Comments on EnvironmentalChemistry.com: Floyd Landis, WADA, LNDD, Chain of Custody and Poo...

Some of you may remember reports of the French ant...

2009-04-21T22:23:00.000-04:00

Some of you may remember reports of the French antidoping lab, the LNDD, being hacked. This happened in November 2006, not long after Flandis began his public relations campaign. Someone took info discovered in the lab hacking, inserted it messages with mangled French and badly forged e-mail headers to make it look like official lab correspondence. Then these fake e-mails were sent to various

Does anyone know if this article has been translat...

2007-12-30T11:43:00.000-05:00

Does anyone know if this article has been translated into French? Or if there exists any other article in French that provides a solid scientific critique of the Floyd Landis case?

Dave -I appreciate the fact that you are a profess...

2007-07-19T15:06:00.000-04:00

Dave -

I appreciate the fact that you are a professional in the field of chemistry. I am not. I'm just using my lawyer skills to give you a close reading of the WADA rules.

You and I both agree that an individual must be named in the CofC in order for that individual to give "testimony" under the WADA rule. The remaining question is, what information can be provided by means

Dave H., I could concur with your interpretation w...

2007-07-19T02:46:00.000-04:00

Dave H., I could concur with your interpretation with your reading of CoC rules in regards to oral testimony. Unfortunately, this was not the argument put forth by USADA via their witnesses. They claimed that oral testimony could be used in the absence of written documentation. In other words, the lab techs weren't explaining documented notes in the CoC, they were using oral testimony to fill

Larry:I believe the reference "along with testimon...

2007-07-19T01:03:00.000-04:00

Larry:

I believe the reference "along with testimony from individuals documented on the chain of custody" is simply meant to suggest that the individuals listed as having custody of samples are the ones who are responsible for answering any special questions, or requests for further details and discussion regarding issues which might later be deemed relevant to the custody, condition, or

Ken -Thanks for making the forum available for thi...

2007-07-16T19:03:00.000-04:00

Ken -

Thanks for making the forum available for this discussion, as well as for the terrific work you and your Mom have done here.

Larry

Thank you Larry for keeping up with the comments i...

2007-07-16T17:23:00.000-04:00

Thank you Larry for keeping up with the comments in this post. Your thoughts are greatly appreciated.

Here is a link to the WADA CoC rule that Larry provided an address to above.

By the way, I'm afraid I didn't have much luck with making contact with someone who works in a testing lab

Dave, I agree that "documented" should be interpre...

2007-07-16T17:10:00.000-04:00

Dave, I agree that "documented" should be interpreted to refer to "individuals" and not to "testimony".

But I disagree that the rule permits testimony to be used to supplement the CofC. Look carefully at the entire rule (http://www.wada-ama.org/rtecontent/document/chain_custody_1_2.pdf). The rule states that chain of custody “is documentation (worksheets, logbooks, forms, etc.)”. It

Dave H., as you'll note above, we have been discus...

2007-07-15T16:33:00.000-04:00

Dave H., as you'll note above, we have been discussing the issue of how to interpret this WADA rule. Quite extensively. If, however, your interpretation is correct, then it is one more example of how WADA deviates from "industry standards" for such issues for their own convenience and sacrifice due process to ensure convictions regardless of how poor the case. Under no other chain of custody

Dear Ken:Your interpretation of the WADA chain of ...

2007-07-15T12:14:00.000-04:00

Dear Ken:

Your interpretation of the WADA chain of custody rules concerning testimony from individuals seems to have been made with a bias to what you think it should be, rather than what it actually states.

The statement, as I would interpret it, implies that additional testimony “ from individuals documented on the chain of custody documents” should provide a complete record

Ken -Sorry about use of the word "you". Earlier y...

2007-07-07T19:01:00.000-04:00

Ken -

Sorry about use of the word "you". Earlier you'd written that "we don't want people to think that if Floyd Landis is exonerated because of the CoC and procedural issues that he got off on a 'technicality'". In the context, your "we" did not include me, so I thought it was OK for me to respond to your "we" with my "you". I did not mean to get too personal.

Regarding

Larry,You are essentially correct from a CoC persp...

2007-07-06T22:42:00.000-04:00

Larry,

You are essentially correct from a CoC perspective, although I would have preferred if you had not used the word "you" as this could refer to me specifically or it could be a generalization.

The arbiters could say that based on WADA's rules LNDD violated international rules in regards lab procedures and CoC and that this violation affected the lab results.

One

Ken -Wanted to let you know that yes, I've read Ro...

2007-07-06T18:10:00.000-04:00

Ken -

Wanted to let you know that yes, I've read Roberta's posts. They're very good.

Based on my review of the WADA rules, if Landis is acquitted on the basis of chain of custody, you'd say: the lab violated international rules in how it conducted its tests, and WADA presumes that this violation affected the lab results.

You could also say that the lab was unable to

Larry,In regards to the interpretation,of the Fren...

2007-07-05T19:46:00.000-04:00

Larry,

In regards to the interpretation,of the French witnesses, I should note that my wife is an interpreter (English/Russian) and the original interpreter was incompetent. For starters they were speaking in third person when an interpreter is supposed to speak in first person. They then seemed to have a poor grasp of basic French. I'm not sure where that first interpreter came from,

Ken -I appreciate the time you all have put into t...

2007-07-05T16:30:00.000-04:00

Ken -

I appreciate the time you all have put into this discussion. Many of my posts (and the analysis behind them) also take a good deal of time to prepare, but hey! I'm the one asking the questions! (for the most part)

You raised the issue of the tone of some of the testimony by the French lab technicians. I blame some of that on interpretation. It's difficult enough to get

Larry,First a point of clarification. Dr. Baker ac...

2007-07-05T11:26:00.000-04:00

Larry,

First a point of clarification. Dr. Baker actually posted the CoC excerpts from his ebook himself. I did not make that post. He had contacted me previously when he first released his book to let me know about it (we are cited in the the section titled "Book 3: Selected Press Coverage"). When you started asking your questions I sent him an email asking him if he would be willing to

Ken -I've looked through the Wiki Defense material...

2007-07-05T10:41:00.000-04:00

Ken -

I've looked through the Wiki Defense material that you've posted here. I wanted to see, first, whether this material contains any WADA requirements for a "good" chain of custody that differ from or add to the three requirements we've noted above. So far, I think that our three requirements do a pretty good job of summarizing the WADA rules as Dr. Baker understands them.

Ken -Writing this from my perspective as a lawyer ...

2007-07-04T16:24:00.000-04:00

Ken -

Writing this from my perspective as a lawyer ...

At some level, all law is ambiguous and must be interpreted in light of the surrounding language, the evident purpose of the law, precedent and the like.

Yes, lawyers are trained to write rules in the clearest possible language, but often other considerations get in the way: the need to reach compromises, to get

Larry, to give you a heads up, we are trying to ma...

2007-07-04T15:14:00.000-04:00

Larry, to give you a heads up, we are trying to make contact with individuals who are involved with similar lab testing procedures for their take you your questions. Given that this is a holiday it might take some time to make these contacts.

Following your suggestion, I reread the last paragraph with your alternative interpretation of the meaning in mind. I will say I could see the

Ken –I plan to review today the material you poste...

2007-07-04T14:17:00.000-04:00

Ken –

I plan to review today the material you posted from the Wiki Defense. I want to carefully analyze whether the material you posted changes my summary of the WADA requirements for a good chain of custody. I also want to examine the specific incidents described in the posted materials to see which of these incidents violate the WADA requirements. This will take some time.

I do disagree with Dr. Arnie Baker on one point ab...

2007-07-04T11:43:00.000-04:00

I do disagree with Dr. Arnie Baker on one point above and that is on his analysis of Dr. Ayotte's testimony and WADA rules on one point. He stated that:

Dr. Ayotte is correct in quoting the technical document: however, this document should be rewritten. Testimony as a method of documenting custody is absurd. What happens in the event of a witness’s memory failure or death?

For the record, I did confirm via email that the l...

2007-07-04T11:13:00.000-04:00

For the record, I did confirm via email that the last comment above was posted by Arnie Baker MD, who is the author of the ebook "The Wiki Defense" which can be purchased and downloaded at http://www.arniebakercycling.com/books/wiki.htm

From The Wiki Defense, by Arnie Baker MD. Posted b...

2007-07-04T10:49:00.000-04:00

From The Wiki Defense, by Arnie Baker MD. Posted by Arnie Baker.
arniebakercycling.com

***3A. Chain of Custody
ISL Violation

ISL 5.2.2.2:
“The Laboratory shall have Laboratory Internal Chain of Custody procedures to maintain control of and accountability for Samples from receipt through final disposition of the Samples. The procedures must incorporate the concepts

Ken -Let’s try to clarify what is required to prod...

2007-07-04T01:48:00.000-04:00

Ken -

Let’s try to clarify what is required to produce a “good” chain of custody, focusing on the WADA requirements. Rather than asking questions this time, I’m just going to give you my interpretation of the requirements and my reading of the facts of the case as cited in your article. Please understand that I acknowledge your expertise, and that I’m not trying to set myself up as

Larry, I'm very happy to focus our discussion on t...

2007-07-03T19:34:00.000-04:00

Larry, I'm very happy to focus our discussion on the CoC issues if you would like. I just wanted to make sure that it was understood that there were lots of other issues with LNDD's testing and that the CoC issues are only one aspect of the bigger picture. I can not fully answer your questions this evening due to time constraints, but I have asked others to chime in on your questions to help