Reported in cyclingnews.com


Toxoplasmosis?
Weird.
I wonder if he has a cat...
and what the cat's name is
Let me state it mor clearly.
People dont get toxo unless they are immunosuppressed or something else is going on.



From the CDC:

How do people get toxoplasmosis?

A Toxoplasma infection occurs by:
This might happen if you were to accidentally touch your hands to your mouth after gardening, cleaning a cat's litter box, or touching anything that has come into contact with cat feces. Eating contaminated raw or partly cooked meat, especially pork, lamb, or venison; by touching your hands to your mouth after handling undercooked meat.

**Receiving an infected organ transplant or blood transfusion, though this is rare.**

more than 60 million people in the United States may be infected with the Toxoplasma parasite. Of those who are infected, very few have symptoms because a healthy person's immune system usually keeps the parasite from causing illness. However, pregnant women and individuals who have compromised immune systems should be cautious; for them, a Toxoplasma infection could cause serious health problems.

ick

How I hope we can read more about this on Toto!

I'm not sure I'd eat the food on the Ag2r bus. Calzati had Toxoplasmosis two seasons ago.

What are the odds of contacting it while racing i.e. hitting the ground and eating a mouthful of dirt, especially with all the cuts and blood? Either that, or someone loves to snuggle with their cat.

Actually I was going more the immunosupresiion transfusion route.
I have practiced medicine for 25 years and never even heard of a case.
I think riders on this level over train and set themselves up.
But I am recalling dessel riding way way over anything he had ever done in last years tour de france, especially on the Joux Plane.
He is paying the price now.

Curious how a number of riders are coming down with all these weird illnesses all of a sudden.

I have the flu.
I ride a bike.
I am not one of your favourite riders.
Wow! I must be paying the price for my doping.
Nice one, Sherlock.

Yeah, wasn't someone just diagnosed with Lyme Disease?

Wasn't this the same thing Hincapie had a few years back? I wonder how he got it?

This is what I love about the doping forum (hey, sometimes even the main cycling forum). If anyone does something a little different--they must be doping. (Unless it's one of my favourite riders. They never dope.)

I'm not trying to single out anyone here; it's a generic problem. Apparrently, Pereiro must have doped because he rode a good second time trial in the Tour. CSC must all be doping because they had such a good year in 2006. Hincapie is a doper because he has a big chin. We've all read it; perhaps we have thought it or something like it.

And then, at the other extreme, even after some people have tested positive, it ain't proof enough of their guilt. The tests must be wrong, the procedures not followed. They might even be French, and you know what that means.

It all strikes me as a little (internally) inconsistent. It's fine if you demand 100% proof of guilt, but if you do, demand such proof before you cast a stone at any rider. If you are prepared to point the bone at a rider who just happens to have the best ride of his life, don't be surprised if others condemn your heroes with the same readiness that you would condemn others'.

So, here's a test. Next time a Kazakh or a Frenchman or an Italian (or whatever you happen not to be) does something extraordinarily well, pretend he's Danielson or Gatesie or someone else you like but who would also surpise you with that result. Is he still a doper?

Next time your favourite rider gets busted in a blood test, pretend he's a Spaniard. Is he still clean?

I'm not saying it's a way of working out who is guilty and who is innocent. But maybe it will show you your own biases a little more clearly.

Have you ever had toxoplasmosis?

Right, didnt think so.



Have you ever met anyone who had toxoplasmosis?

Good, didnt think sol.



I have practiced medicine for 25 years and have never met or heard of anyone with toxoplasmosis...
I am including now a number of years in competetive endurance sports...never heard of toxo

Go back and look at all of Dessels career and peformances and then look at him on Joux Plane.
Nuff said.
What goes around comes around.

According to the CDC, an estimated 60 million people in the US alone have toxoplasmosis, but most don't show any symptoms unless their immune systems are compromised.

Goodness knows how Dessel got the infection in the first place. Maybe he didn't wash his hands after handling the kitty litter, maybe he ran his bike over a cat on the road and nibbled his fingernails after wiping the guts off the tyres, maybe he ate undercooked meat some cat had contaminated, maybe the Ag2r cook keeps a messy feline... who knows?

All this seems to suggest is that his immune system is down, and that could be a result of nothing more wicked than overdoing the training and racing.

I have never practiced medicine but things can be different elsewhere.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasmosis

Apologies in advance- this is so lame...

Maybe he was handling Kitty on Wheels!

Ha ha ha. Very funny. Sure he was. Thanks for outing us, crockett. The secret's in the open now - I am Cyril Dessel's incredible cycling cat, and my name is in the OP files. Right. Miaow.

Kitty, make sure Cyril washes his hands after petting you.

I resent the implication that I infected Cyril. I'm clean, I swear. The truth is, he's seeing another cat behind my back - some scruffy tom he calls Christophe.

But to get this back on topic..... seriously, I don't think the toxoplasmosis infection necessarily suggests anything other than Dessel's being pretty run down at the moment. It doesn't seem quite right that this thread should have started its life in the doping forum.

Surely as a scientist you realize that, from a statistical point of view, any individual's observation cannot be taken as a true reflection of how a thing really is.

Are you really a doctor? Just kidding, you're one of my favorite posters around here...
But read that on http://www.garywadler.com/steroid_detective.html
"It was Wadler who diagnosed the mysterious toxoplasmosis, a viral infection caught from her pet cat, that helped lay low No. 1 player Martina Navratilova during the 1982 tournament"
So now we know how Martina did so good!

But hey, to follow up on "go back and look at all of Dessels career and peformances and then look at him on Joux Plane. Nuff said." aren;t you mad at people who write "go back and look at Floyd on stage 16, and then look at him on stage 17. Nuff said"

Nuff said. You're still one of my very top favorite posters...

OK, you are THE perfect straight man and I cannot resist the setup:

Are you saying that Martina got toxoplasmosis from playing too much with pussy?
Wow. I had no idea.

But she was certainly not pregnant, a major risk factor for Toxo
but she was an Eastern bloc gumbah who transformed her body and was a well known gym rat in BigD and did strength training before any of her female tennis players, but have you seen pics of her form her 80s glory days and you will note a certaim Tammy like body.
Biut I luv Martina!!

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=htt...s%3Den%26sa%3DN

(actually, she lived in FW with her partner. It's much more subdued over there. Her male assistant was/is a track coach at FW Country Day. I met her. She's nice.)

And since she was never busted and has never confessed to using anything, raised eyebrows are about all you can do about now, can't you?

You going to bust on the Williams Sisters next, since they are built like Brick Outhouses but have never tested positive for anything other than hard work and a whacked out Dad?

Careful now or someone will accuse you of playing the race card



and Hombre of playing the alternative lifestyle card

You..umm..have to admit that they are not exactly models for Botticelli...

More on topic...

ROFLMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Actually, I thought a lot of those Renaissance artists used male figures for female bodies. Think of Michelangelo's work on the Medici funereal statuary. It was harder to get female models, and most of the models were corpses.

Gimme carved-yet-subdued muscle over softer flesh any day. THAT is aesthetics.