Doping

Lifted this comment from cyclingnews, thought it illuminating:

There has been so much BS talked by the ill-informed in this case that I had to set up an account to pass on my thoughts, based on a little more 'fact', based around Salbutamol.

Before I do, I'm unsure why so many posters on here don't understand 'rules'. In the UCI's rules (love them or hate them) an Adverse Analytical Finding does NOT require a rider to stop competing whilst he/she appeals the results. Simple, not hard to understand, clearly written in print, etc etc etc. Froome has EVERY legal right to continue competing as he has and if any of the other GC contenders found themselves in the same boat you can bet your bottom dollar that they would too. Anybody who has the competitive drive to achieve a podium result at a GT would tell you (and the media, his team, his competitors etc) to FO if it was suggested they should stop 'for the good of the sport'. No less so because if the reading is found to be incorrect, he/she will have lost the chance to win during that period. The term 'innocent until proven guilty' springs to mind. If people have an issue with Froom's decision TO FOLLOW THE RULES (including Hinault and Lappartient) then amend the UCI's rules. Simple.

But on to Salbutamol and those calling for Froome's head for 'cheating' or perhaps wondering why he cannot simply accept a ban and move on. When this came to light I spoke to my old man, who just happened to be the Chief Clinial Pharmacologist for one of the top five international pharmaceutical giants for 25 years, who was a peer of and personally knows the chief clinical pharmacologist who created Salbutamol and who he himself (my father) used Salbutamol during trials and research into other drugs. His informed opinion, (unlike many posters across many sites, not to mention the media, Hinault etc etc) is that this situation is a farce and has been created almost entirely by WADA/UCI test methods. Note that my old man does NOT and never has followed cycling.

So here are some FACTS from someone directly involved in the development of the drug:

First he said that Salbutamol has NO inherent performance benefit, it merely allows an asthmathic to perfom to his/her inherent ability just like a non asthma sufferer, no more no less. This we (mostly) all know. The reason it is on the TUE list is because it can be used as a masking agent for other types of doping, but my father's comment was that the amount required and the period of time it would require to be maintained at levels high enough to mask serious doping, would mean he would have been caught throughout the previous 18 days of testing, plus the inter-GT testing, and not to mention whilst being tested during the TdF. In his opinion just one blip is exactly that. The previous 2 months of testing clearly indicate (to him) that Froome wasn't using Salbutamol to mask any other doping. Obviously he caveates that this does not mean Froome or any other rider are not doping anyway, just that this blip is entirely wrong.

Following on, he says that the reading and the way it is tested is seriously flawed. First, he said that they (pharma giants) would be laughed at if they provided their research based solely on urine tests as they are incredibly unreliable. More so for drugs that are inhaled rather than administered by needle as there are so many influencing factors such as hydration. They (the pharma companies) must provide full bloodwork at the end of trials to be taken seriously within the medical fraternity and have their drugs passed as being safe and legal for human use. Urine tests alone wouldn't cut it. Therefore he said that to rely solely on urine tests for such an important test that can affect the outcome of races, prize purses, history is inherently wrong. He suspects that the cost and logisitcs of taken blood-tests every day trumps the desire to have perfect testing.

Further, of inhalers. The variance in dose provided by inhalers, (between puffs), can be as much as +/- 25% of the required dose, so again when they test the effects of drugs that can be administered orally, by inhaler or by injection, they do not use the inhaler because it is clinically unreliable. This is the same for any user, so an AAF cannot be guranteed as 'misuse' as it could be as a result of the flawed delivery by the inhaler. In his opinion, the UCI regs don't seem to factor this in.

What's more, my father said that Salbutomol has a notoriously poor level of uptake on inhaled delivery, as low as 30%, which is far lower than many other drugs. As such, 70% can be passed out in the urine at any given moment, hence his arguement that blood-tests should be used rather than urine tests to show how much is actually being absorbed in the blood as opposed to simply washed through. Additionally the 70% unabsorbed salbutamol passes in the urine relatively quickly.

Basically he said that had Froome finished the race, whilst (likely) dehydrated, taken a couple of puffs to recover, with a 50% variance risk in delivery, plus 70% non-uptake of the drug, plus the flawed nature of urine testing, it is perfectly reasonable to assume from a medical perspective that this was not the real amount in his blood nor evidence of doping. my father's opinion is that this AAF is at risk of too many variables for the UCI in any way to claim it was deliberate doping which flies
against almost 2 months of other clear readings before and after this one day. He says in clinial research it would be a statistical anomaly that would be considered, but not influence, the final results of a study.

Obviously nobody reading this knows the name of my father, nor can check his pedigree or CV to say for certain that what I am claiming he said or who he is is true. But I know it to be the case and as a result have a much clearer opinion of the situation, the likelihood that he was NOT doping and why he SHOULD continue cycling and be given a chance to clear his name.

For the naysers who claim it is clear doping like Contador and that he should have been suspended immediately, I ask:

1. Why, when the UCI clearly doesn't require him to be by their OWN regs?
   
2. Why, when the testing is so flawed and the drug delivery so ambiguous?
   
3. Why, when either side of the one adverse reading he was tested clean every day for two months clearly showing there was no malicious doping?
   
   

He might be guilty in some people's moral field, people will be biased because they are Froome/Brit/Sky haters, but if we base this case on facts rather than hyperbole, there should be no reason (legally) for him not to race this year's TdF and he should be given every chance to clear his name for what is an anomaly based on poor standards set by WADA and the UCI (to save time and more importantly money) all for a drug that has NO performance enhancing benefits whatsoever and clearly (based on two months continous testing of Froome) was not being used as masking agent. If Hinault, Lappartient, French Media (biased beyond belief against Brits/English sport, I know, I live here) and posters can't accept that, then more fool them. Either they are stupid, ignorant, biased or (Hinault) hypocrites. Acceptable by on-line posters who maybe don't have access to the facts or just want to troll and Sky-bash, unacceptable when you take Lappartient's point of view who, as head of the UCI needs to look at his own organisation, it's regs and procedures before casting moral judgement against someone yet to be found guilty and clearly following all the rules laid before him.

If you want to know what my old man said of Wiggins on the other hand, well tht's another (disappointing) story entirely....