Tyler Hamilton

--- "Sly D. Skeez" wrote:

Usually in science publications, they send your
paper off for review
to the people who really disagree with your
findings. These folks do
their best to viscerate your findings and send them
back on a spear.

Jay (never thought I'd use the word viscerate)
Wenner


In this context, the word should be "eviscerate."

sorry, I just couldn't resist!

-Chris (just consider it editing, not peer review ;- )
Cline








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(Sly D. Skeez) wrote in message . com...
(Anders Lustig) wrote in message . com...
(Steve McGregor) wrote in message . com...

First off, I am less than impressed with the objective nature of Dr.
Ashenden and his colleagues. Aside from his remarks in interviews, he
starts off the Hematologica (2003) paper with,

"Blood doping is the scourge of endurance sports
since it provides immoral athletes with an illegal
performance advantage."

So much for unbiased pursuit of the truth.

You lost me there! Do you mean that his implied
assertion that blood doping is prevalent is un-
supported and that such a preconception makes him
biased?

I don´t think that what you mean was that one doesn´t
need to be immoral to gain an illegal performance
advantage by blood doping...

I think the idea is that science is neutral, and you generally don't
see much option, and rarely see such blatant opinion in a science
paper. So, if this guy really wants to eliminate this type of blood
doping from sports, he may not see some real problems with his data
and findings. You know, one lousey fact ruins a beautiful
hypothesis...


That was my point, that the scientist should be neutral, and certainly
shouldn't be making a value judgement on a person's moral capacity in
writing. Of course everyone has a bias, but it would be nice not to
see it so clearly expressed in writing in an original research paper.
It should at least be reserved for a review paper or a perspective
paper. If an author has such poor self control as to make such
zealous statements in writing, it does lead me to question their
ability to be objective. The thing is, if you are arguing the case
for a popular viewpoint, you typically have more lattitude with regard
to such statements. Think of the reverse case though. Say someone
had experimental evidence refuting the validity of this test and
submitted a paper that said, "Vampires are currently the scourge of
professional and elite sports. They are the witch hunters of the 21st
century, ruining careers and sometimes lives (e.g. Pantani) with a
guilty until proven innocent approach, often with little more than
circumstantial evidence, or inference." Some of Pantani's fans in
Italy might make this argument, but I would be very surprised to see
it in the intro of a paper in a scientific journal. So, I guess it's
okay to express a bias if it's a popular bias.

E.g., has this guy addressed all known reasons for having
multi-antigen sites in one person? Obviously blood transfusions, but,
as someone mentioned, twins, or who knows, AIDS, flu shots, etc. All
the problems have to be laid out in order to establish the test
validity, and if the guy if really opinionated, maybe he rushed to
publication and didn't look for problems.

Usually in science publications, they send your paper off for review
to the people who really disagree with your findings. These folks do
their best to viscerate your findings and send them back on a spear.


Depends on the journal. That may be a bit of a nostalgic notion.
Depending on the journal, nowadays the editors often ask for suggested
reviewers, and reviewers that you would like to exclude from the
process. I'm not sure about the process at Hematologica, it may still
be traditional in it's approach. It is just as likely though, that
they may have sent it to reviewers that might be a little more
accommodating to a particular point of view.

Jay (never thought I'd use the word viscerate) Wenner

Thanks Steve, i have been a little bit of for some days so i'm a little
bit late in this thread (again;-)

I've read that this method was used in medicin for about 10years to
detect problems with patients that have negative reaction to blood
transfusions with some blood of the same major bloodgroup.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?...4/blood_doping

As i understand it right, if you test for all 12 proteins (or maybe it
is enough with 5-6) there are no chans that they all can be diffrent
between bloodcells in a "clean" athlete?

Steve McGregor wrote:
Janne,

If you're still interested in my thoughts on the Hamilton doping
technique (detection, not cheating) here goes.

First off, I am less than impressed with the objective nature of Dr.
Ashenden and his colleagues. Aside from his remarks in interviews, he
starts off the Hematologica (2003) paper with,

"Blood doping is the scourge of endurance sports
since it provides immoral athletes with an illegal
performance advantage."

So much for unbiased pursuit of the truth.

Interesting article today in the NY Times (10 May) about early mingling
of blood and the validity and reliability of WADA's testing:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/10/health/10bloo.html

It's probably seen 1000 posts in RBR so I'll ask it here to see if
there's an obvious answer...

The article says there's a real thing where a mother's blood or a
twin's can mingle with one's own---so that one is carrying the cells of
two people.

Fine. Cool.

Test him again and see if they're still there.

How long does trace of bloodpacking last? It seems like this
mingling/chimera stuff would last your whole life.

If he hasn't been racing/training he still wouldn't be packing, so any
packing trace would be gone, eh?

If there are still two people in his blood then it seems like a shoe-in
that he has the syndrome.

A no-brainer. But not mentioned. So maybe someone here knows why.
Thanks, JP

Gene Goldenfeld wrote:
Interesting article today in the NY Times (10 May) about early
mingling
of blood and the validity and reliability of WADA's testing:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/10/health/10bloo.html

Read the last part of the article again. If I understand your
suggestions and questions, most are directly or indirectly answered
there. My reason for posting the article was not about Tyler Hamilton
per se, who I have no specific information about, but to indicate that
there's a lot more to us humans, human variability and the testing
processes than officials who project great scientific, logical and moral
certainty would have us believe. At the same time, to be fair, people
trying to get around the rules and fair play (integrity) have not made
it easy for anyone.

Gene


wrote:

It's probably seen 1000 posts in RBR so I'll ask it here to see if
there's an obvious answer...

The article says there's a real thing where a mother's blood or a
twin's can mingle with one's own---so that one is carrying the cells of
two people.

Fine. Cool.

Test him again and see if they're still there.

How long does trace of bloodpacking last? It seems like this
mingling/chimera stuff would last your whole life.

If he hasn't been racing/training he still wouldn't be packing, so any
packing trace would be gone, eh?

If there are still two people in his blood then it seems like a shoe-in
that he has the syndrome.

A no-brainer. But not mentioned. So maybe someone here knows why.
Thanks, JP

Gene Goldenfeld wrote:
Interesting article today in the NY Times (10 May) about early
mingling
of blood and the validity and reliability of WADA's testing:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/10/health/10bloo.html

JP,

I think you have a good point. They could retest and retest and retest,
and Hamilton, if he's telling the truth, should continue to test
"positive" or have similar results. I think the Hamilton case points
out that the testing procedure is (as I understand) not widely accepted
by the scientific community and not commonly used in science. Normally
scientific evidence that's allowed in trials requires these two points.
Also, after the testing is in place for 5 years, maybe they'll find a
few "gray area" cases, like the athletes who naturally have high
hemocrit levels.

I'm not saying Hamilton is innocent of the charge, but I think he has
bought up some points which establish some doubt. Now if he was getting
tests himself to prove his case (as JP suggests) and the results
supported his side, then I'd believe him.

Jay Wenner