EPO was in use at the 1988 Games ... additionally it has been in use in
European cycling since that year as well.
Everything you wrote is correct about Amgen is correct and I believe that
the timing of clinical trials, FDA Approval, etc. is all correct.
However, look at the January, 1989 issue of TaFNews (or I will send you the
article), there is an article about how this "new drug" (EPO) has the
potential to ruin the sport. They follow with unnamed American athletes
who say they used at the '88 Olympics, and a discussion with Scandinavian XC
skiers who voluntarily tested the effects of EPO use on their performance,
with doctors in a research project. One of them remarked that, "It is like
I have been hooked up to a turbo!"
With magazine lead times and the time it takes to CONCLUDE a brief study
like this one ... that puts the use of EPO squarely into 1988. Even if
there is only anecdotal evidence from some athletes in Seoul.
How the athletes got the drug ... I don't know. But, just because Amgen
wasn't selling it yet (or even approved to sell it) doesn't mean there were
not users of it yet.
In my mind, if there are clinical trials going on in 1987, there are
athletes using in 1987.
Jerome Chiotti (French World Champion in MTB) discussed earlier this summer,
how he purchased and administered the drug, how much it cost for the season,
etc. He didn't buy it at the Pharmacy, and it cost him about $6000 US for a
6 month season.
I have that published article, also.
P.S. Little known fact: US cyclists in the 1984 Olympics (road, track,
kilo, sprints) admitted to being systematically blood-doped by the Olympic
coach (Eddie Borziewics) for the Games only. Rebecca Twigg won a gold (in
the 4000m TT, I think), Alexi Grewal won the Men's Road Race, and Nelson
Vails and Mark Gorski won gold/silver in the track events (Match race, I
think). With the boycott by traditional cycling powerhouse USSR, and the
blood-boosting, it added up to the most successful Olympics ever for the
USA.
-Brian
-----Original Message-----
From: Kurt Bray [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Monday, October 16, 2000 4:22 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: t-and-f: RE: Olympic Marathons
It's also wrong with respect to the timing of the widespread availability of
EPO. The gene was discovered in about 1983 - '84 and published in 1985.
The first clinical trials were begun in 1987 and the FDA approval and first
commercial release in the US was in June of 1989. It may have been available
a little earlier in 1988 in a few European countries. You can get most of
this information from the scientific literature or from the Amgen website
(Amgen is the company that invented and still controls the stuff.)
So there may have been very limited quantities of EPO available in 1987 on
an underground basis, stolen from the clinical trials or something, but it
would be wrong to characterize 1987 as some sort of EPO watershed year.
That didn't happen until the '89 to '90 timeframe.
Kurt Bray
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