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Steven Gee
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Note from the Bike.com excerpt that she is representing herself. It would be rather expensive the
hire an attorney to represent, e.g. $50K
Former Track Cyclist Tammy Thomas Scheduled To Appear In Court Thomas Sues USADA Lab
From: Phil Marques - Saturday, January 24, 2004
(Los Angeles, CA) - Former track cyclist Tammy Thomas is scheduled to appear in federal court on
March 8 as a plaintiff in a civil lawsuit she filed back in November 2003 against the IOC accredited
laboratory used by the United States Anti-Doping Agency to test athlete urine and blood samples.
The lawsuit, filed in federal United States District Court in Los Angeles, names as defendants UCLA
Olympic Analytical Laboratory, its Director Don H. Catlin, and 27 others including the regents of
the University of California Los Angles (UCLA).
Thomas, 34, of Valley Glen, Calif., was handed a lifetime ban from cycling by the North American
Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) on September 6, 2002, after the Panel concluded she had tested
positive for the anabolic steroid norbolethone.
The lawsuit alleges the defendants used Thomas's biological specimens to conduct research without
her explicit informed consent and then published her case in the journal Rapid Communications in
Mass Spectrometry in violation of federal and California state law.
Thomas's lawsuit also alleges that her urine samples were erroneously reported positive for
norbolethone and that the defendants engaged in a "malicious attempt to cover up the highly flawed
drug testing process."
"It's definitely an uphill battle, but I'm pursuing it anyway," asserts Thomas. "Catlin says that
all he did was to write a case report on unusual findings, but I've got experts who agree that it
was definitely human subject research."
Thomas is scheduled to depose Catlin and a witness from the U.S. Office for Protection of Human
Subjects on February 24.
Thomas's lawsuit goes on to state that "in accordance to USADA protocol, only negative urine
samples may be used for research, but all such markings on the samples which identify the samples
as coming from a particular athlete shall be obliterated. In addition, recently, a substantial
number of world anti-doping experts expressed the opinion that athletes must give their consent
before their samples are used for research. Article 1.5.4. of the 2004 World Anti-Doping Code was
changed to reflect that view."
"He didn't use my name," said Thomas, who is representing herself in court. "But there were
sufficient identifiers present so that I could be identified - it was obvious."
Defendant Catlin, a professor and member of the International Olympic Committee Medical Commission,
is expected to be a key witness to present evidence in the upcoming CAS hearing against cyclist
Adham Sbeih.
Sbeih, 30, from Sacramento, Calif., was the 2000 U.S. Elite National Time Trial Champion and member
of the Sierra Nevada cycling team.
Catlin's UCLA lab claims Sbeih tested positive for recombinant human erythropoietin (rHuEPO), an
injectable performance-enhancing drug, at the U.S. Cycling Federation (USCF) Elite Track National
Championships at Trexlertown, Pa., on Aug. 26, 2003. EPO, a prescription drug sold under the
brand name Eprex, increases red blood cell production and thus endurance. However Sbeih is
mounting a legal defense that he hopes will show the EPO test used by UCLA produced a false
positive in his case.
The same type of EPO test employed by the UCLA lab in Sbeih's case has been defeated twice in formal
legal proceedings.
Danish cyclist Bo Hamburger was the first to do so in 2001. In that case, the Danish Sports
Federation concluded that there were doubts about the accuracy of the test after Hamburger's B
sample tested negative. As recently as September of 2003, world-class Kenyan 1,500 meter runner
Bernard Lagat was the second athlete to successfully refute a positive EPO test. As in Hamburger's
case, Lagat's A sample tested positive, but his B sample was negative.
Catlin did not immediately respond to questions seeking his comments for this article.
Although not listed as a defendant in the lawsuit, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) Panel
that ruled on Thomas's case is alleged in the civil lawsuit to have been "biased." Peter Lindberg,
the arbitrator chairperson who presided over Thomas's CAS hearing, is the same arbitrator who took
part in the recent controversial majority decision involving current U.S. national road champion
Amber Neben of the T-Mobile team back in October of 2003. In the Neben case, Lindberg voted along
with arbitrator Carolyn Witherspoon to not apply a three month extension to Neben's six month
suspension that UCI Articles 151 and 152 state is compulsory for any suspension imposed that is less
than one year. As a result, critics say Neben's suspension thus improperly ended on January 13
instead of April 13.
Thomas is also suing the publisher of the medical journal, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. , who printed
Catlin's article. The article, entitled "Detection of Norbolethone, An Anabolic Steroid Never
Marketed, In Athletes' Urine," was published online on May 14, 2002. It was published in hard copy
on June 5, 2002.
Copyright © 2004 bike.com All Rights Reserved
hire an attorney to represent, e.g. $50K
Former Track Cyclist Tammy Thomas Scheduled To Appear In Court Thomas Sues USADA Lab
From: Phil Marques - Saturday, January 24, 2004
(Los Angeles, CA) - Former track cyclist Tammy Thomas is scheduled to appear in federal court on
March 8 as a plaintiff in a civil lawsuit she filed back in November 2003 against the IOC accredited
laboratory used by the United States Anti-Doping Agency to test athlete urine and blood samples.
The lawsuit, filed in federal United States District Court in Los Angeles, names as defendants UCLA
Olympic Analytical Laboratory, its Director Don H. Catlin, and 27 others including the regents of
the University of California Los Angles (UCLA).
Thomas, 34, of Valley Glen, Calif., was handed a lifetime ban from cycling by the North American
Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) on September 6, 2002, after the Panel concluded she had tested
positive for the anabolic steroid norbolethone.
The lawsuit alleges the defendants used Thomas's biological specimens to conduct research without
her explicit informed consent and then published her case in the journal Rapid Communications in
Mass Spectrometry in violation of federal and California state law.
Thomas's lawsuit also alleges that her urine samples were erroneously reported positive for
norbolethone and that the defendants engaged in a "malicious attempt to cover up the highly flawed
drug testing process."
"It's definitely an uphill battle, but I'm pursuing it anyway," asserts Thomas. "Catlin says that
all he did was to write a case report on unusual findings, but I've got experts who agree that it
was definitely human subject research."
Thomas is scheduled to depose Catlin and a witness from the U.S. Office for Protection of Human
Subjects on February 24.
Thomas's lawsuit goes on to state that "in accordance to USADA protocol, only negative urine
samples may be used for research, but all such markings on the samples which identify the samples
as coming from a particular athlete shall be obliterated. In addition, recently, a substantial
number of world anti-doping experts expressed the opinion that athletes must give their consent
before their samples are used for research. Article 1.5.4. of the 2004 World Anti-Doping Code was
changed to reflect that view."
"He didn't use my name," said Thomas, who is representing herself in court. "But there were
sufficient identifiers present so that I could be identified - it was obvious."
Defendant Catlin, a professor and member of the International Olympic Committee Medical Commission,
is expected to be a key witness to present evidence in the upcoming CAS hearing against cyclist
Adham Sbeih.
Sbeih, 30, from Sacramento, Calif., was the 2000 U.S. Elite National Time Trial Champion and member
of the Sierra Nevada cycling team.
Catlin's UCLA lab claims Sbeih tested positive for recombinant human erythropoietin (rHuEPO), an
injectable performance-enhancing drug, at the U.S. Cycling Federation (USCF) Elite Track National
Championships at Trexlertown, Pa., on Aug. 26, 2003. EPO, a prescription drug sold under the
brand name Eprex, increases red blood cell production and thus endurance. However Sbeih is
mounting a legal defense that he hopes will show the EPO test used by UCLA produced a false
positive in his case.
The same type of EPO test employed by the UCLA lab in Sbeih's case has been defeated twice in formal
legal proceedings.
Danish cyclist Bo Hamburger was the first to do so in 2001. In that case, the Danish Sports
Federation concluded that there were doubts about the accuracy of the test after Hamburger's B
sample tested negative. As recently as September of 2003, world-class Kenyan 1,500 meter runner
Bernard Lagat was the second athlete to successfully refute a positive EPO test. As in Hamburger's
case, Lagat's A sample tested positive, but his B sample was negative.
Catlin did not immediately respond to questions seeking his comments for this article.
Although not listed as a defendant in the lawsuit, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) Panel
that ruled on Thomas's case is alleged in the civil lawsuit to have been "biased." Peter Lindberg,
the arbitrator chairperson who presided over Thomas's CAS hearing, is the same arbitrator who took
part in the recent controversial majority decision involving current U.S. national road champion
Amber Neben of the T-Mobile team back in October of 2003. In the Neben case, Lindberg voted along
with arbitrator Carolyn Witherspoon to not apply a three month extension to Neben's six month
suspension that UCI Articles 151 and 152 state is compulsory for any suspension imposed that is less
than one year. As a result, critics say Neben's suspension thus improperly ended on January 13
instead of April 13.
Thomas is also suing the publisher of the medical journal, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. , who printed
Catlin's article. The article, entitled "Detection of Norbolethone, An Anabolic Steroid Never
Marketed, In Athletes' Urine," was published online on May 14, 2002. It was published in hard copy
on June 5, 2002.
Copyright © 2004 bike.com All Rights Reserved
