The Mailbag is a regular department on VeloNews.com. If you have a comment, an opinion or observation regarding anything you have read in VeloNews magazine or on VeloNews.com, write to webletters@insideinc.com. Please include your full name, hometown and state or nation. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. Writers are encouraged to limit their submissions to one letter per month. The letters published here contain the opinions of the submitting authors and should not be viewed as reflecting the opinions, policies or positions of VeloNews.com, VeloNews magazine or our parent company, Inside Communications, Inc.

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The medical risks of doping
Dear VeloNews,
Doctor Richardson's article on the medical risks of doping offers a nice perspective on the subject.Recent research is now identifying other functions of EPO in addition to the stimulation of red blood cell production. Any hormone does not have a singular effect in the human body. A more potent version of EPO has been shown to stimulate cancer cell growth in patients. One can only wonder about the long-term effects of high-dose EPO abuse in athletes who aim for hematocrit levels of 50 percent and above. EPO now also has a known role in neurons of the brain in stress response, but the affect of artificially increasing these levels on the normal function of the brain is not known, nor are the long-term abuse implications.EPO is a wonder drug that has saved thousands of lives worldwide, but I fear that its rampant abuse among cyclists may lead to a tragic experiment that will take decades to conclude.I also ran across an interesting presentation on steroid abuse in the NFL by Dick Butkus, who is quite concerned about the long term effects in NFL players.One point from Butkus’ presentation is that the #1 identified group of steroid abusers is not cyclists or even pro athletes, but 14-to 19-year-old women.It’s time for society to address the risks and problems of performance-enhancing drugs openly.
Dr. Ray Truant Ph.D
Associate Professor
McMaster University
Department of Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences
Hamilton, Ontario, CanadaOverseeing the overseers
Dear VeloNews,
Given the challenges that have been mounted against testing proceduresat doping laboratories, I have a suggestion to make the system more responsiblefor their accuracy.

I propose the creation of "Riders Union" laboratory calibrated samples to be tested alongside the rider samples during events. Neutral samples would be doctored with specific amounts of various banned substances to test the accuracy of the testing labs. Even if the lab identified it as a calibrated sample, they would not know what banned substances and what concentrations it contained. Samples would be created to be perfectly clean, just below the acceptable level of a banned substance or wildly over the level of a banned substance. The lab would then report the findings to the riders-union-certified labs, which would compare them for accuracy against known values.

It wouldn't necessarily need to be camouflaged as a rider sample in the beginning although that would offer other benefits. For example, even though the in-race samples are identified only by number, it was revealed during recent events that the lab becomes well aware of what riders have medical exemption certificates for banned substances and can use that as an informal means of matching confidential samples to rider identities. Test samples could be created to mimic those riders’ exemptions to create uncertainty in the laboratory technician casual identification of samples.

In this way, the lab accreditation would not be merely an annual test, but ongoing throughout the year. The system would be more transparent and establish a level of confidence not otherwise possible.

By the way, if there is a need for a source of drug-neutral samples, I suggest that WADA and UCI officials make those contributions.
Peter McIntyre
Sterling, VirginiaSure Peter, we're all for it, as long as no one comes to the press tent asking for samples. - Editor

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The Mailbag is a regular department on VeloNews.com. If you have a comment, an opinion or observation regarding anything you have read in VeloNews magazine or on VeloNews.com, write to webletters@insideinc.com. Please include your full name, hometown and state or nation. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. Writers are encouraged to limit their submissions to one letter per month. The letters published here contain the opinions of the submitting authors and should not be viewed as reflecting the opinions, policies or positions of VeloNews.com, VeloNews magazine or our parent company, Inside Communications, Inc.

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