Quote Originally Posted by OakLeaf View Post
What exactly is wrong with EPO that couldn't be said about any of those things?
It can kill you.

Of course, one could die on the operation table, but that is somewhat less likely than a misuse of EPO leading to heart failure. http://www.rice.edu/~jenky/sports/epo.html

When Geneviève Jeanson (a former queen of female pro cycling, especially climbing) admitted to doping at every single one of her winning races with EPO for her whole career (despite strongly denying it until that day last year), she also explained how she was scared of dying when her heart rate would go dangerously low at night. When EPO first came around, lots of racers died in their sleep. At some point they figured out that they needed to have an alarm to wake them up every other hour during their sleep to avoid dying.