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Old 06-22-04, 02:01 AM
  #4  
Pat
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I believe it is Epogen, a drug made by Amgen, which mimics the action of erythropoitin, a human hormone. The hormone stimulates the human body to produce more red blood cells. Amgen came up with the drug because people on chemotherapy tend to have problems with anemia and there are a lot of those people and that is a lot of customers.

Anyrate, after awhile, endurance atheletes tumbled onto the notion that they could take epogen and increase their red blood cell concentration and improve their aerobic performance. This practice is not without hazard. If you increase the percentage of red blood cells too much in your blood and you are out on your bike and you sweat, your blood become mainly cells and it turns to sludge and the heart can not pump sludge. I read someplace that a cycling team in europe went through something like a dozen rider fatalities from epogen overdose this way, but that could have been apocryphal.
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