Full Shelby Houlihan Report is Out from CAS

"grow up" what a great retort

learn to use a semicolon FFS

One more thing.

Is it true if she had been on the birth control pill, she'd be clearead as twoggle says?/b]

Rojo translator:

"expressing my thoughts" = asking bad faith questions that I'll ignore the answers to while pushing more bad faith questions if there is any wiggle room.

"asking for more info" = saying that I haven't read the report, but hoping that my fav conspiracy theorists latch onto my questions and pour their sweet juices into my credulous brain.

"a good response" = someone with the patience of a saint doesn't tear your ignorant self a new one in the comment, so you can ignore the bulk of their answer to confirm your priors and ask another bad faith question

Just helpful for those who don't speak TruFuKi.

This thread hitting the flat-earth phase now.

Rojo,

Can you for once just explain your moral categorization of the NOP vs BTC grey zone stuff? It’s almost a certainty she took a supplement that was tainted with nandrolone. Maybe .1% likelihood I reserve for a micro dosing regime. Both of these groups have done some shady stuff in the grey zone- asthma meds, thyroids, off label hormone treatments, and sketchy supplements. Why are you seemingly only disturbed when one set of people do it and not another?

rojo wrote:

One more thing.

Is it true if she had been on the birth control pill, she'd be clearead as twoggle says?/b]

I'll make it simple for you, no.

It just feels like you are grasping for straws. This reminds me of when I served on a jury case for a sexual assault. It was a he-said, she-said event but ultimately there was clearly reasonable doubt and we ended up clearing the accused of the most serious charges. In this case the accused's case featured a very plausible retelling of events and not to get into the unpleasant details the "test finding" as it were could come through a variety of different ways a la this nandrolone finding.

But the crux of your problem in continuing to defend Shelby is that the pork offal defense does not appear to be plausible for a number of reasons. They're spelled out in the WADA arguments, and yes you can continue to try to disqualify small aspects of it like carbon signature, COVID affecting meat supply, the diets of pigs, lack of this test you want and so on. But the burden is on Shelby to explain her own finding, not to just point out potential loopholes.

Zooming out, it feels like Shelby about a month after an unsuspected test finding googled the most defensible source (meat contamination). Her/Frerich's testimony sometimes just harms the point. She got this very high Nandrolone level and she only ate 3/4 of a burrito? It's pork stomach and not the parts that actually have the most Nandrolone? The service was faster than usual, yet they're messing up 3-person orders by name? Would it be so hard to test the meat and confirm a nandrolone finding?

the literature wasnt around whether ‘someone was on the pill’ it was whether or not someone was actually pregnant. that was in one study where you might see higher nandro levels

+1 this. as usual considering the source

but remember now they’d ‘never even heard of nandro’ so stop asking more questions

rojo not understanding the difference between being pregnant and being on birth control is just...perfect.

To point 1: one of my fields of expertise is research design, including the design of experimental studies. I agree that the experimental studies in this field - hell, in a lot of sports science - are statistically underpowered, meaning that the they can't accurately and reliably detect the changes that they are looking for. Part of the reason for this is the difficulty in conducting these studies (this also applies to studies of super shoes), getting the right participants. Ideally, you would want a large sample of elite athletes who are willing and able to alter their diet and have it entirely controlled by the investigators for the study period.

I have no expertise in IRMS testing, but usually, the accuracy of these kinds of tests can be established via simulation or lab testing - you often don't need participants.

Point 2: The WADA document is specific that the reason that the IRMS test may not be able to identify exogenous nandrolone is due to the feeding patterns of migrating wild boars. Farmed boars will have a standard feed, wild boars roam and eat what they can. This affects whether exogenous nandrolone can be identified, at least according to WADA.

Why not run the pharmocokinetics test anyway? I guess for the same reason we don't ask a doctor to to put a cast on our arm if it isn't broken. It's unnecessary, the IRMS test was definitive according to the AIU and CAS. There's also a potential unknown which is whether pharmocokinetics tests can report false positives/negatives in cases where the boar offal is commercially farmed. If that's the case, maybe it's not appropriate to run a test that has been established for a very specific set of circumstances.

[/quote]

It's perfectly fine to generalize small studies provided that

1) you are generalizing on sound biological principles. In this case case, the diet of the pig determines the IRMS delta. Shelby's witnesses had good points that we don't really know the diet of the pigs served at the truck, especially in light of the pandemic. We understand the difference between C3 and C4 plants and how they contribute to IRMS deltas -- we don't need to run a detailed study for every possible case. Otherwise you could never say anything with any confidence as real world scenarios are always different from controlled studies.

2) You don't overstate your confidence in the effect size. Yes, a study of 5 people is small but that doesn't mean you can't learn anything from it, especially since 40% of the people were 'falsely positive.' That suggests the test is not super reliable! Maybe you got really unlucky and the test is 99% reliable and you just hit that 1% twice out of 5 trials, but it should raise your skepticism!

What it shouldn't do it make you say: "well, it's a small sample size so it's not going to shake my confidence in the test." You're effectively discarding the data for no reason.

The only result of such a finding should be to LOWER your confidence in the test and make you demand more rigorous studies. You are operating from an assumption that the test is perfect and forcing others to disprove it -- that's the inverse of the skepticism required for good science. You see a result with 40% false positive, you immediately are suspicious of the test.

P.S. You definitely can generalize from a sample of 5 sometimes if the effect size is large and the physical mechanism makes sense. Throw 5 people out of an airplane with no parachute and all 5 die, you're going to tell me that the danger skydiving with no parachute needs a larger sample size?

High hopes wrote:

Point 2: The WADA document is specific that the reason that the IRMS test may not be able to identify exogenous nandrolone is due to the feeding patterns of migrating wild boars. Farmed boars will have a standard feed, wild boars roam and eat what they can. This affects whether exogenous nandrolone can be identified, at least according to WADA.

This is not really correct from my reading. The idea is that wild boars may choose feed that makes their metabolites appear exogenous on IRMS.

The exact same can happen with farmed boars provided their feed contains the correct 13C ratios.

I am surprised so many people here are defending the WADA protocol. There's clearly a lot of unanswered questions abut nandrolone contamination and the specificity of the testing procedure.

It's possible to believe that

1) Shelby deserved her ban

and

2) We really need to improve the testing protocol/gather more data on nandrolone levels in the general population

I'm still not convinced as to why I should care more about the nuances in this case vs. every other athlete who has been accused.

but maybe I've just been brainwashed by all the running media (Clean Sport Collective, Melly, Strout, Crouse, Chavez, Bromka, Wade, and even LRC) who happily and carelessly points figures and makes snarky tweets and statements about anyone they conclude is suspicious only to later be lectured about "nuance" and " probable doubt" in a case where someone tests positive and provides the most laughable excuse I've heard since Tyler Hamilton's twin in the womb.

Well. Y'all created the monster. So don't be mad when the monster eats one of it's own that you were rooting for.

Where is Clean Sport Collective wrote:

I'm still not convinced as to why I should care more about the nuances in this case vs. every other athlete who has been accused.

but maybe I've just been brainwashed by all the running media (Clean Sport Collective, Melly, Strout, Crouse, Chavez, Bromka, Wade, and even LRC) who happily and carelessly points figures and makes snarky tweets and statements about anyone they conclude is suspicious only to later be lectured about "nuance" and " probable doubt" in a case where someone tests positive and provides the most laughable excuse I've heard since Tyler Hamilton's twin in the womb.

Well. Y'all created the monster. So don't be mad when the monster eats one of it's own that you were rooting for.

Scrutiny of the doping procedures is good! In a fair world, we'd scrutinize every single case, but I see no reason to complain about in-depth discussion that only serves to make the processes and procedure more clear

Seeing as Shelby is responsible for all the legal fees here in the conclusion, how much do you think this is costing her? Will Nike foot the bill? What’s the cost on something like this??

Ultimately I agree with your point. I'm just really frustrated that for the longest while the running media framed it as "brave" to call out suspicious people, but now that someone they like has tested positive, they seem to back down. It just seems so biased to me. Ultimately I don't trust them and what they report.