Anti-doping officials: Corrupt, inept, or well-intentioned dopes?

I’m flabbergasted. Two days ago, I wrote about the chairman of the World Anti-Doping Agency, one Dick Pound, and his baffling and unsupportable desire to eliminate WADA’s two-sample testing protocol. The AP and BBC reported he was “disturbed” that Marion Jones’ B sample tested negative for EPO, so under anti-doping rules she was cleared of suspicion. He continued, “We are going to see how that happened, learn from it, and try to make sure it doesn’t happen in the future. The worry we have is that someone is misinterpreting things or doing things wrong.” Finally, he suggested that, if WADA’s experts felt that Jones’ guilt was sufficiently proven by the A sample alone, “we have an opportunity to put that into play.” Obviously, Pound’s idea of “someone… misinterpreting things or doing things wrong” is limited to mistakes that let the guilty appear to be innocent, and not the other way around.

Paradoxically, Floyd Landis’ lawyer announced last weekend that scientific review of documentation provided by Chatenay-Malabry, the WADA-certified drug testing lab turned up “the foundation for a very strong defense.” Further, Landis’ lawyer would be filing for dismissal on 9/11/06. CNN reported on the filing, as did the AP (still running the same unflattering picture of Floyd), and of course, Landis’ own web site. The paradox is that Landis’ lawyer, Howard Jacobs, has submitted documentation from the testing lab showing multiple examples of lab technicians “misinterpreting things or doing things wrong,” just as Pound suspected, but not quite the way he presumed. From the CNN coverage: “‘In the case of the mismatched sample identification codes, the alleged confirmed T/E [testosterone/epitestosterone ratio] data on the B sample is from a sample number that was not assigned to Landis,’ Jacobs’s statement said. The only testosterone metabolite that can be argued as positive under the WADA Positivity Criteria resulted from an unknown laboratory error and is not the result of testosterone usage, the statement added.” There’s even more damning evidence against the lab, but the only place I can find to read it is on Floyd’s web site.

The final, flabbergasting fact: Reacting to the documented mistakes by Chatenay-Malabry in “proving” Floyd’s guilt, Dr. Gary Wadler, a member of WADA and a spokesman for the American College of Sports Medicine, said Landis’ attempt to have the charges dismissed by questioning the science behind the tests wasn’t unusual. “It’s not useful to speculate about the science, until the science has had its day in the hearing process,” Wadler said. “Only then do I think we can come to some conclusions. Until then, any assertion is only an assertion.” This statement seems to have the same, “he’s guilty, we just know it” tone of Dick Pound and Enrico Carpani (“We are confident in the first [test]. For us, the first one is already good.”), president of the International Cyclists’ Union. Saying we can’t come to conclusions until after a hearing is disingenuous at best—the man has been found guilty in the public eye, thanks to leaks and public statements by WADA and UCI. And like Dick Pound’s unwitting double-entendre, Wadler’s implicit trust in Chatenay-Malabry’s “science” is speculative in the face of historical and current, documented fact, and WADA’s (unethical pre-announcement and) assertion of Landis’ guilt… “is only an assertion.” Sorry, Dr. Wadler… your backpedaling doesn’t take back the intent behind your previous statements like, “‘Doping is the presence of a prohibited substance in your body, regardless of intent or sabotage. Even if he had no significant fault or negligence, he would have to give up the title’ because he was doped at the time of the race.” In other words, The Tests are never wrong. If you really didn’t take any banned substance, and some overly-enthusiastic roadside fan handed you a drug-laced drink, it’s still your fault, and You Lose. It’s far more likely you cheated, so just come clean.

Back up a sec… “Science is speculative?” You feeling OK there, Steve? Mr. “I did medical research for 13 years?” Hmmm?

Oh yes. Read more.

Link- “US Airways to place ads on sickness bags.” I wanna fwow up.

(Disclosure: I used to work as a producer/director in advertising, and I tried to make TV ads that were fun to watch, rather than repetitive and oppressive. That was a long time ago.)

I am sick and tired of advertising. I can’t go out without being surrounded by it, whether it’s dealer logos on the backs of cars, whole cars re-painted with a brand name on every surface, billboards, small planes dragging ads through the air… Even in stores, they have blinking LEDs to attract my attention to ads, ads on the floor so I can’t avoid them by looking down, and soon, ads on fresh fruit. There are ads on self-serve gasoline nozzles and on LCDs in the pumps, ads a foot from your face when using a public bathroom (some even with color LCD and sound), and more. In researching this, I found an article about elevator advertising, which detailed even more kinds of intrusive ads I hadn’t even thought of.

Now, ads on barf bags. At first I thought it was a joke. I thought, what’s next, toilet paper? I found out, yes, toilet paper is already used for advertising. How far into one’s private life moments do marketers intend to pry? Who is getting to paid to think of this stuff? Does anyone believe that, after emptying one’s stomach contents into a bag, the victim of airsickness is going to look weakly at the side of the now-warm, squishy bag, and think, “You know, I should really get that HDTV?”

Lance Armstrong: “I am a fan and supporter of Floyd Landis. I believe in him.” (Me, too.)

Lance has given his friend a bit of public advice: don’t count on the media for fair coverage. Lay low, and wait for your time.