opinion

Just proved what many knew, he was doping, and why he quit fighting it.

Too bad you had to tarnish a reputation, in this article. Honey Boo Boo is innocent!

What the author misses here is the key fact. Amgen was approached multiple times by anti-doping authorities who requested that a simple chemical tracker be put into artificial EPO that could aid its detection in testing. Amgen refused each time. All sorts of reasons given, including patents. One can only guess they knew 2-3% of 'juice' sales was coming from illegal sporting use, and they didn't want to see that go away. No surprise Amgen sponsors a bike race that Armstrong made famous.

Catchy title but I think that drug is more likely to thicken and slow the blood.

Ms. Sharp - Your concluding paragraph is wrong. Please don't include me in your over-sweeping generalization of a stimulant addicted society. I know plenty of people who are wise enough to choose NOT to follow what appears at first glance to be an easy solution. We live our lives free of stimulants and know that there is no magic pill to "lose weight while you sleep". I'll never get all kinds of congratulations for losing 10 or 20 or 100 pounds of ugly fat. I've never had it to begin with. We live our high energy lives based on healthy eating, plenty of sleep and exercise. Maybe she could write an editorial about people making good choices.

Teddyg...so Amgen should add a foreign substance to a product prescribed to hundreds of thousands of patients for completely legitimate reasons, go through years of testing, 10 of millions of dollars for approval, all to assist 2-3% of the possible illicit use of their FDA approved product? There have been methods of testing for years, (like why an otherwise normal hemoglobin level suddenly rises outside the norm for otherwise healthy adults). One of the beauty's of epo is that it is virtually endogenous as far as the body is concerned....it was not the drug that caused many of the problems...it was clinicians and health entities increasing hemoglobin outside of the FDA approved ranges for financial gain.

Some of the comments seem to miss the boat. We are so starved for heroes and role models in this world that we do not look carefully at the objects of our desires. He competed and appeared to win. He played the wounded warrior card with his cancer and appeared to win. All of the sports nuts believed him to be a hero and could do no wrong. And the mighty fell--and continues to fall. In the same breath--look at the disbelief of the activities of some coaches in "high" sports. Public sports people are Teflon coated because we want them to be.

So what! Lance Armstrong is still one of the greatest human spirit stories of our time. How many can say they beat the Grim Reaper and lived to tell about it? Who cares if it appears he juiced. I guess chemotherapy then could be considered juicing too? He wouldn't be alive to race if he hadn't gone through chemo. If I take a steroid for a sinus infection so I can do my work ... does that mean my work "doesn't count" that week?

I worked in the drug business when EPO was introduced. For Dialysis Patients, it was a miracle drug that provided remarkable results. Too bad it got to the point where it appears it was "abused". Wonder what the "Tour" would amount to if athletes didn't do anything but train, eat correctly and sleep. Not very exciting I suspect.

I used to be a bit of a gym rat in my younger days. I had a saying when viewing some of the guys in the weightroom "If you cant do it naturally, you cant do it". Do the investigation. Lets the facts fall where they fall. If he is gulity, he is a fraud. If not, he is owed an apology.