In Reversal, Armstrong Is Said To Weigh Admitting Doping

[alp227]

Source: NYT

Lance Armstrong, who this fall was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles for doping and barred for life from competing in all Olympic sports, has told associates and antidoping officials that he is considering publicly admitting that he used banned performance-enhancing drugs and blood transfusions during his cycling career, according to several people with direct knowledge of the situation. He would do this, the people said, because he wants to persuade antidoping officials to restore his eligibility so he can resume his athletic career.

For more than a decade, Armstrong has vehemently denied ever doping, even after antidoping officials laid out their case against him in October in hundreds of pages of eyewitness testimony from teammates, e-mail correspondence, financial records and laboratory analyses.

When asked if Armstrong might admit to doping, Tim Herman, Armstrong’s longtime lawyer, said: “I do not know about that. I suppose anything is possible, for sure. Right now, that’s really not on the table.”

Armstrong has been under pressure from various fronts to confess. Wealthy supporters of Livestrong, the charity he founded after surviving testicular cancer, have been trying to persuade him to come forward so he could clear his conscience and save the organization from further damage, one person with knowledge of the situation said.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/05/sports/cycling/lance-armstrong-said-to-weigh-admission-of-doping.html

[Tempest]

1. If he's doing it for that reason, he should be denied

His denials for the last years alone should disqualify him.

[Blue_Tires]

14. Well, the point of it is the authorities STILL need to know

1. How he did it without testing positive
2. How large was his support system
3. Who else in a position of power participated in the cover-up...


Armstrong still has those last cards to play (which could potentially bring a LOT of people down with him), and is trying to gain some leverage...

[jsr]

2. So, the asshole wants to make more money.

[Deep13]

3. Saying one might admit to it is an admission. nt

[unblock]

5. it sounds more like "i maintain i didn't do it, but if it makes you feel better, i'll confess."

or more likely, "i maintain i didn't do it, but if it serves my interests, i'll confess."



i mean really, the time for confession is not after you've been found guilty and the sentence has been carried out.

*we already know you did it, lance!*

[unblock]

4. livestrong and armstrong should part ways.

livestrong is a great organization, but there's no way to lose the lance stink as long as he's associated with it.

he can confess and apologize 100 times and he's still tainted goods.

livestrong should declare that their goals and principles are not compatible with what has been learned about armstrong and that they've agreed to part ways.

[Genghis_Sean]

6. nuh-uh

You get no credit for admitting you lied after everybody already knows you did.

[lexw]

7. Blood transfusions??? Wow!

[awoke_in_2003]

8. Not shocking...

it is as rampant in cycling as steroids is in football and baseball. Yeah, steroids are in football, people do not get that big naturally. The NFL just does a better job of sweeping it under the rug.

[lexw]

9. Our heroes.

(just looked this up on Wiki):
"Anabolic steroids and other performance enhancing drugs are also used throughout high school football. Steroid use at this level of play doubled from 1991 to 2003, with results of a survey showed that about 6 percent of players out of the 15,000 surveyed had admitted to using some type of anabolic steroid or performance enhancing drug at one point in their playing time.[6] Other data shows that only 4 percent of high schools have some form of drug testing programs in place for their football teams."

High school? I played high school football as a skinny, 15-16 year old and got the $hit beat of me. I couldn't imagine a skinny kid like me playing against some kid on steroids. Wow!

[awoke_in_2003]

11. Even as a kid...

I didn't see them as heroes, but as entertainers. My hero is my father, an open minded person who is willing to challenge his own beliefs to become a better person and who accepted the fact that his daughter is a lesbian and I am an atheist. These things did not change his love for us one iota. He is retired, but currently assisting Red Cross efforts in New Jersey, where he spent Christmas. I hope I grow up to be more like him.

[proverbialwisdom]

10. Did the NYT report on plans announced by Armstrong at World Cancer Congress? Or the recent lawsuit?

No, nothing, zip? Nothing newsworthy about either story, eh? This reflects on the NYT (similar to the paper's biased coverage of OWS or any effective US protest, for that matter). Chomsky wrote about the process applied in another context many years ago. Fair and objective reporting on Armstrong should ALSO include his recent leadership on the second story below. The program now altered by virtue of losing a world- famous advocate, if not nipped in the bud.

Please prove me wrong here if articles exist which I've missed.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-sailors-sue-tepco-over-radiation-2012-12-28

Dec. 28, 2012, 2:27 p.m. EST
U.S. sailors sue Tepco over radiation

http://pressroom.cancer.org/index.php?s=43&item=382

PRESS RELEASE

Aug 28, 2012

Lance Armstrong Foundation Launches Patient Empowerment Project in Japan

Foundation to Host Cancer Patient Forum to Address Global Cancer Burden


Today, the Lance Armstrong Foundation, with partner American Cancer Society (ACS) and lead agency Health and Global Policy Institute (HGPI), announced the launch of the Patient Empowerment Project in Japan. The announcement was made at the World Cancer Congress during the session, "Innovative Strategies to Empower Survivors in the Global Fight Against Cancer."

The Patient Empowerment Project was designed to amplify the cancer patient voice by allowing people to share their stories through testimony in a Forum in front of policy makers, media, and the public, elevating and bringing a face to the country's problems in cancer care.

"Our goal is to build a grassroots movement in Japan," said Foundation President and CEO, Doug Ulman. "In the long-term, the Patient Empowerment Project will highlight patient voices in order to bring visibility to gaps in cancer control and highlight the need for cancer to be a stronger priority on the country's health agenda."

"Cancer has been the leading cause of death in Japan for more than three decades, and we must act now to make a difference and save more lives," said American Cancer Society CEO, John R. Seffrin, PhD. "The Patient Empowerment Program in Japan is one of many critical steps we as global cancer-fighting organizations must take towards eliminating the burden of cancer worldwide, by empowering cancer patients to advocate for better cancer care in their countries."

Over the course of the Forum, experts will present specific data illustrating key cancer issues, which are supported and brought to life with testimony as patients speak publicly and share their stories. In the weeks or months after a Forum, a national call to action is designed, released and promoted detailing patient and NGO recommendations, calling on policy makers and other key stakeholders to take action on the issues raised at the Forum.

The concept of the Patient Empowerment Project was inspired by a series of Cancer Patient Forums that the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) supported beginning more than 10 years ago. In 2010, the Foundation and the Society added to the work that the UICC began by working with organizations in countries ripe for major cancer advocacy activity to create a framework for a Patient Forum that would not only provide organizations with funds to plan a Forum, but would also provide training and resources to execute one. The pilot program took place in South Africa, where the country held its first Patient Forum in May 2011. Shortly after, the Foundation and the Society successfully launched a similar initiative in Mexico.

This year, the Foundation and the Society are teaming up with the Health and Global Policy Institute (HGPI) to collaborate in boosting their grassroots advocacy efforts and more deeply engaging patients in the cancer policy-making process.

"It is with great pleasure that we announce the launch of the Survivor Empowerment Campaign in Japan," said HGPI Chairman, Kiyoshi Kurokawa. "It is essential for each of us to be aware of the necessity of such effort, think about what we should do and take action."

As of 2008, less than 50 countries in the world have prepared or implemented national cancer control plans. Moreover, even in countries that have some national cancer control agenda, there are still significant breakages or failures within the health care system in terms of the physical, emotional and practical needs of cancer patients. These issues could range from a lack of data or lack of a cancer registry, to inadequate insurance coverage, to patients being excluded from decision making processes that have a direct impact on their treatment. However, cancer patients and their families can help shed light on what is working well in a health care system and what needs to be addressed in a country. As multiple countries engage in Patient Empowerment Projects, it is anticipated that an international patient advocacy movement will emerge.

On March 11, 2011, a 9.0 earthquake struck Tohoku, Japan initiating a 130 foot tall tsunami and the meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. As a result, 15,960 people died and destruction costs were more than $220 billion. Nearly every hospital in the zone was devastated and treatment and support of many cancer patients was interrupted.

The Lance Armstrong Foundation recognizes the need for ongoing support serving cancer patients affected by the earthquake in Japan. The Foundation and key partner, RadioShack, raised funds to provide relief grants for operating cancer treatment, survivorship or patient support programs to communities affected by this disaster. Grant recipients included: The Public Health Institute; Oncology Education Organization; Tohoku Re-Life 311; Tetsuyukai Medical Corporation, You Home Clinic Ishinomaki; and CancerNet Japan.

About the Lance Armstrong Foundation
The Lance Armstrong Foundation serves people affected by cancer and empowers them to take action against the world's leading cause of death. With its iconic yellow LIVESTRONG wristband, the Foundation became a symbol of hope and inspiration to people affected by cancer throughout the world. Created in 1997 by cancer survivor and champion cyclist Lance Armstrong, the Foundation provides free patient navigation services to survivors with financial, emotional and practical challenges that accompany the disease. Known for its powerful brand -- LIVESTRONG -- the Foundation is also a leader in the global movement on behalf of 28 million people living with cancer today. Since its inception in 1997, the Foundation has raised nearly $500 million for the fight against cancer. For more information, visit LIVESTRONG.org.

About the American Cancer Society
The American Cancer Society combines an unyielding passion with nearly a century of experience to save lives and end suffering from cancer. As a global grassroots force of more than three million volunteers, and with programs in more than 20 countries, we fight for every birthday threatened by cancer in communities worldwide. We save lives by helping people stay well by preventing cancer or detecting it early; by helping people get well by being there for them during and after a cancer diagnosis; by finding cures through investment in groundbreaking discovery; and by fighting back by rallying lawmakers to pass laws to defeat cancer and by rallying people across the globe to join the fight. As a global leader in cancer research investment, we turn what we know about cancer into what we do. To learn more or to get help, and for more information on our global programs, visit www.cancer.org/global

About HGPI
Since its establishment in 2004, the Health and Global Policy Institute (HGPI) has been working to help interested citizens shape health policies by generating policy options and bringing stakeholders together as a nonpartisan think-tank. HGPI's mission is to improve civic and individual well-being and to foster as sustainable healthy community by shaping ideas and values, reaching out to global needs, and catalyzing society for impact. HGPI commits to activities that bring together relevant players in different fields to provide innovative and practical solutions and help interested citizens understand choices and benefits in a global, long-term perspective. HGPI promotes a Global Citizen Nation by building a society for people with various backgrounds and different values. It aims to achieve a sustainable, healthy, and more prosperous world. For more information, please visit www.hgpi.org

Contact Information:

Busola Afolabi, 404-417-5894, [e-mail]

[proverbialwisdom]

12. Who will help? Not the derailed Lance. Not the DoD either? Sad dovetailing of recent events.

Link from Dr. Helen Caldicott: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dr-Helen-Caldicott/102772801940

http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/nation/a-lasting-legacy-of-the-fukushima-rescue-mission-part-1-radioactive-contamination-of-americ

PART 1 - Fukushima Rescue Mission Lasting Legacy: Radioactive Contamination of Americans

THURSDAY, 31 JANUARY 2013
BY ROGER WITHERSPOON
Bio: http://www.rogerwitherspoon.com/bio.html

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM 

The Department of Defense has decided to walk away from an unprecedented medical registry of nearly 70,000 American service members, civilian workers, and their families caught in the radioactive clouds blowing from the destroyed nuclear power plants at Fukushima Daiichi in Japan.

The decision to cease updating the registry means there will be no way to determine if patterns of health problems emerge among the members of the Marines, Army, Air Force, Corps of Engineers, and Navy stationed at 63 installations in Japan with their families. In addition, it leaves thousands of sailors and Marines in the USS Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group 7 on their own when it comes to determining if any of them are developing problems caused by radiation exposure.

The strike group was detoured from its South Pacific duties and brought to Fukushima for Operation Tomodachi, using the Japanese word for “friend.” It was an 80-day humanitarian aid and rescue mission in the wake of the earthquake and massive tsunami that decimated the northern coastline and killed more than 20,000 people. The rescue operation was requested by the Japanese Government and coordinated by the US State Department, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the Departments of Defense and Energy. In addition to the USS Ronald Reagan with its crew of 5,500, the Strike Group included four destroyers – The Preble, McCampbell, Curtis Wilbur, and McCain – the cruiser USS Chancellorsville, and several support ships (http://bit.ly/11bfTqS ).

It was the participants in Operation Tomodachi – land based truck drivers and helicopter crews, and carrier based aircraft and landing craft – who were repeatedly trying to guess where the radioactive clouds were blowing and steer paths out of the way. It was unsuccessful on more than one occasion, according to Defense Department records and participants, resulting in efforts to decontaminate ships travelling through contaminated waters and cleansing helicopters only to send them right back into radioactive clouds.

So far, however, more than 150 service men and women who participated in the rescue mission and have since developed a variety of  medical issues – including tumors, tremors, internal bleeding, and hair loss – which they feel were triggered by their exposure to radiation. They do not blame the Navy for their predicament, but are joined in an expanding law suit against the Tokyo Electric Power Company, TEPCO, for providing false information to the US officials about the extent of spreading radiation from its stricken reactors at Fukushima. And the decision by the Defense Department to abandon the registry leaves them on their own. (http://bit.ly/XpfJW5 )

<>

The Tomodachi Medical Registry, developed over a two year period and completed at the end of 2012, was a collective effort of the Departments of Defense, Energy, and Veterans Affairs launched at the insistence of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee. ( http://bit.ly/14ABPuj )

It was an exhaustive registry essential to develop a medical baseline from which to determine if there were any long lasting repercussions from exposure to radioactivity – particularly iodine and cesium – spewing for months from the Fukushima Daiichi reactor units 1 through 4 into both the air and the sea.

The Registry was unparalleled in its depth. The Defense Department’s 252-page assessment of radiation doses the 70,000 Americans may have been exposed to  is broken down by a host of factors, including proximity to Fukushima, the type of work  being done and its impact on breathing rates, changing weather patterns, sex, size, and age. In the latter category children were divided into six different age groups, reflecting their varying susceptibility to radiation. (http://bit.ly/U42a1).

In addition, the report states “over 8,000 individuals were monitored for internal radioactive materials and the results of those tests were compared with the calculated doses.”

In the end, however, the Department concluded that their estimates of the maximum possible whole body and thyroid doses of contaminants were not severe enough to warrant further examination.

<>

Tomorrow Part 2: Leaving the Navy, Living with Doubt profiles three sailors who sought careers in the Navy and were contaminated at Fukushima. They have now left the Navy, and wonder what the future holds.

More: http://www.rogerwitherspoon.com/pdfs/energy/fukishima-prt1.pdf

Odd, I can't find Part 2.

Personal foibles notwithstanding, Armstrong's fame hyped the power of LiveSTRONG's invaluable mission. His loss from the organization is tragic. He is irreplaceable.

[proverbialwisdom]

13. Part 2 - A Lasting Legacy of the Fukushima Rescue Mission: The Navy Life – Into the Abyss

http://spoonsenergymatters.wordpress.com/2013/02/11/a-lasting-legacy-of-the-fukushima-rescue-mission-part-2-the-navy-life-into-the-abyss/

A Lasting Legacy of the Fukushima Rescue Mission: Part 2: The Navy Life – Into the Abyss

February 11, 2013

By Roger Witherspoon
Winifred Bird contributed reporting from Japan

(includes link to NRC’s Operation Center Fukushima Transcript and analysis)

Link from comments: http://enenews.com/ive-people-bleeding-behinds-sores-all-bodies-attorney-navy-sailors-exposed-fukushima-radiation to http://www.huffingtonpost.com/roger-witherspoon/fukushima-rescue-mission_b_2671853.html

Next: Part 3 - Cat and Mouse with a Nuclear Ghost

http://www.rogerwitherspoon.com/bio.html

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Wm. Roger Witherspoon has spent more than 40 years working in all forms of the media as a journalist, author, educator, and public relations specialist. Along the way, he has written extensively on state and national politics, foreign affairs, finance, defense, civil rights, constitutional law, health, the environment, and energy.

Most of his career has been in the news business, working as a full time reporter, editor, columnist, or producer for a variety of media companies including newspapers (The Record, N.J.; Star Ledger, N.J.; NY Daily News; Atlanta Constitution; Dallas Times Herald; and Journal News (N.Y.); television ( CNN, KNBC and NBC Network); and radio (WCBN, MI.).

As a free lance writer, he has written for several publications, including Time, Newsweek, Fortune, Essence, Black Enterprise, The Economist, and US Black Engineer & IT.

As an educator, he assembled and led a team of journalists charged with the complete restructuring of the print and broadcast curriculum and staff in the Department of Mass Communications at Clark-Atlanta University; and he has lectured on ethics and technology at the Georgia Institute of Technology; and nanotechnology in the environment, and racism in the media at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

In public affairs, he was responsible for managing millions of dollars in health and environmental grant programs globally for Exxon Corp. That included development of the global Save the Tiger program; the Center for the Study of Human Factors in Complex Systems at the University of Wisconsin; and the Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Climate Change at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

He is the author of "Martin Luther King, Jr. to the Mountaintop," Doubleday, 1985; and co-author of "Feats and Wisdom of the Ancients," Time-Life Books, 1989; "Engineering 101: A Text Manual," Hampton University College of Science and Engineering, 1997; and the extended essay "African Americans and the Technological Society," Microsoft Encarta Africana, 1999.

He is a founder of the Association of Black Journalists, which grew into the present National Association of Black Journalists; and a member of the Society of Environmental Journalists, the International Motor Press Association, and the Automotive Press Association.

Detailed Resume Link (133KB PDF)