Thursday, September 21, 2006

Thursday Roundup

News
I know it's sounding like a broken record, but no news yet.

Research
Two CIR False Posititves
may be in the WADA study that "validated" the test, according a look at the data by Tom Fine. The study had 5 subjects, and looking closely at the data plots, two examples that match the values reported for Landis are seen.

rec.bicycles.racing suggests Fine contact the study author for the raw data. Tom adds in a followup,

The official part of the test ran for 28 days. With various data points missing here and there from various different metabolite tests, I'll be generous and say there's about 25 viable test points per test subject, so that's 125 tests, and out of that there were four samples that exceeded the 3 per mil limit.

That's a 3.2% false positive rate within their study, or an expectation of a natural "failure" for 1 out of every 31 tests.
"It's foolproof. This analysis tells the difference between endogenous and exogenous. No error is possible in isotopic readings."

--Jacques De Ceaurriz, head of the Chatenay-Malabry laboratory
Blogs
Podium Cafe looks at the Cycle Sport "Clean" issue, and finds it sanctimonious, reactionary, and perhaps worst, two months late.

Corrupt, Inept, or Dopes, wonders blogger new to us on Sep 13. We'll be following him now, and we like his Jean Shepherd podcast links. TBV listened to a lot of Shep back in the day.

Rant compares and differentiates with OJ Simpson and Johnnie Cochran. I'll note that as much as Jacobs knows about doping law, he hasn't proven many people innocent. Of course, Cochran didn't exactly do that either. I don't believe Landis would be satisfied with a Simpson result -- I know I wouldn't.

PelotonJim points out the CSI fallacy, and points back to Fine's research reported here.
Dixson picks up Fine, plugs us.
EthylBenzene gives us a plug.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Clearly, there is discord somewhere. If the Review Board thought the evidence was credible, even if not airtight, why not pass the buck to USADA? You can imagine the press release, "the evidence is questionable, but there is enough to warrant a hearing, we really had no choice, don't blame us, etc" But...no.

So, what now? Could there be some legal or political reason that the Board needs or wants to get WADA "on-board" before saying that the evidence is a fraud (sorry: innocent error)?

Would love to hear your thoughts...the silence of Landis' attorney, after stating he expected a decision within a week, is more than puzzling.

Someone is negotiating, somewhere?

DBrower said...

For all we know at this point, the ADRB is doing what you suggest because they've been leaned on by WADA to get it to hearing. From one point of view, it's to deal with any open questions; another point of view is to make sure the case is in a state where Landis has the higher burden of proof. If the ADRB said dismiss, and USADA agreed, WADA would need to appeal with a very high burden of proof to say a mistake was made.

TBV

daniel m (a/k/a Rant) said...

TBV,

I think you're absolutely right. I don't think Floyd Landis would be satisfied with a not guilty result.

And if I were in his shoes, neither would I.

- Rant

Anonymous said...

If the chance of a false positive for each metabolite reference is 3.2%, then the chance of a false positive when four metabolites are independently examined is:

1-(1-.032)^4 = .122 = 12.2%