EPO anti-doping slippery slope: Cyclists use soap to beat test

EPO. the deadly doping drug of choice for cyclists seems to have slipped through the testing protocols.  A report from Bloomberg says that athletes have been sliding by the tests by using soap.

      Oct. 29 (Bloomberg) -- A few grains of household soap powder can destroy the banned drug EPO in an athlete's urine sample, wrecking a test that cost $2 million to develop, said Mario Thevis, an anti-doping researcher in Cologne, Germany.           

Scientists made the discovery after a former Tour de France cyclist said he was given an unidentified powder to sabotage surprise tests, said Thevis, who works at the World Anti-Doping Agency-accredited biochemistry unit of German Sports University.

Seems that the drug-cheats can whitewash the anti-doping tests with some suds. Listen to my co-author (Gene Doping) Robin Parisotto:

"Cheats appear to have found a way around the test with backyard science,'' said Robin Parisotto, a researcher in Canberra, Australia, who helped develop the test for the drug. The International Olympic Committee and the Australian government spent $2 million to develop the test, he said in a telephone interview Oct. 26 from his home.

EPO, or erythropoietin, is the kidney hormone that induces bone marrow to produce more red blood cells.  In endurance sports (and in sprinting sports too -- see Marion Jones) producing more red blood cells, increases the oxygen carrying capacity of the blood, which increases the production of the muscles. An obvious advantage.

In May, Bjarne Riis, the 1996 Tour de France winner, said he took EPO for five years during his career. Cross-country skiers Johann Muehlegg and Larissa Lazutina gave back their Olympic gold medals at the 2002 Winter Games after testing positive for EPO.           

Jesus Manzano, a former Tour cyclist who left the sport in 2003, said athletes still use EPO while training because it leaves the body quickly.

  The disadvantage to using EPO -- other than cheating -- is that it is often fatal.  Thick blood will sludge up the circulatory system, causing heart attacks among other problems.

Pro cyclist Jesus Manzano says soap will dissolve any traces of EPO in the cheating athletes urine.  In fact, it destroy all EPO, natural and synthetic.  Thus the absence of EPO, while not 'illegal' is de facto evidence of a drug cheat.

Manzano said in 2004 that he used EPO when he was competing. He was given a red powder to use if anti-doping officials came to his home for a surprise test. He said in an interview in April at his home in Madrid that he didn't know what the powder was.

His former team, the now-defunct Liberty Seguros, has denied wrongdoing and said Manzano acted independently.           

Thevis said using soap powder would destroy all EPO in urine, both synthetic and what is produced naturally by kidney cells.           

No EPO was found in 17 percent of 3,050 athletes' urine samples examined between 2003 and 2006 by the Swiss anti-doping laboratory in Lausanne, said Neil Robinson, who helped compile the study published in this month's edition of medical journal Clinica Chimica Acta.

As we said in the past, anti-doping testing can be considered a mild success, or a moderate failure, depending on your cynicism that day. Obviously EPO is out there, and obviously cheating athletes continue to beat the current system.

Comments

[Eric Angevine]

I got soap in my peehole a few times, and it never helped me ride a bicycle at all. In fact, I'd say it hindered. But I think I've said too much.

-- We thought the same thing....GMTA...or is it SMTA (sick minds think alike)....(The Nation)

[hopefullyskyline52]

Is there anyway, you can cheat a drug test, besides this, which focuses on EPO?