded to the positive result of sample B by maintaining his innocence (link).

Howard Jacobs, Landis' attorney, said,

At this point in time, I am waiting to receive the full laboratory documentation for the “B” test. In consultation with some of the leading medical and scientific experts, we will prove that Floyd Landis’s victory in the 2006 Tour de France was not aided in any respect by the use of any banned substances[...].

LNDD Director Makes False Claims About IRMS

2006-08-05T13:17:00.000-07:00

The director of the LNDD, the lab where Landis tested positive has apparently issued a false claim about the accuracy of the isotope ratio mass spectrometry (IRMS) test. LNDD head Jacques De Ceaurriz said the isotope testing procedure was "foolproof," adding that "no error is possible in isotopic readings." (source)

While the IRMS is a definitive test certainly, unlike the T/E ratio test, it is subject like every scientific test to various errors and mistake. While the likelihood of error from the IRMS test is, if properly performed, dramatically lower than that from the T/E ratio, that likelihood is most certainly not zero.

It should naturally be asked why the director of a scientific lab would make false claims that any scientist could see through. One should hope that we are not seeing in action another abuse of an American coming out of a French lab with a history of unethical practices. The LNDD lab is the same that unfairly targeted former Tour champion Lance Armstrong according to the UCI in a report issued in March.

Landis' Sample B Positive; Maillot Jaune "Sullied"

2006-08-05T13:14:00.000-07:00

The news is out everywhere. Floyd Landis has tested positive on the follow-up test. He has already been removed by Team Phonak and Tour de France officials are working on transfering the title to Oscar Pereiro, who finished behind Landis.

IRMS Positive but Low, Says Landis' Doc

2006-08-01T22:47:00.000-07:00

This, from the NYTimes:

Landis said last week that he was expecting the worst because backup samples, or B samples, almost always confirm the initial result. But [Landis's doctor, Brent] Kay said the B sample could come back negative.
“The carbon isotope was only mildly elevated,” he said. “We know, from a statistical standpoint, that the first result could have been a false positive.”

Landis busted?

2006-07-31T21:23:00.000-07:00

According to the New York Times (link) in a late-breaking story, Landis tested positive for exogenous testosterone via an IRMS test performed by the LNDD. The source of information comes from an unnamed individual with the UCI.

Hold on to your hat folks. Apparently Landis did not file for testing of sample B despite claims of doing so, but the UCI went ahead and requested that verification.

No official word from a single named source has yet clarified whether IRMS was used on sample A and/or whether it will be used on sample B. An earlier story from the New York Times (link) claimed that IRMS was used but the source of that information reported several inaccuracies on the subject of the test and, further, the NYT story itself was ambiguously worded.

A Diversion: Why I Love Cycling

2006-07-29T10:20:00.000-07:00

So when as why I love cycling, the only reason to come forward is that it’s like a best friend and like old friends I have had fights with my bikes, fights which have given me a concussion and several scars and numerous near death experiences. My bike rides have showed me more places and taught me more things than I can list; I have meet people though my bikes; I have also found jobs with them and vacationed with them; and just as friends do, it also has grown with me. The relationship now is far less innocent and is taken less for granted; nonetheless, what remains is the knowing that every time I cross a leg over the saddle and clip my shoes into the pedals, it’s going to be a fun time out, with a faithful friend. That is why I love cycling.
- Benjamin Lyon, "Why I Love Cycling" (http://www.dailypeloton.com/ben-lyon.asp)

The WADA and IRMS: a positive is always positive, but a negative can be positive too

2006-07-28T14:32:00.000-07:00

According to the WADA's guide on T/E testing, if you test positive using the IRMS test, you're definitely guilty. But if the IRMS test clears your sample, then you can still be held as guilty of cheating.

That's right folks. If the definitive test finds you guilty, you're definitely guilty, but if the definitive test clears you, the WADA can still say you're guilty anyway.

According to the WADA guidelines, the labs administering the T/E tests don't have to use the IRMS test.

The IRMS test, to refresh your memory, in effect distinguishes between naturally occurring testosterone levels and artifically-induced levels. They can count the differing types of two types of carbon isotopes. If the one's high and the other is low, you're clearly doping, but if the one is low and the other is high, your own body is producing those high levels appearing in the T/E test. The test is expensive, unlike the T/E test, but conclusive, unlike the T/E test.

Apparently, in the case of Floyd Landis, there are four decision points involved in choosing whether to use IRMS: (1) the WADA lab can choose to do the IRMS as part of the T/E test protocol, which they rarely do because it is relatively expensive; (2) the WADA lab, in its report to the UCI, can choose whether to recommend that an IRMS be performed on sample B; (3) regardless of the WADA recommendation coming from the LNDD, UCI can order the LNDD to perform the IRMS on sample B; and finally (4) I've heard that Landis can demand it. This latter point is not in the report, but apparently the UCI allows the riders the opportunity to be involved in the requirements setting.

If Landis doesn't request an IRMS, then he's either guilty or poorly informed, and if he does request an IRMS, he is at the very least maintaining an appearance of innocence.

Also indicated in the WADA guidelines is an estimation of the timeline and procedure should Landis' B sample be tested using the IRMS and come out negative. If he comes out positive using the IRMS, the UCI ruling should come swiftly. But if he comes out negative, there are a number of steps involved that can prolong this process as many as four to five months. The length of time will depend on the subjective evaluation of a previous testing history. If there's not much of a history, then they will surprise him with random tests over the course of 1 to 3 months to establish that history.

It is likely that the UCI already has a history of tests with Landis. What isn't clear from the WADA guidelines, however, is whether the history of tests must include a history of IRMS results, or, alternately, whether the follow-up tests if he has no history must also be IRMS tests.

The implication of this is that if Landis is truly suffering from a serious thyroid ailment needing immediate treatment and the UCI is deficient in testing historyon Landis, then Landis will either have to forego treatment of the thyroid problem and continue to suffer from it or get that treatment and doom himself to a de facto positive result.

Lab same as one in the Lance controversy

2006-07-28T13:57:00.000-07:00

It was only a few months ago that the WADA, the organization running the lab testing Landis' sample A, came under attack for its handling of the Lance doping scandal. The UCI approved a scathing report (link) of the WADA lab, and the WADA threatened to sue the UCI (link) after releasing their own response to the UCI report (link).

The lab in question is known as the LNDD (Laboratoire National de Dépistage du Dopage), the French national anti-doping lab in the Paris suburb of Chatenay-Malabry.

And only five months later, the same lab and the two supposedly divided organizations are together to publically release the premature guilt of Floyd Landis.

The Vrijman report, in its critique of the WADA's handling of the Lance controversy, found that the WADA violated its own assumptions in order to attack Lance Armstrong. In the conclusion Vrijman writes,

WADA had also the intention that the research results, in combination with the additional information requested by WADA, be used for disciplinary purposes against individual athletes, directly contrary to its representation that the results would not be used “for any sanction purpose ”. In this sense one can speak of targeting by WADA of the participants of the 1998 and 1999 Tours de France (128).

Vrijman also found that "the LNDD violated applicable rules on athlete conﬁdentiality by commenting publicly on the alleged positive ﬁndings, especially in relation with a particular rider, Lance Armstrong."

Nobody knows nuthin'

2006-07-28T13:46:00.000-07:00

Apparently no one outside of the UCI and/or the WADA-based testing lab in France involved with the testing of sample A knows whether IRMS was used or not. This from the Providence Journal ("Tour winner fails drug test", link)

Landis is entitled to be present when his "B" sample is tested, but he said he wasn't sure if he would avail himself of that privilege. Testosterone is considered among the trickier drugs for testers to pinpoint because it occurs naturally in the body. WADA requires that samples that possess greater than a 4:1 ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone be subject to further analysis, which includes the gathering of at least three additional urine samples to show that the high ratio is indicative of drug use. This step can only be bypassed if the sample was analyzed with what is known as the carbon-isotope ratio (CIR) test, a more expensive and complex testing procedure that can differentiate between natural and synthetic testosterone.

Landis said he did not know which testing methods were used. The simple ratio test alone has been subject to extensive criticism.

If Landis does know then the only reasonable explanation I can think of is that he is lying to create as much doubt about his guilt as possible. If he is telling the truth, however, and he doesn't know whether IRMS was used, then his guilt remains an open question. Why hasn't the information been released publically? I suspect it is because, for starters, no one in the world of journalism has put enough energy into the story to realize that this is THE question of the moment, and so journalists seem not to be asking. Also, there may be a regulation restricting how much these organizations like UCI and WADA can say. Again, I must be clear with you that I'm speculating here. I don't know.

Something's amiss, WADA doc claims

2006-07-28T13:40:00.000-07:00

Something may be amiss with the result of the test, both a former pro cyclist and a WADA physician speculate. The WADA is responsible for the lab in France that administers the tests on the riders of the Tour de France.

From "Mark Conley: We shouldn't be surprised by Landis' plight" (link)

Since the sample taken after that stage is the one that has implicated Landis, it's easy to connect the dots and speculate his super-hero performance was anything but au naturale.

At least one former pro rider, "Fast Freddy" Markum of Santa Cruz, believes that's a bit too easy of a connection.

"They had probably tested him a dozen times over the course of the race to that point, so the last one comes up positive?" Markum says. "I smell a rat."

Markum, a two-time Olympian who raced against Greg LeMond in his prime and Armstrong in his infancy, smells a French rat, to be specific.

"The French have been so anti-American since Lance's second or third Tour win, they've tried to tear him down for so long now," Markum says, referring largely to the newspaper L'Equipe. "It's just a witch hunt at this point. They're tearing their own sport apart."

A World Anti-Doping Agency doctor agreed Thursday something seems amiss, telling an Associated Press medical writer, "Something's missing here. It just doesn't add up." If Landis had been cheating all along, then why wasn't there a positive test earlier in the race? The idea that he could load up effectively between his 16th stage death ride and his 17th stage super-heroics is bunk, the doctor said.

IRMS Apparently NOT Used on Sample A

2006-07-27T20:19:00.000-07:00

For years it has been widely known that the measurement of T/E ratios in urine is subject to an extraordinarily high rate of false positives and false negatives. The IOC, WADA, and other organizations setting standards for drug testing of athletes have known this for years and have even tried to address it. Namely they've addressed it by setting standards for the use of IRMS: isotope ratio mass spectrometry. I discussed earlier a test to evaluate the 13C/12C ratios, and that test *is* the very test known as IRMS.

Now WADA and UCI know of and use IRMS. But, guess what? Despite the fact that unlike T/E testing it's relatively safe from massive rates of false positives and false negatives, they don't regularly use it.

And the word is that Landis' sample A was not tested using IRMS. In other words, this positive test result borders on slander and neglect. It is a disgrace that the UCI would not perform an IRMS test on sample A. Disgraceful, utterly. they have a definitive test at their disposal. Why not do it in the first place?

This spooks me, as I immediately begin to worry about either (a) overzealous bureaucratic crusaders hostile to athletes, just as law officers can become callous to all citizens, or (b) some external and possibly political motivation for not doing it right for the first time.

T/E ratios...IRMS...the public will only know "positive" or "negative." And regardless of any future IRMS Landis has already been disgraced. Let's hope that an IRMS is at least administered to sample B. Let's know the truth, or at least a pretty good estimator of the truth rather than this T/E junk.

Ethanol and T/E Tests

2006-07-27T20:09:00.000-07:00

A comment referred to the amount of ethanol needed to mask. In looking this up I was astounded to find that ethanol actually elevates T/E ratios dramatically. Here's an article I found online and it supports what I've discovered today, that the T/E test is bad science:

The Effect of Alcohol Consumption on the Urinary Testosterone / Epitestosterone Ratio

By Dr Simon Davis B.Sc., Ph.D.

Summary

Intoxicating beverages contain a number of different forms of alcohol, the major constituent of which is ethanol. When a beverage is consumed the ethanol content passes through the stomach wall and digestive tract into the blood stream. Once the ethanol enters circulation it begins to alter the bodies’ biochemistry. One such reaction is to differentially increase the rates of testosterone (T) and epitestosterone (E) metabolism. The overall effect of this reaction is to increase the ratio of T to E excreted in the urine.

It has been reported that ethanol consumption can increase urinary T/E ratios by 30% - 277% in healthy individuals. Observed changes in plasma T/E ratios can occur with the consumption of less than 2 pints of lager. The ingestion of ethanol by an individual will increase the T/E ratio observed in a urine sample.

It follows that if the effect of ethanol on T/E ratios is calculated relative to urinary E concentrations, it can be seen that increases in the ratio are exponential as E concentrations decrease. Individuals with naturally low E concentrations could, therefore, experience increases in T/E ratios of ? 940% greater than increases experienced in an individual with normal E concentrations. Calculations estimate that in individuals with low urinary E concentration, ratios of 17 to 1 or higher could have resulted from ethanol consumption without any administration of exogenous T.

The current T/E ratio test as performed by Kings College Laboratory and approved by the UK Sports, the IWF and IOC cannot discriminate between a 13 to 1 T/E ratio resulting from ethanol ingestion or a 13 to 1 ratio resulting from endogenous T administration.

Is there a definitive test?

2006-07-27T11:04:00.000-07:00

Cycling's ruling body, Union Cycliste Internationale or UCI, will administer a second test to a different sample from Floyd Landis. This is what is commonly known as a copunter-analysis. In other words, they will use a different method than the previous screen to determine whether Flandis' elevated ratio is either a naturally occurring phenomenon or one caused by illicit actions of Landis'.

So, OK, these people aren't completely crazy.

But what constitutes a definitive test? And does the UCI use a definitive test method in their counter-analysis?

Let's go back to the experts.

According to a study performed by the Swiss Laboratory for Doping Analyses in Lausanne [C Saudan, N Baume, N Robinson, L Avois, P Mangin and M Saugy, "Testosterone and doping control", British Journal of Sports Medicine 2006;40(Supplement 1):i21-i24)] the ratio test used initially is what's known as an "indirect method." An indirect method by definition isn't definitive; it merely detects things that are frequently but not necessarily associated with illicit activity.

The study also indicates that the 4:1 ratio test (known as the T/E ratio) can be masked if the steroid is administered with ethanol.

It can be safely said that someone with half a brain administering to himself anabolic steroids and undergoing testing would administer the drug with a bit of ethanol and pass the test.

Clearly, at least to me, the T/E ratio test for competitive athletes is a load of junk. Ir produces high false positive and false negative rates, and the false negative rate can be easily jacked through simple methods, such as administering doasges with ethanol. That false negative rate can also be jacked by taking epitestosterone. This test is, simply put, easy to beat--if you have a reason to worry about it, that is.

OK, this indirect test, and perhaps any indirect test for that matter, relies only on half-baked science. What about a *definitive* test?

According to the aforementioned Swiss study, "(d)irect evidence may be obtainedwith a method based on the determination of the carbon isotoperatio of the urinary steroids" (i21). In fact it is mandatory for the International Olympic Committee to determine definitively through a secondary test whether the steroid is a natural steroid or an artificial one. Even if the ratio test method is tuned to the specific athlete over a long period of time to detect anomalous fluctuations in ratios, "there is a lackof definitive proof for the exogenous application of naturalsteroids," they write. Further, the authors of the study add,

One possible way of solving this problem is the ratioof the two stable carbon isotopes ¹³C/¹²C, which can allow thedifferentiation of natural and synthetic steroids. As exogenoustestosterone or precursors contain less ¹³C than their endogenoushomologues, it is expected that urinary steroids with a low¹³C/¹²C ratio originate from pharmaceutical sources.

Does the UCI actually use such a method? Do they test for carbon isotope ratios? Or do they simply re-test Floyd with the same or another indirect method?

Even if such a definitive test is used by the UCI it remains to be seen whether cortisone would alter it.

Questions Linger. Can the administration of cortisone elevate naturally occurring testosterone levels or lower naturally occurring epitestosterone? Can extreme pain do it? What about extreme athletic performance? How about looking at the frequency of statistical outliers?

We'll take a look at the World Anti-Doping Administration's guidelines on elevated T/E ratios.

From 6:1 to 4:1: The creation of an unfair testing standard?

2006-07-27T10:41:00.000-07:00

Floyd Landis failed his drug test on the basis of levels of his urinary testosterone. Specifically the testers look for the ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone. Anything above 4:1, according to numerous sports organizations, from the Olympics to the NFL to the UCF, constitutes a positive indication of artificial testosterone use.

In the past the ratio of positive evidence was 6:1 but it has been lowered uniformly to 4:1.

Landis tested positive at a ratio of somewhere around 5:1 putting his test result in that range where he would have been negative before.

According to a highly-cited and definitive controlled study of the effects of testosterone administration (DEHENNIN L, MATSUMOTO AM
LONG-TERM ADMINISTRATION OF TESTOSTERONE ENANTHATE TO NORMAL MEN - ALTERATIONS OF THE URINARY PROFILE OF ANDROGEN METABOLITES POTENTIALLY USEFUL FOR DETECTION OF TESTOSTERONE MISUSE IN SPORT
JOURNAL OF STEROID BIOCHEMISTRY AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY 44 (2): 179-189 FEB 1993) the 4:1 ratio may be a bad measure leading to unfair false positive results. In fact the study shows that even a 6:1 ratio leads to false positives in a significant number of cases.

In a placebo administration to 10 study participants, the study showed that 20% of the participants started with levels above 4:1 even before the administration of a placebo. One of the participants started above a 6:1 ratio without the administration of anything whatsoever.

It is likewise important to note that the participants in the study were normal 28-30 year old men. They were not athletic outliers with bodies undergoing the dual stresses of a 2000 mile bike ride under extraordinary levels of pain. And they weren't taking cortisone, a steroid injection. Even 20% of these average Joes would have failed the test simply by sitting on a couch eating potato chips.

Questions linger:
Can either pain or the administration of cortisone induce elevated ratios?
Is there a definitive test, if the 4:1 ratio test neither confirms nor denies tha actual use of testosterone?
Would the administration of cortisone create a false positive even in a definitive test?

Free Floyd Landis

2006-07-27T10:38:00.000-07:00

Apparently Floyd Landis has tested positive for use of steroids and he is at risk of losing his standing and credibility.

However Floyd may be a victim of a poor testing methodology rather than a rule-breaker.

On this blog I will investigate the validity of the test method as the Landis story develops.