House said:
Ease up there cisco, I simply asked a question. I have a hard time when people pick to believe one authority and not another. Pantani failed what was the test at the time, Lance did not. The reasons to be sceptical of this are all around and have been mentioned numerous times. Chain of custody, some scientific quesrters say it's wrong, a paper that has had a history of attacking the subject somehow comes up with this info and on and on. A question for you, why do you base your decision on "some scientific quarters" and not (that I have seen) question the salient points that have been made? By the way I find it interesting that in response to a simple question you went on the attack.
Pantani never failed a dope test that could earn him a 2 year sanction. He failed a safety test that earned him a rest for 14 days.
But he was a TdF winner (1998) when a US rider was not winning so he was fair game to be identified prior to his exclusion from the 1999 Giro from your quarters as a suspected 'dopeur'. US riders could not beat the Europeans cos the Europeans were on the juice. That was the theme of the forums at that time.
However that theme became quite hypocritical from 1999 to 2005 when a (clean) US rider could beat the drugged Europeans.
It is now all fire and brimstone on the (US dominated) forums speculating and demanding answers about chain of custody, security, identification, media conspiracy, tampering, spiking, procedures inconsistent with the anti doping rules, etc.
You say:
Chain of custody, some scientific quesrters say it's wrong
Until such time as the organisation that was charged with the control of those samples is asked to officially account about the procedures and evidence of enforcement of those procedures that were in place to ensure the chain of custody was maintained then all talk is speculation and meaningless.
I have seen one scientific quarter say it is wrong and other (plural) quarters say it is correct. I think the Canadian scientist's argument is contradictory. She says EPO protein degrades and must be tested within 2-3 months of collection but then recognises that the 2000-2001 initial validation testing came from samples that were at least older than 12 months.
You say:
"a paper that has had a history of attacking the subject somehow comes up with this info and on and on."
If any newspaper in the world had the same information they would have run the story. We would not have had Watergate, the impeachment of Nixon if it were not for some investigative journalism from Bernstein and Woodward of
The Washington Post. I don't believe that newspaper had Nixon in their cross hairs prior to evidence emerging about the Watergate break in being linked to the White House.