Right on Biowatch
This is exactly where any responsible journalist would have gone if one actually existed at VeloNews.
Although Hemopure received its administrative approval in South Africa in mid-2001, it did not make its first shipments of Hemopure to S.A. until January 2006.
There simply wasn't a lot of this stuff floating around in 2002. Considering the limitations and restrictions on manufacture and administration of experimental products, a little sleuthing from VeloNews might have uncovered the source from which Rasmussen got the stuff.
In the modern era of doping, it has long been the subject of conversation and debate, whether the drug testing could screen for the latest and greatest compounds being used. There was great speculation and debate about whether there was an underground relationship between the leading sports doctors of professional cyclists (and track and field and other Olympic athletes) and corporate drug companies looking to unofficially test their products on human guinea pigs. Roche's CERA has now finally be approved. But by 2003 it was known to have been used by German cycling doctors at Telekom. In fact, several riders wound up in the hospital nearly having been killed by the stuff. There have been similar rumors about Hemopure for a number of years. (This, incidentally was all the way back during the 2001 TDF).
Indeed, the alarm bells should have been going off about a bovine-derived blood boosting agent. Anyone as close to cycling as the VeloNews people are were only too familiar with the whisperings about widespread use among Dutch, Belgian and Italian teams of the bovine-derived compound Actovegin. Oh, that and the fact that French television crews caught the US Postal Service team racing down a dirt road to an out of the way dumpster to dispose of blood bags full of Actovegin. And of which when confronted on camera, Armstrong said "I have no idea what Acto-whatever is" and Bruyneel said "I know what it is and I can tell you we have none," followed shortly afterward (once the French TV crew showed him the footage of the Discovery team car and staff dumping the Actovegin blood bags in the dumpster) with a 180 degree reversal and "oh, oh, I forgot, yes we had Actovegin -- we use it to treat road rash" (!!!) Never mind that there weren't any Postal Service racers sporting road rash that the empty bags of Actovegin might have been used on.
Here's the really ironic part ... had VeloNews followed up on the story in 2004, it would have led them to CSC, where Rasmussen was riding at the time. And where a certain Bjarne Riis, fellow Dane, was D.S., and where a certain Ivan Basso had suddenly appeared out of nowhere to status as a TDF future Top 5 candidate.
Had Velo News even so much as passed the information along -- anonymously if necessary -- to the UCI, it would have had quite a story just on how the UCI elected to react (or not react).
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