Monday Roundup

News
AP interview with Floyd. Report says USADA is agreeing to public hearing, and Floyd says USADA has been reasonable about performing their obligations. Others, not so nice: "I'm not hopeful this sport can be fixed as long as UCI is running it."

Blogs
Dugard picks up the morphine finding. He may be getting out in front of the facts, as did Old Runner Guy at "LetsRun", which we talked about yesterday.
Peloton Jim thinks Operation Puerto is unravelling.
Steve's Peeve's does a review predicting calm for a while, frustration with the sport, UCI, WADA, and the lot; plugs TBV and Peloton Jim.
Racejunkie reviews a bunch of current cycling dope news, with swipes at UCI and brief Landis mention.
Rant goes on a about lack of civility, and points at Topix forums as an immediate example. Except he calls it "Toxic."

Forums
Daily Peloton picks up, grinds down the morphine story, starting from Dugard. Martin gets dissed, TBV gets mentioned, and then it's all about Lance, ultimately, isn't it?

Bicycling Forum has two threads, TBV's and Dugard's, and neither is getting any traction.

Ferret rehash
Readers Marc and Rant did some decoding of the second helping of Ferret droppings while I played hooky. Marc's detective work shows page 3 to be the interesting new data. He observes and blows off a typo in the sample number. Clarification of the previous day's interference: "The results of the tests for ES04 and ES05 are not entirely dependable because of the inhibition of the derivation due to interference with the matrix." Then, what looks to me like the gold data,

T/E estimated above the threshold of 11,4 (+/- 30%)
Conc [Concentration] testo estimated and corrected. 45,4 mg/ml (+/- 20%)"
Conc epi estimated and corrected. 3.9 mg/ml (+/- 30%)
pH 5,2 d = [1.03 crossed out] 1.025 (+/- 0.002) screening

Interesting claim on the TE tolerance. This says a +/30% error on a demoninator has only a 30% afftect on the result value. Let's do the math:

The reported result 11.4 +/- 30% is 7.97 to 14.8. 45.4 mg/ml T +/- 20% is a range of 36.3 to 54.5, and 3.9 mg/ml E +/- 30% is 2.73 to 5.07, thus giving a T/E range of 7.15 to 19.96 allowing for errors. Taking T as accurate, the error on E gives a TE range of 8.95 to 16.6. That doesn't look like 30% to me. Yes, there are some probability distributions I'm not considering, but the original tolerance claim on the reported TE seems suspect.

One of the questions I've been carrying about the lab is, "can they do the math?"

Also, note the difficulty measuring E at low levels is reflected in the 30% tolerance vs. the 20% tolerance for the larger values of T. I don't know how close the E value is to the floor of reliability, either, which makes me wonder about the +/- 30% claim on the E value alone.

Finally, the decoded result is in line with Mr. LNDD's estimates of 40/3.6 to 80/7.2 in the Topix argument.

Before moving on, a pointer to an old TBV post, "Where are the numbers?". The arguments there are still true. If it's Landis people ferreting, this can look as bad as when the Testinistas leaked. Live up to the transparency claim and release it all.

Email
Michele Landis (no close relation) writes us about the Ferret:

The data sheets indicate that multiple analysts have made entries on the data sheets that you have received. In any type of analytical setting, it is imperative that the identity of the analysts, the task that they performed, and the associated documentation be communicated in a crystal clear manner. A reviewer should be able to look at sample documentation and determine WHO was responsible for each type of analysis; multiple analysis are allowed, but the documentation should indicate who did what. The reasons for this include ability to review training records (to ensure the analyst has documented training in the performance of the analytical method which they are performing) and to allow the laboratory manager to review results and data to ensure consistent and acceptable performances by the analyst. This "chain" should be equally robust to the one used to maintain custody of the sample from the time of collection through submittal to the lab. Furthermore, AN individual in the lab MUST be responsible for maintaining custody of the sample....sample management by kumbaya (or "laboratory") is not allowed. Having multiple analysts without anyone responsible is not acceptable.

I have a background in health physics, sample management, sample analysis (primarily for radionuclides), and litigation support...and am a latent TdF fan, and a fervent Floyd fan........my grandparents hailed from Pennsylvania so I have claimed some distant kinship via last name.

Jim mails us a pointer to this ESPN article about a forthcoming lab report that will try to explain to Mr. Pound's satisfaction what happened in the Marion Jones case, and asks, "Did you know that WADA was seriously considering doing away with b-samples?"

Web
A look for "morphine tour de france" turns up this interesting article in U of Miami Medical School magazine. It discusses history of doping.

B Sample experts may have included someone from Catlin's lab for USADA, and Marshall Saugy for the UCI, according to this old (Aug-3) ESPN article.
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