Earlier this month, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) reinstated the accreditation of the Romanian Doping Control Laboratory in its capital of Bucharest. The lab was originally suspended in February of 2018. The reinstatement authorizes the lab to resume all of its anti-doping activities immediately.
The Bucharest Laboratory’s reinstatement brings WADA to 29 fully-accredited laboratories, with 25 capable of handling blood as well as urine analysis.
The Bucharest laboratory was suspended for violations of the International Standard for Laboratories (ISL). At the time, nothing specific was named, but later investigations by WADA found that the laboratory’s director had ‘covered up’ positive doping samples.
“WADA is pleased to confirm that the Bucharest Laboratory’s accreditation has been reinstated,” said WADA Director General, Olivier Niggli. “We would like to thank the Laboratory for its cooperation throughout this process,” said Mr. Niggli. “We are confident that the Laboratory has corrected its deficiencies and our Laboratory Expert Group will continue to monitor the Laboratory’s performance to ensure that it operates to the high standards required by WADA.”
The Finland laboratory remains on a self-imposed suspension while it is relocating to a new facility, while the lab in Stockholm, Sweden has had its accreditation partially suspended, rendering it unable to conduct testing involving the gas chromatography combustion isotope ratio mess spectrometry method. All other laboratories listed by WADA are without any current suspensions.
The Russian laboratory is no longer listed, as accredited or suspended, in WADA’s complete list of anti-doping testing facilities.
This whole WADA is dumb
If the whole issue was the lab director covering up positive samples, has she/he been fired? Doesn’t seem like it, as that should be a pretty big point to touch on.