Some Hamilton case perspective

psycholist said:

This is copied from a post in the Slowtwitch.com forum ... posted by a guy
with the handle "Peanut." I don't know his background, but he makes some
interesting points.

Here's something to remember, though. First of, a couple of quotes:

"Although the test is new in sports, the science behind it (cytology) has
been successfully used for 10 years in hospitals for organ transplants and
pregnant women." - Cycling News

"Everyone has a whole range of blood groups - not just the ABO set that
everyone is familiar with," says Ashenden. "There are 10 or 20 minor blood
groups." - from Ashenden, manager of the group that developed the tests.

Generally accepted that here are about 8 minor blood groups. (see below),
but hundreds and hundreds of blood group antigens, and more being reported
every week (often called 'family antigens'😉. Those eight are chosen on the
basis of their antigenicity. IOW, transfusing against them can cause
hemolysis.

Quoted message said:

"We haven't declared all the antigens that we test," he says. "Even if they
read the article [Haematologica. 2003 Nov;88(11):1284-95] and found a match
for the antigens mentioned - one in a million - there is no way they can get
a match for the other 'mystery' antigens. - again from Ashenden

Though there are literally hundreds of antigens on RBCs, though one might
say that for bench-top phenotype testing, ABO(4 phenotypes), Rh (~9 common
phenotypes), Duffy (4), Kidd (4), MNSs(16), P(3), Lutheran (4), and
sometimes Lewis(4), are normally the ones tested for, being antigenic
enough to cause hemolysis. For any others the antisera would be
prohibitively expensive and rare. To find an exact match for those 9 groups
would be about 1 in 7 million among non-family members. Unless they're
using a rare donor service it's unlikely that any one cyclist would find a
match given the way they might do sport homologous blood doping.

Quoted message said:

Remember that there are at least 10, possibly 20 or more different tests
here, each applied individually to a blood sample. Each test requires a
different protein to be developed which attaches itself to the rbc if and
only if the rbcs have a specific antigen present on the surface of the rbc.
And although the basis for the tests have been around for 10 years, even the
published article from 2 years ago doesn't declare all of the antigens to be
tested for, since they have additional 'mystery' antigens.

One test, ~18-20 antisera.

Quoted message said:

So the $64,000 question is: have the mystery antigens, and the developed
proteins to mark them, been vetted out by scientists outside of those with a
vested interest in the test (i.e. Ashenden's group, which receives funding
from USADA). Have the newer tests been tested on a wide distribution of
blood samples? Is there any reason to believe that one of the tests may show
a false positive?

Certainly the lawyers have a right of discovery on the whole testing
process.

Quoted message said:

Also, remember that if there is a deficiency found in one of the test's
proteins, such that it can be proven that it only selectively attaches to a
subset of the rbcs for a good scientific reason other than blood
transfusion, then a false positive would be the result. And if you repeated
that exact same test on a fresh sample of the same blood, you would repeat
the false positive, again and again.

Most rare antigens are tested by several different antisera (from different
sources). Not all examples of a particular antigen have the same
antigenicity (binding).

Quoted message said:

I can't answer these questions. You can't answer them (unless you're also a
cytologist with expertise in the area). Everyone's lawyers can't answer them
directly either. So it comes down to having experts in the field review the
data, the developed test proteins, the test results, etc., to see if any
holes in Ashenden's group's scientific method can be found. Until then, all
we can do is wait and see.

This kind of testing is exact enough to settle paternity testing, but using
rare antisera and immunofluorescence techniques is subject to
interpretation.

jj

"Jet" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

On Tue, 1 Mar 2005 09:27:41 -0500, "psycholist" <[email hidden]>
wrote:

big snip

Quoted message said:

This kind of testing is exact enough to settle paternity testing, but
using
rare antisera and immunofluorescence techniques is subject to
interpretation.

jj

Uh ... right. What he said.

--
Bob C.

"Of course it hurts. The trick is not minding that it hurts."
T. E. Lawrence (of Arabia)

"psycholist" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

"Although the test is new in sports, the science behind it (cytology) has
been successfully used for 10 years in hospitals for organ transplants and
pregnant women." - Cycling News

Indeed, but it has NEVER been used in this manner and there simply isn't
much in the way of proof that it doesn't give false positives.

Quoted message said:

"Everyone has a whole range of blood groups - not just the ABO set that
everyone is familiar with," says Ashenden. "There are 10 or 20 minor blood
groups." - from Ashenden, manager of the group that developed the tests.

Minor groups very to such an extent that there is at least one known minor
blood group that is contained solely in a single family. These minor
groupings do not elicit transfussion reaction and so they aren't paid much
attention outside of the medical practice.

Quoted message said:

"We haven't declared all the antigens that we test," he says. "Even if
they read the article [Haematologica. 2003 Nov;88(11):1284-95] and found a
match for the antigens mentioned - one in a million - there is no way they
can get a match for the other 'mystery' antigens. - again from Ashenden

If they were required to as part of discovery.

Quoted message said:

So the $64,000 question is: have the mystery antigens, and the developed
proteins to mark them, been vetted out by scientists outside of those with
a vested interest in the test (i.e. Ashenden's group, which receives
funding from USADA). Have the newer tests been tested on a wide
distribution of blood samples? Is there any reason to believe that one of
the tests may show a false positive?

There is every reason to believe so.

1) Only two people in cycling have been found positive presently and they
were roommates.
2) The team manager received a blackmail call before both positives telling
him to pay or something bad would happen on his team.
3) Tyler steadfastly denies blood packing despite a lot of pressure against
him.
4) The tests were pushed forward on the value of a test of only 21 people,
all known positives and two of them tested negative to the tests.
5) Both Tyler and Perez apparently tested "questionable" and not "positive".
The positive was decided not by the technicians performing the test but by
the person who 'invented' the tests upon review of the data.