The Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA) has announced that it will start using a recently launched online tool to help its athletes check the status of various substances. This tool will let athletes know if a medication they are using contains any substance that might be banned by the WADA.
The database, called the Global DRO, is simple to use– all an athlete needs to do is enter their medication’s brand name to the search bar to see whether or not it is or contains a banned substance. This tool is already being used by anti-doping agencies from the US, the UK, Japan and Canada.
This isn’t just meant for Australian athletes– it just solely has information on medications sold in the aforementioned countries, and now Australia.
Ben McDevitt, CEO of ASADA, says “All athletes are solely responsible for all substances that enter their body, so it is important that they have easy access to the most advanced and up-to-date information on every medication sold in Australia.”
“The collaboration between so many esteemed anti-doping agencies to develop and expand this tool is proof that the fight against doping is a global one,” he added, and “… athletes can not only check substances purchased at home, but also those in Canada, the US, the UK and Japan [which] will be invaluable for our elite athletes that train and compete on the international stage.”
The Global DRO is regularly updated to keep in line with the ever-changing WADA list of banned substances. This is a proactive move on behalf of the ASADA to give athletes an easy way to keep clean from performance-enhancing drugs. It also acts to delegitimize any future claims from banned substance offenders who might argue that they didn’t know if a substance was banned– all one has to do now is look it up in this database.
