Los Angeles, January 27, 2011
Statement of Anti-Doping Research (ADR) on recent Sports Illustrated story by Selena Roberts and David Epstein:
A high-profile feature story on Lance Armstrong in the Jan. 24 issue of Sports Illustrated has led to NPR and CNN interviews for its writers, Selena Roberts and David Epstein. Unfortunately, both their story and their interviews contain innuendo and mischaracterize key elements, including perhaps most notably, urine tests performed by Don Catlin, M.D., back in the mid-1990s.
Dr. Catlin, a widely respected pioneer in the field of anti-doping in sport, wishes to set the record straight. In the detailed statement that follows, he demonstrates his respect for the truth as he knows it as well as his commitment to transparency.
As he states, he was not aware that the A samples allegedly testing high for testosterone in 1993, 1994 and 1996 were Lance Armstrong’s, if, in fact, that is the case. We have seen no evidence to suggest that it is.
Sports drug-testing laboratories are required to use codes, not names, for samples to protect all parties and the sanctity of the process. Dr. Catlin and his team followed those rules during his tenure as director of the UCLA Olympic Analytical Lab.
Further, during the years in question, Dr. Catlin and the world at large did not even know who Lance Armstrong was. Mr. Armstrong had not yet established himself as a champion cyclist and Tour de France winner.
We find that the elements of Ms. Roberts and Mr. Epstein’s story that involve Dr. Catlin lack credibility. The reporters have delivered a story that misrepresents the truth.
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Statement of Don Catlin, M.D.
Background:
I was the founder and Director of the UCLA Olympic laboratory from its inception in 1982 until I left UCLA 25 years later (2007). The lab was accredited by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1983 and it was the first sport testing lab in the United States. The laboratory performed the testing for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games, the steroid testing for the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, and the testing for the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic Games. During those years the sample numbers grew from 2,000 to over 50,000 samples per year making it the largest sport-testing lab in the world.
During my tenure, I performed drug testing on behalf of the United States Olympic Committee (USOC), the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), the National Football League (NFL), the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), Major League Baseball (MLB), the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the U.S. federal government and many other organizations. I have spent my whole career dedicated to building the ethos and system of anti-doping that we have today. Violating that system in any way would be anathema to everything I believe in.
As a laboratory director, I often responded to legitimate requests for information about the results. Guiding those requests and the whole testing process are the cardinal features of all sport testing contracts: 1) samples are identified only by a code number, 2) only the testing agency (for example USADA) can connect the name of the athlete to the code number, and 3) nobody at the laboratory knows the name of the athletes. The testing is anonymous.
For as long as I can remember, laboratory directors and their staffs have been forbidden by anti-doping agencies from discussing cases with the media. Today, this is formalized within the World Anti-Doping Agency’s Code of Ethics of the International Standard for Laboratories.
On Wade Exum:
Wade Exum was the Director of Drug Control at the USOC from 1991 through 2000. The article refers to Exum’s lawsuit against the USOC upon his termination and also to Exum’s allegations of “letting positive drug tests slide.” As the article mentions, “Exum’s lawsuit was dismissed for lack of evidence.”
Later in the article, Wade Exum is quoted as saying “Out of tens of thousands of tests purchased during my tenure as Director of Drug Control at the USOC, I can remember only one T/E ratio being called positive.”
I have reviewed my records and they reveal that the UCLA Lab reported more than 25 urine samples with T/E values greater than 6 to the USOC between 1992 and 2000. As the lab director, reporting to the USOC fulfilled my obligations I had no authority or ability to take further action against the athlete; the authority to take action against the athlete rested solely with the USOC or other appropriate agency. I would not have the ability to take further action against an athlete as I only work with sample codes and would not know the identities of those testing positive or negative.
On the minutes of USOC anti-doping committee meetings:
I spoke with the co-author of the Sports Illustrated article, David Epstein, in a telephone conversation between January 13-19, just before his article was published. During the conversation, I asked for a copy of the meeting minutes to which the article refers. It is important to understand the context of the meeting to appropriately comment. Mr. Epstein told me that he either could not or would not provide the meeting minutes. Since the publication of the article, I have asked the USOC for a copy of the minutes but have not yet received one. I have also formally requested a copy from the editors of SI through counsel and am awaiting a response.
I have attended hundreds of meetings in my career and cannot recall all of the topics discussed. It is impossible to comment on the context of a meeting after being read a few lines from minutes that are almost eleven years old. I am confident that if provided with the context I could easily explain any statements in the minutes and their relevance to the advancement of the anti-doping system in general as that has always been my creed.
On the USA Cycling letter to Catlin from May 1999:
The article describes a May 1999 letter from USA Cycling to me asking for the testosterone-epitestosterone (T/E) ratios “for a cyclist identified only by his drug-testing code numbers.” Allegedly, “a source with knowledge of the request says that the cyclist was Lance Armstrong.”
The article suggests that the letter referred to one cyclist, but the letter is not directly quoted. It is unclear if the letter in fact requested results for one cyclist or whether it was a general request for results on a group of lab codes not tied to any individual. Again, I have asked David Epstein for a copy of the letter. As of January 26, it has not been provided.
The article makes it clear that the request included only code numbers. As a result, I could not have known the identity of the athlete or athletes included in the request. Regardless of the specifics, such requests were very common and routine; I had numerous such requests in the course of my career.
Catlin’s letter to USA Cycling dated June 4, 1999 (see 4 numbered comments):
An excerpt of the article describes my response to USA Cycling:
“In a letter dated June 4, 1999, Catlin responded that the lab couldn’t recover a total of five of the cyclist’s test results from 1990, 1992 and 1993, adding, ‘the likelihood that we will be able to recover these old files is low.’ The letter went on to detail the cyclist’s testosterone-epitestosterone results from 1991 to 1998, with one missing season: 1997, the only year during that span in which Armstrong didn’t compete. Three results stand out: a 9.0-to-1 ratio from a sample collected on June 23, 1993; a 7.6-to-1 from July 7, 1994; and a 6.5-to-1 from June 4, 1996.”
Again, I have asked for a copy of this letter, but it has not been provided.
1 – Background necessary to understand the testing methods and reporting:
The urine samples are collected at the testing site by trained collectors who follow a detailed protocol and do not work at the lab. Each sample is split into two portions (A and B) while the athlete observes. Samples from one athlete are labeled, for example: 123456A and 123456B. At the lab, the A samples are screened and the B samples are stored intact. If the A screen is negative, the lab reports a negative result to the agency. If the A shows evidence of a drug, the laboratory performs an A confirmation. If the A confirmation is positive, the laboratory reports an adverse result to the agency. The agency informs the athlete, who may choose to make an appointment for a representative to come to the laboratory to watch his or her B sample confirmation. If the B confirmation confirms the adverse finding, the laboratory reports an adverse result to the agency that requested the test, the relevant national governing body, and an international body such as the IOC or WADA (The details of the reporting pathway changed over the years).
2 – On the request for data from five samples from 1990, 1992 and 1993:
In 1990, 1992 and 1993 we did not have the consistent electronic archive options that are available today. The data was stored on magnetic tape and other similar media that were not always consistent in their performance. When older data could not be found it was usually because the storage medium had deteriorated and the data was no longer in archive directories. In the 1990s, WADA did not exist and the labs were managed by the IOC. The IOC-accredited laboratories were not required to retain the data on samples declared negative, although it was our practice to retain all electronic data while I was at UCLA and respond to requests similar to the alleged request from USA Cycling if the data still existed.
3 – On the three T/E results from 1993, 1994 and 1996 discussed in the article:
When the laboratory would have originally received the samples in question, identified only by a number, not only did no lab employee, including myself, know the name of the athlete, but nobody knew whether the athlete had ever been tested before or would ever be tested again. All three were reported long before Armstrong won his first Tour de France and became famous; I had no idea who he was at the time. In a response letter of the sort described from June 4, 1999, I would merely be describing results that had been obtained and reported independently from one another several years earlier.
It was not an unexpected occurrence to have samples with screen T/E ratios between 6.0 and 7.5 not confirm. It would be less likely, however, that a sample that screens at 9.0 does not confirm.
4 – Background necessary to understand T/E ratio results:
To determine whether a sample’s T/E is greater than 6, the lab must measure it. Inherent to any and all kinds of measurements is a certain amount of “measurement uncertainty.” To confirm a T/E greater than 6, statistical analysis of the measurements obtained for the sample and standards must meet certain criteria. Sometimes those strict criteria are not met by samples whose T/E is above 6. In addition to these mathematical criteria, a host of other requirements must be met in order to confirm a positive T/E result, which would be described in the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) relevant at the time. In other words, the lab, accreditation, and drug-testing system require the lab to report positive results only when the data meet the strict standards laid out in the SOP.
The T/E ratio is a very complicated test and the interpretation of the test results are equally difficult.(3,4) A ratio greater than 6 does not prove that the individual used testosterone. It does mean that additional tests are necessary. Nowadays, thanks to research conducted by a handful of scientists, many of which I have had the pleasure of working with, laboratories perform the Carbon Isotope Ratio test to help clarify the results. However, before the CIR test was available starting in the late 1990s, one approach was to collect three more samples from the athlete at least several weeks apart and study the results. Exactly how to do this is explained in a peer-reviewed paper that I wrote with colleagues and published in 1996.(4) Reading these papers today will provide the serious student of this issue with considerable insight.
On Mark Levinstein’s visit to the UCLA Olympic Analytical Lab in 2005:
As a doping-control lab director and anti-doping scientist, a key element of my mission is to educate students, attorneys, journalists, and the public about relevant issues surrounding drugs in sports. This includes educating attorneys about how lab testing is done. I have done this countless times over the years, sometimes one on one, sometimes in small groups and occasionally with very large groups. Examples include delivering a two-day educational seminar to some 30 North American arbitrators in 2001. In addition, I have conducted numerous lectures and broadcasts for hundreds if not thousands of attorneys in my career.
I do recall Mark Levinstein asking to visit the lab in 2005 for a tutorial on EPO. At first, I delayed because I was busy and I knew that he also represented Lance Armstrong on some matters. I asked if this was on behalf of Lance Armstrong or any other athlete. The answers were ‘no’. In addition, he added that he knew I had educated groups of attorneys and that was all he was looking for. Eventually I consented to his visit.
On the appointed day, I introduced Levinstein to my EPO staff, which included Andreas Breidbach. I did not monitor the conversations. Although employees are not allowed to discuss cases, it seems from Breidbach’s quotes that he spoke in general of the quality of the testing in the Paris lab. Obviously, Breidbach did not heed the rules. As far as I know, no harm came from that incident. I would not have had any discussions with Levinstein about the case.
I will also point out that during the course of B-confirmations athlete representatives, including attorneys, are allowed to witness the entire testing process. It was hardly the first time an attorney had been educated on these matters.
Philosophy Behind 2009 Lance Armstrong Monitoring Program:
I was approached to help develop a monitoring program for Lance Armstrong’s comeback in 2009. As initially conceived, it would have been the first time that any testing organization would be allowed to sample and test Armstrong every three days or even more often and make the analytical data available online for anyone interested to see. My laboratory would have had unrestricted ability to perform any test we wanted. Under those circumstances, I did not believe that anybody could get away with cheating. I was interested to proceed.
Clarification on the intended Armstrong monitoring program:
We were aiming to collect from Armstrong on average every three days throughout the cycling season. Such a program would be very challenging logistically and would be quite expensive. It would also likely impact the activities of the international doping control process. We did not want to impede or interfere with the sanctioning bodies’ ability to test Armstrong, which we knew they would do frequently.
As negotiations were wrapping up, we did perform one collection prior to abandoning the program. The logistical and cost realities became immediately apparent. In addition, there were difficulties with the publicity surrounding the program.
The article says that “In its months of overseeing Armstrong’s testing program, Catlin’s lab had collected only one urine sample from him, … and it is clean.”
It is correct that only one sample was collected, however we had only overseen the program for one day, not months. The results were free of any blood profile abnormalities, the urine was negative for EPO analogues and had a T/E ratio below 4.
References:
While preparing this response I relied on my general knowledge of doping, personal files, specific publications and the following articles:
1) Roberts S and Epstein D. The Case Against Lance Armstrong. Sports Illustrated. January 2011.
2) Catlin DH, Murray TH. Performance Enhancing Drugs, Fair Competition, and Olympic Sport. J American Medical Association 1996;276:231-237. (describes doping control and the system)
3) Catlin DH, Hatton CK, Starcevic S. Issues in detecting xenobiotic anabolic steroids and testosterone by analysis of athletes’ urine. Clinical Chemistry 1997;43:1280-1288. http://www.clinchem.org/cgi/reprint/43/7/1280. (explains the TE ratio in detail)
4) Catlin DH, Cowan DA, de la Torre R, Donike M, Fraisse D, Oftebro H, Hatton CK, Starcevic B, de la Torre X, Norli H, Geyer H, Walker CJ. Urinary testosterone (T) to epitestosterone (E) ratios by GC/MS. I. Initial comparison of uncorrected T/E in six international laboratories. J Mass Spectrometry 1996;31:397-402. (measurement of the TE ratio)
5) Essay dedication: Coleman DL and Coleman, JE. The Problem of Doping. Duke University School of Law. Duke Law Journal, 2008.
6) Anonymous, Current Biography®, March 2010 issue, 2010. The H.W. Wilson Company (www.hwwilson.com). (Catlin’s career)
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