4 ms·

Blood samples, I believe, can be stored cryogenically for some period of time and evaluated at a future date using tests/techniques not yet developed at the tim

by angdis 11y ago

Blood samples, I believe, can be stored cryogenically for some period of time and evaluated at a future date using tests/techniques not yet developed at the time the sample was originally drawn. The efficacy of all this depends on having a rock-solid chain-of-custody for the blood samples-- just like evidence used for a criminal court. Not easy.

tswartz 11y ago
^ This can become one of the best deterrents to doping. Put a rigorous system in place and notify athletes that their samples will be re-tested for 'new' drugs every 5 years for the next 20 years. Some athletes may be too focused on the immediate fame and wealth to care, but if enough high profile athletes, like Armstrong, eventually get busted, then perhaps that will help deter the younger generation from trying new drugs.
- at-fates-hands 11y ago
  The interesting thing about Armstrong wasn't the testing that got him - it was Floyd Landis. The scary thing is had Armstrong not tried to come back to cycling the last time he would've been in the clear. The reason Landis turned him in was Armstrong refused to let him on his team.
  - tswartz 11y ago
    Yes, it's true that Armstrong didn't get admit doping because by of the retesting of old samples. It all unraveled with Landis. But Armstrong is a good example of how people will eventually get caught. In 2005, L'Équipe reported that 6 of his urine samples from the 1999 Tour de France that had been frozen had tested positive for EPO. But since it was part of a research project and had not been properly controlled it couldn't be used against Armstrong. It did add fuel to the speculation that he used drugs.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - solutionyogi 11y ago
    Agreed. 'Stop At Nothing' [1] documentary captures this and more in a gripping fashion. It's available on Netflix and a must watch if you want to understand the whole Armstrong saga. [1] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3511812/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3511812/
    - Lio 11y ago
      Great documentary. Watching someone as charismatic as Armstrong look straight at the camera and lie so convincingly, over and over is illuminating to say the least.
      - meatysnapper 11y ago
        What, you've never watched a politician or an actor on TV?
  - mikestew 11y ago
    > The interesting thing about Armstrong wasn't the testing that got him - it was Floyd Landis. Which reminds me: Mr. Landis still owes me $35 for that book of his that I bought. [0] His book did highlight what an unprofessional ass Dick Pound (head of WADA at the time) is, and how loosy-goosy some of the testing was. But in the end, Floyd doped just like the rest of them and deserved to be stripped of his TdF title. Once Landis' story broke, I can say that's the point at which I just gave up on pro cycling. That's when it all became clear that cheating also includes lots of lying, and regrets only come when they're caught. I gave the whole lot the benefit of the doubt, and now feel foolish for doing so. I'm a former Cat 2 racer, USAC race official, paid loads of money for pay-per-view races, loads of money on gear; now I don't do any of it, and if I watch sports on TV it's MotoGP. Sports participation is now trail running, where the most insidious drug I see evidence of is the cloud of pot smoke rolling out of some dude's car right before the start. If Armstrong had just left well enough alone, as you mention, he would have walked away a hero. But I'm guessing his cockiness caught up with him, and he just didn't know when to leave well enough alone, convinced that if he hadn't been caught before he'd continue to not get caught. Which seems to be the downfall of many criminals that get caught. And as unprofessional as Dick Pound's behavior might have been, it turns out he was right. That's where I'm conflicted. Not "innocent until proven guilty", but "I'm convinced you're guilty, and whether you're guilty or not I'm going to dig until I find dirt". But he was right, at least this time. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positively_False https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positively_False
    - wycx 11y ago
      Despite all of that, Floyd's attack to regain the yellow jersey after his bad day in the 2006 tour is still one of my favourite tour memories. Drugs or no, his ride that day was really entertaining.
      - mikestew 11y ago
        Oh, no doubt. Drugs or not, that was an amazing ride with a large amount of risk that paid off. Even knowing what I know now, if it showed up on my TV screen I'd watch it again. Because even if Landis was pumped to the gills with testosterone, he still had to put out a huge amount of effort to pull it off.
timboslice 11y ago
> rock-solid chain-of-custody for the blood samples Proof is the "alleged" steroid use of Ryan Braun - the Major League Baseball case where the guy in charge of the sample left it in his home over the weekend and Braun got off on this technicality
friendzis 11y ago
Freezing tends to damage (amount of damage depends on freezing techniques) hydrophilic cells, so basically anything organic. Even frozen tissue still deteriorates to some degree. Which means that not only new techniques for drug discovery have to be devised, but more importantly, techniques to account for deterioration and change in chemical structure. You really don't want someone who did sleep at that microscope for past 5 minutes to yell "this seems familiar to compound x" and have your titles removed at the blink of an eye.
- bhickey 11y ago
  You may be oversimplifying here. I can't speak to Eukaryotes, but Prokaryotes are routinely flash frozen in liquid nitrogen and then stored for years at -80. Gently thaw them out and they're happy to go on reproducing. For the purposes of a drug test, your requirements are even looser. I don't see why you'd need or care about lysing your cells. A test is only going to be screening for small molecules, so destroying organelles and lysing cells should be largely irrelevant.
  - friendzis 11y ago
    I'm no chemist/biologist by education (happen to touch the field from time to time) and I am oversimplifying, but the point I wanted to stress is that the delayed test results largely depend on what are you searching for: something that is unnatural to human body or something that is naturally occurring/produced by human body. And unless you have extremely highly controlled test procedures and account for any changes to specimen caused by the test process, including but not limited to storage, then well... you have a biased test. That's scientific testing 101. Yes, sometimes this bias can be safely ignored, but I'm of no competence to tell if drug testing positive/negative results differ by a margin large enough. AFAIK, even flash frozen and gently thawed prokaryotes do not have 100% survive rate and eukaryote survive rate is considerably lower. My comment revolves around the idea that biochemical reactions have pretty strict requirements on conditions for happening at all, while chemical reactions are much looser in this regard. Even 99.999% survivability calls for scientific research on structural/biochemical/chemical change prior to using such techniques for anything touching legal system with anything shorter than ten foot pole. IMHO. Happy to be corrected.

by angdis 11y ago

tswartz 11y ago

^ This can become one of the best deterrents to doping. Put a rigorous system in place and notify athletes that their samples will be re-tested for 'new' drugs every 5 years for the next 20 years. Some athletes may be too focused on the immediate fame and wealth to care, but if enough high profile athletes, like Armstrong, eventually get busted, then perhaps that will help deter the younger generation from trying new drugs.

at-fates-hands 11y ago
The interesting thing about Armstrong wasn't the testing that got him - it was Floyd Landis. The scary thing is had Armstrong not tried to come back to cycling the last time he would've been in the clear. The reason Landis turned him in was Armstrong refused to let him on his team.
- tswartz 11y ago
  Yes, it's true that Armstrong didn't get admit doping because by of the retesting of old samples. It all unraveled with Landis. But Armstrong is a good example of how people will eventually get caught. In 2005, L'Équipe reported that 6 of his urine samples from the 1999 Tour de France that had been frozen had tested positive for EPO. But since it was part of a research project and had not been properly controlled it couldn't be used against Armstrong. It did add fuel to the speculation that he used drugs.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- solutionyogi 11y ago
  Agreed. 'Stop At Nothing' [1] documentary captures this and more in a gripping fashion. It's available on Netflix and a must watch if you want to understand the whole Armstrong saga. [1] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3511812/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3511812/
  - Lio 11y ago
    Great documentary. Watching someone as charismatic as Armstrong look straight at the camera and lie so convincingly, over and over is illuminating to say the least.
    - meatysnapper 11y ago
      What, you've never watched a politician or an actor on TV?
- mikestew 11y ago
  > The interesting thing about Armstrong wasn't the testing that got him - it was Floyd Landis. Which reminds me: Mr. Landis still owes me $35 for that book of his that I bought. [0] His book did highlight what an unprofessional ass Dick Pound (head of WADA at the time) is, and how loosy-goosy some of the testing was. But in the end, Floyd doped just like the rest of them and deserved to be stripped of his TdF title. Once Landis' story broke, I can say that's the point at which I just gave up on pro cycling. That's when it all became clear that cheating also includes lots of lying, and regrets only come when they're caught. I gave the whole lot the benefit of the doubt, and now feel foolish for doing so. I'm a former Cat 2 racer, USAC race official, paid loads of money for pay-per-view races, loads of money on gear; now I don't do any of it, and if I watch sports on TV it's MotoGP. Sports participation is now trail running, where the most insidious drug I see evidence of is the cloud of pot smoke rolling out of some dude's car right before the start. If Armstrong had just left well enough alone, as you mention, he would have walked away a hero. But I'm guessing his cockiness caught up with him, and he just didn't know when to leave well enough alone, convinced that if he hadn't been caught before he'd continue to not get caught. Which seems to be the downfall of many criminals that get caught. And as unprofessional as Dick Pound's behavior might have been, it turns out he was right. That's where I'm conflicted. Not "innocent until proven guilty", but "I'm convinced you're guilty, and whether you're guilty or not I'm going to dig until I find dirt". But he was right, at least this time. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positively_False https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positively_False
  - wycx 11y ago
    Despite all of that, Floyd's attack to regain the yellow jersey after his bad day in the 2006 tour is still one of my favourite tour memories. Drugs or no, his ride that day was really entertaining.
    - mikestew 11y ago
      Oh, no doubt. Drugs or not, that was an amazing ride with a large amount of risk that paid off. Even knowing what I know now, if it showed up on my TV screen I'd watch it again. Because even if Landis was pumped to the gills with testosterone, he still had to put out a huge amount of effort to pull it off.

timboslice 11y ago

> rock-solid chain-of-custody for the blood samples Proof is the "alleged" steroid use of Ryan Braun - the Major League Baseball case where the guy in charge of the sample left it in his home over the weekend and Braun got off on this technicality

friendzis 11y ago

Freezing tends to damage (amount of damage depends on freezing techniques) hydrophilic cells, so basically anything organic. Even frozen tissue still deteriorates to some degree. Which means that not only new techniques for drug discovery have to be devised, but more importantly, techniques to account for deterioration and change in chemical structure. You really don't want someone who did sleep at that microscope for past 5 minutes to yell "this seems familiar to compound x" and have your titles removed at the blink of an eye.

bhickey 11y ago
You may be oversimplifying here. I can't speak to Eukaryotes, but Prokaryotes are routinely flash frozen in liquid nitrogen and then stored for years at -80. Gently thaw them out and they're happy to go on reproducing. For the purposes of a drug test, your requirements are even looser. I don't see why you'd need or care about lysing your cells. A test is only going to be screening for small molecules, so destroying organelles and lysing cells should be largely irrelevant.
- friendzis 11y ago
  I'm no chemist/biologist by education (happen to touch the field from time to time) and I am oversimplifying, but the point I wanted to stress is that the delayed test results largely depend on what are you searching for: something that is unnatural to human body or something that is naturally occurring/produced by human body. And unless you have extremely highly controlled test procedures and account for any changes to specimen caused by the test process, including but not limited to storage, then well... you have a biased test. That's scientific testing 101. Yes, sometimes this bias can be safely ignored, but I'm of no competence to tell if drug testing positive/negative results differ by a margin large enough. AFAIK, even flash frozen and gently thawed prokaryotes do not have 100% survive rate and eukaryote survive rate is considerably lower. My comment revolves around the idea that biochemical reactions have pretty strict requirements on conditions for happening at all, while chemical reactions are much looser in this regard. Even 99.999% survivability calls for scientific research on structural/biochemical/chemical change prior to using such techniques for anything touching legal system with anything shorter than ten foot pole. IMHO. Happy to be corrected.