more from NYT story...
In 2006, Testa told me that he gave his riders the instructions to use EPO but never administered drugs to those riders. In 2014, he said he didn’t want to discuss anything about the cyclists he had worked with, to protect the privacy of his patients. Still, if drug use was not mandated by the team, it appeared to be at least quasi-official. Hendershot trusted Testa to make sure the riders were staying safe, believing that Testa — unlike other doctors in cycling — actually cared for the riders’ health, and cared less about winning or money.
Hendershot, however, put it this way: A doctor who refused to give riders drugs wouldn’t last in the sport.
Armstrong liked Testa so much that he moved to Italy to be near the doctor’s office in Como, north of Milan. Not long after joining Motorola, Armstrong began living in Como during the racing season. He brought along his close friend Frankie Andreu, and in time several other riders joined them, including George Hincapie, a New Yorker, and Kevin Livingston, a Midwesterner. All became patients of Testa. All later became riders on Armstrong’s Tour de France-winning United States Postal Service teams.
Hendershot said all those riders probably believed they were doing no wrong by doping. The definition of cheating was flexible in a sport replete with pharmacology: It’s not cheating if everybody is doing it. Armstrong believed that to be the dead-solid truth. For him, there was no hesitation, no second-guessing, no rationalizing.