Re: Good News For Armstrong



In article <[email protected]>,
"B. Lafferty" <[email protected]> wrote:

> "Donald Munro" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:p[email protected]...
> > jmt wrote:
> >>>>> Being an Ape is its own reward...
> >
> > B. Lafferty wrote:
> >>>> Whatever.
> >
> > Donald Munro wrote:
> >>> Whatever happened to snores and hugs ?
> >
> > B. Lafferty wrote:
> >> A wide awake hug for you....Hug.
> >
> > Time to cut back on those caffeine suppositories.
> >
>
> Yeah, they're nowhere near as good as French roast.

A French roast suppository?

--
tanx,
Howard

Butter is love.

remove YOUR SHOES to reply, ok?
 
Patricio Carlos wrote:
> Studies of the rates of false +ve's are all well and good but the rate
> changes depending on who is being tested. For example - a +ve pregnancy
> test on a male is pretty much guaranteed to be false +ve. A +ve HIV
> test on a 90 yo nun is much, much more likely to be a false +ve than a
> +ve result on a Nairobi prostitute. Yet the sensitivity & specificity
> of the test are identical regardless of who it is being tested upon. It
> is affected by the pre-test probability in the subject being tested. So
> there is generally no standard rate of false +ve's for a test.
>
> >From WADA's website, they did ~4229 urine tests for Epo in 2003 and got
> 28 +ve. Some reasons for false +ve's are known from the Beke situation:
> exertion-induced loss of alpha 1 ACT & bacterial contamination of the
> sample due to improper storage. Both of these are relatively easy to
> test for even in a stored sample so someone unlucky enough to be
> falsely +ve can prove these without much difficulty.
>
> So for an elite athlete competing at the highest level, which is more
> likely (a) doping like maybe 90% of the peloton as Benjo believes or
> (b) a rare renal condition plus improper storage of the urine specimen
> in a very unlucky athlete? The chances of (b) are very slim, especially
> if they've tested +ve on, say, 6 occasions.
>
> Many studies have been/are being done regarding rEpo detection. From a
> PubMed search, you can see some of these:
> http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...=Display&dopt=pubmed_pubmed&from_uid=15228161
> Just because you & I don't know the sensitivity, specificity & positive
> predictive value doesn't mean that hasn't been studied.

Lots of people in the business have questions:
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id=features/2005/epotest_problems

I don't think I've seen anyone say "let the dopers off". The people
who are insisting on testing right now are going to do more to let
dopers off the hook than the rest of us. If they retest Lance's samples
right now, you'll still have the same controversy, and no samples. What
changes, not a damn thing.
My point is and always has been that they need to wait, open up the
research to some of the groups asking questions, verify a method by
solid concensus of researchers for the exact purpose, and then, and
only then retest the old samples.
The damn things are already 6 years old, what's another 6 months or
year to make sure that when they are retested there's a whole lot less
room to spin the results.
If what we are after is a never ending stream of tabloid **** to keep
the doping discussion going then the way it's been happening is
perfect, but if we want finality they need to get the house in order,
and I don't see where that would take all that long if they used all
the available resources.
Bill C
 
Patricio Carlos <[email protected]> wrote:
> Studies of the rates of false +ve's are all well and good but the rate
> changes depending on who is being tested. For example - a +ve pregnancy
> test on a male is pretty much guaranteed to be false +ve. A +ve HIV
> test on a 90 yo nun is much, much more likely to be a false +ve than a
> +ve result on a Nairobi prostitute. Yet the sensitivity & specificity
> of the test are identical regardless of who it is being tested upon. It
> is affected by the pre-test probability in the subject being tested. So
> there is generally no standard rate of false +ve's for a test.

Well, that's total horseshit. But other than that it's dead on.
This sounds like a Lafferty argument: If you test X pro racers
for EPO there will not be any false positives because they are
all on the ****.

If I start with equal numbers of HIV negative nuns and Nairobi
prostitutes, explain to me how the rate of false positive HIV
tests will be different.

Bob Schwartz
[email protected]
 
Patricio Carlos wrote:
> Studies of the rates of false +ve's are all well and good but the rate
> changes depending on who is being tested. For example - a +ve pregnancy
> test on a male is pretty much guaranteed to be false +ve. A +ve HIV
> test on a 90 yo nun is much, much more likely to be a false +ve than a
> +ve result on a Nairobi prostitute. Yet the sensitivity & specificity
> of the test are identical regardless of who it is being tested upon. It
> is affected by the pre-test probability in the subject being tested. So
> there is generally no standard rate of false +ve's for a test.

Sure there's no standard. But since we don't know
anything about the reliability of the test, we don't know
what rate it would meet or not.

> Many studies have been/are being done regarding rEpo detection. From a
> PubMed search, you can see some of these:
> http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...=Display&dopt=pubmed_pubmed&from_uid=15228161
> Just because you & I don't know the sensitivity, specificity & positive
> predictive value doesn't mean that hasn't been studied.

WADA doesn't know either. Because they say that it's
not necessary to know. If they had studies (not just of
the EPO test, but the Ty-Ty test for example) they could
reference them. Again, I don't think false positives are
that common, but I'm not impressed by WADA's head in the sand
attitude. They are not like scientists, but like prosecutors
that want the evidence for a conviction and don't really
care what the cops do to get it; then if it starts to look
like the evidence was made up they come up with the "If you
don't support us the dopers win" line.
 
In article
<[email protected]>,
"Patricio Carlos" <[email protected]> wrote:

> Well I guess you missed the point D. Ferguson,
>
> The reason for mentioning other tests was to remind people that testing
> is not this perfect world "only true +ve's & true -ve's thing". It was
> not a comparison of effect on career etc. People who demand only
> PED-detection tests that have no false +ve's obviously don't know what
> they're talking about.
>
> But if you want to talk about effects on careers, what about the
> effects on careers of those athletes who couldn't make it because they
> didn't want to dope?

Same as anyone in any career who chooses not to chisel,
back stab, or thieve to "get ahead." They make a good
career of it, enjoy the gratification of a job well done,
and do not have to devote energy to living a lie.

> What about the effects on the lives of those
> athletes & their families when they die young from doping products they
> felt forced to take to be able to compete?

They are dupes, and are old enough to assume
responsibility for the consequences of their actions.
Leading other people astray to accumulate power is not
confined to professional cycling.

--
Michael Press
 
Bob, you missed the point.

We don't know the HIV status of the nun and the Nairobi prostitute.

Both get tested. Both give +ve results.

The odds that either +ve result is a false +ve is very different for
the two subjects. The Nairobi prostitute is almost certainly true +ve
whereas the nun may well be a false +ve. (HIV negative Nairobi
prostitute is an oxymoron).

Yet either way, the test itself has a >99% sensitivity and about 97%
specificity.

Similarly, the chance of a Tour rider not doping but having 6 false +ve
results for Epo and a +ve result for corticosteroids in the one Tour
are pretty damn slim.
 
"B. Lafferty" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

> The research done by the Châtenay-Malabry did not simply rely on the test
> in use by WADA. It used three methodologies and only if the three came
> positive was a positive finding made. No one has far, to my knowledge,
> shown that the results of this research is riddled with false positives.

Wrong: only one test was performed, with three different criteria used to
define what constitutes a positive result. Given the apparent lack of
specificity of the antibody used, this provides no real increase in the
confidence in the results.

> Doctor Christiane Ayotte of the WADA lab in Montreal has stated that she
> has no doubt that Châtenay-Malabry found EPO. Her criticism centered on
> the ethics of the results becoming known. Further, Dr Iñigo Mujika
> noted in his report on problems relating to urinary protein content for
> the current WADA test (not the research being done by the Paris lab), "In
> view of the efforts of the different accredited laboratories (particularly
> those of Châtenay-Malabry in the outskirts of Paris, Oslo and Barcelona)
> to eliminate proteins not related with EPO present in the urine samples,
> particularly after intense exercise performed in competition, it is clear
> that those in charge of the application of the urinary rEPO detection test
> are fully aware of the fact that there is a lack of specificity problem
> with the test in urine samples with a high protein content."

Exactly: the problem (one of them, actually) is and has been common
knowledge, but WADA continues to use the same test while failing to address
the issue.

Andy Coggan
 
"Patricio Carlos" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Andy,
>
> As every single test in existence has false positives, why aren't you
> arguing for every other test to be thrown out also? Should we also stop
> doing pregnancy tests, HIV tests, cancer detection tests, all PED
> detection tests just in case 1 in every 1000 of those positive results
> is a false positive?

Because 1) in other cases, the incidence of false positives has usually been
carefully established, and 2) different situations call for different
standards (i.e., you wouldn't necessarily come to the same conclusion re.
risk/reward for a test used for medical diagnoses and possible treatment as
for one used for drug enforcement in sports).

Andy Coggan
 
"Patricio Carlos" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

> The numbers of false +ve's is very, very low.
>
> The numbers of false -ve's is far, far higher (eg David Millar).

That's your *opinion* - but what are the actual *facts* of the matter?

Andy Coggan
 
Andy Coggan wrote:
> "B. Lafferty" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
>
> > The research done by the Châtenay-Malabry did not simply rely on the test
> > in use by WADA. It used three methodologies and only if the three came
> > positive was a positive finding made. No one has far, to my knowledge,
> > shown that the results of this research is riddled with false positives.
>
> Wrong: only one test was performed, with three different criteria used to
> define what constitutes a positive result. Given the apparent lack of
> specificity of the antibody used, this provides no real increase in the
> confidence in the results.
>
> > Doctor Christiane Ayotte of the WADA lab in Montreal has stated that she
> > has no doubt that Châtenay-Malabry found EPO. Her criticism centered on
> > the ethics of the results becoming known. Further, Dr Iñigo Mujika
> > noted in his report on problems relating to urinary protein content for
> > the current WADA test (not the research being done by the Paris lab), "In
> > view of the efforts of the different accredited laboratories (particularly
> > those of Châtenay-Malabry in the outskirts of Paris, Oslo and Barcelona)
> > to eliminate proteins not related with EPO present in the urine samples,
> > particularly after intense exercise performed in competition, it is clear
> > that those in charge of the application of the urinary rEPO detection test
> > are fully aware of the fact that there is a lack of specificity problem
> > with the test in urine samples with a high protein content."
>
> Exactly: the problem (one of them, actually) is and has been common
> knowledge, but WADA continues to use the same test while failing to address
> the issue.
>
> Andy Coggan
I really apreciate you taking the time to point out where the bodies
are buried and I definitely went and took a hard new look based on the
things you had to say, and found you were pretty much right on the
money, but I just don't see a lot of people here actually making the
effort to look at everything involved in this question objectively.
It's a whole hell of a lot easier to be a zealot, no thought required.
Anyway I want to thank you for making me go take a hard look at ALL
the info out there that I could find.
Bill C
 
Patricio Carlos <[email protected]> wrote:
> Similarly, the chance of a Tour rider not doping but having 6 false +ve
> results for Epo and a +ve result for corticosteroids in the one Tour
> are pretty damn slim.

Let's say you go to a convent and test the residents for HIV.
A 90 year old nun comes up positive. You test her again and
she comes up positive again. Everyone else is negative.

You test her ten times and she comes up positive each time.
This is a new test and you haven't done any research, none
at all, into the rate of false positives. In other words, you
skipped the step where you were supposed to have administered
the test to known HIV negative nuns and Nairobi prostitutes.

You test a Nairobi prostitute and she comes up positive.

At this point, what do you have? How do you know there is
no systematic error in your test?

Bob Schwartz
[email protected]
 
Patricio Carlos wrote:
> The odds that either +ve result is a false +ve is very different for
> the two subjects. The Nairobi prostitute is almost certainly true +ve
> whereas the nun may well be a false +ve. (HIV negative Nairobi
> prostitute is an oxymoron).
>
> Yet either way, the test itself has a >99% sensitivity and about 97%
> specificity.

But you only know that because somebody bothered to
do tests to measure those numbers.

> Similarly, the chance of a Tour rider not doping but having 6 false +ve
> results for Epo and a +ve result for corticosteroids in the one Tour
> are pretty damn slim.

You're still arguing that you don't need to know the
false positive rate because Tour riders are a bunch of
likely dopers. This is the **** Pound round up the usual
suspects argument. But the conclusion doesn't follow
from the premise. It's precisely _because_ Tour riders
are a bunch of stinking no good lousy dopers that you
have a duty to measure the false positive rate. If they
were all clean as whistles, you could just write off the
positives to chance, like the nuns.

This has little to do with LANCE's specific case, and more
to do with what standards an enforcement agency should
expect of itself.
 
Bob,

Repeated positivity in the nun would make it more likely it is true
positive and you would ask about transfusions, previous possible
exposures etc and do confirmatory tests - just as was done with Beke &
his rEPO test - to decide whether it is true or false. It wouldn't take
too much work to be able to either reassure the nun or give her the bad
news.

A laboratory scientist doing such tests will be able to tell you
endless ways about how a subject can give false +ves and how to
differentiate them. Much of this information is never published. That
doesn't mean it is not widely known and scientifically accepted.

Plenty of research has been done into this area (rEPO testing). Do a
PubMed search. It is not like WADA or IOC or whoever just came up with
this out of the blue recently. Just because people on RBR don't know
about it doesn't mean the info isn't out there!
 
When an athlete argues that it must be a false +ve, it is very easy to
confirm proteinuria (even specific alpha 1 ACT proteinuria) and
bacterial contamination to see if it is false. This can be done on the
initial +ve specimen and then repeated on fresh specimens.

So rather than ditch the test, wouldn't it be better to use the test
then confirm those occasional +ve results?

However, this is all a bit academic now as the athletes & teams now
know about micro-dosing that avoids detection anyway.
 
Go through those references from the PubMed search. There is a lot of
work being done on this!

Just because **** Pound (or **** Slam, whatever his name is) doesn't
tell them to the press, doesn't mean that real scientists haven't
established this.

As most journalists have no scientific training, trying to explain
sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV) & negative
predictive value of a test is impossible and gets re-produced
incorrectly anyway. If they are told 99% PPV, they'll write about the
1% even though the 99% is very high.
 
Bob,

Let's say there is a systematic error in the rEpo test. If an athlete
tested positive 6 times in one tour, then you would expect them to test
positive again at future tours. If all their subsequent tests were
negative, then it would make a systematic error the wrong explanation
for those 6 positive results.
 
"Andy Coggan" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> "B. Lafferty" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
>
>> The research done by the Châtenay-Malabry did not simply rely on the test
>> in use by WADA. It used three methodologies and only if the three came
>> positive was a positive finding made. No one has far, to my knowledge,
>> shown that the results of this research is riddled with false positives.
>
> Wrong: only one test was performed, with three different criteria used to
> define what constitutes a positive result. Given the apparent lack of
> specificity of the antibody used, this provides no real increase in the
> confidence in the results.

Mea culpa for using the word methodology instead of criteria. The point is
that they were using refined criteria.

>
>> Doctor Christiane Ayotte of the WADA lab in Montreal has stated that she
>> has no doubt that Châtenay-Malabry found EPO. Her criticism centered on
>> the ethics of the results becoming known. Further, Dr Iñigo Mujika
>> noted in his report on problems relating to urinary protein content for
>> the current WADA test (not the research being done by the Paris lab),
>> "In view of the efforts of the different accredited laboratories
>> (particularly those of Châtenay-Malabry in the outskirts of Paris, Oslo
>> and Barcelona) to eliminate proteins not related with EPO present in the
>> urine samples, particularly after intense exercise performed in
>> competition, it is clear that those in charge of the application of the
>> urinary rEPO detection test are fully aware of the fact that there is a
>> lack of specificity problem with the test in urine samples with a high
>> protein content."
>
> Exactly: the problem (one of them, actually) is and has been common
> knowledge, but WADA continues to use the same test while failing to
> address the issue.

WADA apparently has addressed the issue in two ways; 1. by changing the
criteria used, as the Madrid lab was instructed and 2. by initiating
additional research as in the Châtenay-Malabry research.

It's easy enough to determine if Armstrong or any rider has a valid
proteinuria defense. Apparently Dr. Ayotte does not share your scepticism
as to the findings of the Malabry lab. I suggest that you contact her
immediately and set her straight.
>
> Andy Coggan
>
 
Patricio Carlos <[email protected]> wrote:
> Just because **** Pound (or **** Slam, whatever his name is) doesn't
> tell them to the press, doesn't mean that real scientists haven't
> established this.

**** Slam, I like that.

> As most journalists have no scientific training, trying to explain
> sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV) & negative
> predictive value of a test is impossible and gets re-produced
> incorrectly anyway. If they are told 99% PPV, they'll write about the
> 1% even though the 99% is very high.

If you read through the judgements on riders like Bergman and Sbeih
you'll see the numbers they gave for the probabilty of error. They're
pretty astronomically low. In Sbeih's decision the quoted figure
for a false positive for a BAP of 80% was 1 in 500,000. If the
calculation was similar for Beke then his number was also pretty low.

Bob Schwartz
[email protected]
 
Patricio Carlos <[email protected]> wrote:
> Bob,

> Let's say there is a systematic error in the rEpo test. If an athlete
> tested positive 6 times in one tour, then you would expect them to test
> positive again at future tours. If all their subsequent tests were
> negative, then it would make a systematic error the wrong explanation
> for those 6 positive results.

Good point. But I don't care.

My beef is that the dope cops no longer care about the integrity of
the process. Even if a guy has hired a coach that has become a
millionaire designing doping programs for cyclists, you still have
to respect the process. If you are going to cut corners like the
dope cops appear to be willing to do, it becomes harder to have
confidence in the results.

I'll give you an example where I think this matters. One of the things
we discovered with the Bergman decision is that there is no set
definition of what constitutes an EPO positive. They look at the
numbers and make a decision to pursue a sanction or not. This is a
response to the microdosing you mentioned in another part of this
thread. If you don't know where the bar is, you don't know what you
have to do to stay under it.

There was a rumor last year that six guys had come up positive for
EPO at the Tour of Georgia. At the time no one knew about the 'I
know it when I see it' testing standard so when nothing came of it
everyone assumed Decanio was full of ****.

I think a rumor like that would have a lot more legs today given
what we now know about the way that organizations like the USADA
and WADA work. More questions, less concrete resolution. Better
rumor legs.

Bob Schwartz
[email protected]
 
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