February 17, 2007 — The 2007 Amgen Tour of California has hit its first bump the day before it begins as it was recently revealed that the inaugural Amgen Tour of California (ToC) in 2006 did not test cyclists for the blood booster EPO. As reported in the New York Times, the irony in this revelation is that the ToC’s sponsor, Amgen, is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of genetically engineered Erythropoietin, more commonly known as EPO.

There seems to be a lot of finger pointing as to who was to blame. Amgen spokesperson Mary Klem was reported to be “angry and surprised,” after repeatedly being told that EPO testing had been done only to find out that in fact it was not. The race is managed by Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG). Officials from AEG and from USA Cycling, the sport’s governing body in the United States, claim that doping controls are the responsibility of the UCI. Officials at the UCI did not return telephone calls or emails to the New York Times.

Michael Roth, an AEG spokesman, said that testing in 2006 was done as prescribed by the UCI and that EPO was not included in the standard tests. The New York Times cites Roth as saying that AEG will include EPO testing in the 2007 testing protocol at an estimated additional cost of “$1,600 for each of the race’s eight days.”

“We made it clear that if Amgen was going to continue to be a sponsor of the race, it needed to be a clean race and EPO had to be tested for,” stated Klem. Amgen has been marketing its sponsorship of the ToC as a way to educate people against improper use of EPO. Among the proper uses of the hormone, anaemic patients are often prescribed EPO. California-based Amgen calls itself “a Fortune 500 company serving millions of patients,” according to its website: www.amgen.com

Click here for NYT article.