It's tragic. And surely not everybody on the tour is doing it now. But those that aren't must be kicking themselves because they might just as well have been doping these past two weeks - nobody will ever believe that they didn't now.
What you say - is absolutely an utterly right -
everyone a bit involved into the sport knew, that latest since the days of Indurain a medical team is behind every athlet in the tour and what they did was treating inflamations with corticoids treating short breath with budesonid - treating restricted blood flow with aspirine - all these syptoms you get - you know if you cicyle up a mountain at tour speed. They didn’t look at it as doping - it was treatment and the efford to keep the athlet in shape.
And then came medicine against low levels of erythrocytes against to less muscle tissue against low spirit and depression.
All symptoms of fatigue could be seen as medical issue and you have to look at the sport scientifically to win don’t you ?
Even in indurains times there were doping rules but the testing organisations where far underfunded to follow the guys through their training camps on fuerte ventura for 1 month, in argentinia for another, then south africa etc..
... they are still today.
Indu even had a nose surgeon to widen the diameter of his breathing tracts - since mouth breathing shows your opponents you’re under stress and nose breathing moistens the air wich is more bening for the lung.
They where certainly all in it - noone in the business thought it was wrong.
They wake up today. Perhaps.