[size=-1]The director of Canada's top anti-doping laboratory on Tuesday said she was "very surprised" over doping allegations raised in a four-page story in the French sports daily L'Equipe. [/size]
[size=-1]Doctor Christiane Ayotte, director of the Doping Control Laboratory at Montreal's Institut National de la Recherché Scientifique, said that the L'Equipe story, outlining charges that seven-time Tour de France winner had used EPO at the 1999 edition of the race, raised several important scientific and ethical questions, beginning with the assertion that France's anti-doping lab had tested frozen urine samples five years after the fact. [/size]
[size=-1]"I don't dispute their findings," Ayotte said. "If there's residual EPO after five years, it was properly identified. We are not that lucky here." [/size]
[size=-1]"We are extremely surprised that urine samples could have been tested in 2004 and have revealed the presence of EPO," Ayotte said in an interview with VeloNews on Tuesday. "EPO - in its natural state or the synthesized version - is not stable in urine, even if stored at minus 20 degrees." [/size]
[size=-1]Scientists at the French national doping laboratory at Châtenay-Malabry developed the urine test in 2000 as a means of combating EPO use among endurance athletes. The test measures the electrical charge of isoforms released by the body. Isoforms resulting from naturally occurring erythropoietin have a distinctly different pattern of electrical charges than do those that result from the use of artificially produced erythropoietin. [/size]
[size=-1]Ayotte, director of the World Anti-Doping Agency-certified lab closest to WADA headquarters in Montreal, questioned the assertion of Doctor Jacques de Ceaurriz, director of the Châtenay-Malabry lab, who said that his method for detection of EPO is "absolutely reliable," even if the sample is five years old. [/size]
[size=-1]"One of two things happens," De Ceaurriz said. "Either EPO, which is a protein, degrades as time passes and becomes undetectable. In that case we have a negative test result or, as in this case, the EPO persists as it is. We have therefore no doubt about the validity of our results." [/size]
[size=-1]Ayotte, who has not had the opportunity to speak with De Ceaurriz since publication of the L'Equipe story, said that there would have been no logical reason for the lab to have held on to the samples without testing them for as long as it has. [/size]
[size=-1]"The lab in Paris, which originally developed the test, would have - should have - retested these samples in 2000 or 2001, in order to develop and validate their methods at the time," she said. "My interpretation is that retesting itself must have been conducted in 2000 or in 2001, but the results were reviewed using the new mathematical model that is now being developed in Paris." [/size]
[size=-1]Ayotte explained that as part of WADA's efforts to "harmonize" testing protocols among anti-doping laboratories worldwide, the Paris lab had created the model to allow the application of "qualitative rather than quantitative" standards when interpreting test results. [/size]
[size=-1]"That has to be the only explanation, because otherwise, I've been a liar all these years," Ayotte said. "I have been instructing everyone at all of the organizations not to expect to reproduce an EPO adverse finding if more that two or three months has elapsed since the sample was originally taken." [/size]
[size=-1]Ayotte noted that earlier standards had called for the application of a "hard-number" interpretation of results, meaning that if a certain percentage of isoforms were positively or negatively charged, a result would be deemed to be an indication of EPO use. Ayotte said research subsequent to the development of the test has suggested that testers understand the reasons behind the formation of positive and negative isoforms and "recognize the presence of distinct populations in a sample." [/size]
[size=-1]The development of that model, said Ayotte, may have prompted researchers at Châtenay-Malabry to go back and review existing data - which should include data from the retesting of '99 Tour samples - and apply them to the new model. Suggesting a more recent test, she said, "really makes me wonder." [/size]
[size=-1]"EPO is a protein hormone and it is not stable in urine, even when kept frozen," she said. "This has long had implications for any plan we've had to keep samples and specimens for long periods of time with the hope that we might, some day, retest those samples for a new substance." [/size]
[size=-1]Ayotte said that procedure aside, the Armstrong story in L'Equipe also raises a critical ethical question raised by the release of such data, without the possibility of follow-up tests. [/size]
[size=-1]"I am very worried about the circumstances about the way such information might have been leaked," Ayotte said. "We are fully allowed - and it is our duty - to investigate samples to make sure that if there is an adverse finding, it is properly reported. In this case, however, the director of the laboratory acknowledges that it cannot be deemed a doping offense because 1) the athlete has retired and 2) he is placed in a situation where there is now way to have the sample re-tested or verified." [/size]
[size=-1]"It seems to me," Ayotte continued, "that this whole thing is breach of the WADA code. We are supposed to work confidentially until such time that we can confirm a result. By no means does this mean that we sweep a result under the carpet, but it has to meet a certain set of requirements." [/size]
[size=-1]Ayotte said that the lab itself isn't facing questions in the matter. [/size]
[size=-1]"It isn't the lab that has the critical bit of information - the link between the code on the sample and the name of the athlete," she noted. "We only get a code at these WADA labs. Someone else must have supplied the paper with the names and their respective codes. So, to me, this whole thing raises a number of questions. I'm worried, because I have a great deal of respect for my colleagues in Paris. I am concerned that they did not cover their backs before being dragged into a very public issue of this kind." [/size]