The morning session in the continuing Floyd Landis hearings started with testimony from Dr. Wilhelm Schnäzer, Phd, who is the director of the Institute of Biochemistry of the German Sports University in Cologne. Dr. Schnäzer is a prosecution witness, and during most of the questioning, he backs up USADA’s and LNDD’s assertion that a positive finding can be based on a single metabolite having an elevated result in the IRMS tests used to confirm the presence of synthetic testosterone [summaries of the testimony can be found a Trust But Verify here and here].
However, because he’s on a conference call, Dr. Schnäzer is not so easily led in his answers. At one point, he clearly says more than Richard Young, USADA’s attorney doing the questioning, would like.
q: any overturned by a panel?
a: no hearings; all were accepted by athletes. tests done for other labs also accepted.[ YOUNG can’t control his answers like he can do in the room — the last one ran on past where he’d have stopped it live, when he went into doing samples for other labs. He doesn’t want that information in, because it raises why LNDD couldn’t have sent some to Cologne. ]
After some preliminary questions, USADA’s Richard Young refers to a study, as yet unpublished that was discussed in the WADA Progress report from March 2007. Technically, this document shouldn’t be considered in the hearing, as it was not published or provided to the defense before February 23rd.
But Young manages to slip the document in, and through a careful discussion of what constitutes peer review , the panel accepts the document as a peer-reviewed study, even though it is not complete and the reviews are not complete. (Two comments at TBV point out that this is not a proper academic peer review, as there is a big difference between being accepted for a meeting versus being accepted for publication in a journal, however.) This is a bad turn of events for the Landis camp.
Later on, a series of questions, asked by panel member Chris Campbell, provided some answers that may be particularly troubling for the Landis defense. That is, unless they are able to shoot some holes in Dr. Schnäzer’s testimony on cross examination.
CAMPBELL: did you also monitor the endogenous production of the individual steroids to see if there was suppression?
a: in general the E was suppressed, the 5a was increased, in general. The ratio of 5a to E show a clear significant change.
q: you said the E was suppressed, I’m thinking of a screen.
a: we found in the studies of 18, in only half was the T/E greater than four. This is still a problem for doping control.q: depression in natural steroid profile?
a: yes, several, which could be seen in the T concentration and in the T/E and other parameters.
Remember that the high T/E ratio for Landis’ Stage 17 urine tests was a result of a low E and not a high T. This testimony, and the study itself, seem to say that after administration of testosterone gel, one could get an elevated T/E ratio with those characteristics. This is not good.
On cross examination, Howard Jacobs is able to point out that for all of the subjects in Dr. Schnäzer’s study, the T/E ratios during the time they were receiving testosterone gel treatments exceeded 4. After a couple of more questions, Jacobs hands the questioning over to Maurice Suh.
Suh has a page, which they fax to Dr. Schnäzer, that has a chart of summarizing Landis’ other B sample results from the April tests. All of the T/E ratios are below 4, but some of these tests show elevated readings for a single metabolite. By my reading of TBV’s notes, Suh doesn’t make much headway on that line of questioning. But he does make a bit of headway with this:
q: in your lab, sometimes the measurement falls outside measurement error?
a: when oxidation goes to the end and can be observed by QC substance and standard mix that is routinely run?q: when that happens, what is the procedure at your lab?
a: different behaviours. the tech needs to find out what caused the effect. If the injection not working right, several reasons.q: when discovered, what do you do with that test?
a: in general, the data will not be considered further for any conclusion.q: when you find 5aa out of measure, you find the problem, and that don’t consider the data that is part of that sequence?
a: no response.[ sounds like a key question! ]
READ BACK.
a: yes, but only this sample, not the sequence. if clearly outside what we accept.
This may be an important exchange for Team Landis due to a number of problems noted in the way LNDD performed Landis’ tests. But the exchange between Dr. Schnäzer and Chris Campbell regarding the suppressed epitestosterone may be a damaging revelation for Team Landis. They’re going to need to find a way to counter Dr. Schnäzer’s study. Richard Young’s ability to finesse the term peer review so that the panel accepted this document may be a problem for the Landis defense.
After the lunch break, Don Catlin has taken the stand and is beginning his testimony. Catlin is USADA’s witness, and as you would expect, his testimony is backing up USADA and LNDD. Nothing earth-shattering in what I’ve seen on the first summaries. My connection to the video feed isn’t the greatest today, so I’m not seeing or hearing anything at the moment.
This is urgent–RANT–PLEASE check the DPF about new USOC documents and about how they’e been trackng Floyd for four years–when he testifies USADA may bombshell him with those new documents–can you get this news to his lawyers fast???? (All I’ve got is this webtv and I can’t leave a message on TBV.)
Barbara,
I went and checked that thread. They’re looking at documents posted at http://www.usocpressbox.org/
Not all of the documents that Floyd’s side submitted have been posted there, so it’s a somewhat one-sided view. Once all of the documents from both sides are posted, the picture will be much clearer.
Beware legal briefs, however. They’re all written to sound compelling. Keep a skeptical eye to them, and read everything before deciding what’s really true and what’s not.
– Rant