Position statement of UK Anti-Doping, Version 1, issued in December 2009.
There is an array of supplements available for athletes to purchase through a range of retail sources that have no prohibited substances listed as ingredients. Despite this there have been several cases whereby supplement products have been contaminated with prohibited substances as defined by the World Anti-Doping Code (WADC) Prohibited List.
UK athletes are advised to be vigilant in their choice to use any supplement. No guarantee can be given that any particular supplement is free from prohibited substances.
Athletes should be aware that any product that claims to restore, correct or modify the body’s physiological functions should be licensed as a medicine, according to current legislation (for further information visit the Medicines Healthcare products Regulatory Agency website at www.mhra.gov.uk).
Diet, lifestyle and training should all be optimised before considering supplements and athletes should assess the need for supplements by always consulting an accredited sports dietician and/or registered nutritionist with expertise in sports nutrition, and a sports and exercise medicine doctor, before taking supplements.
An important principle of the World Anti-Doping Code (WADC) is strict liability, stating athletes are ultimately responsible for any prohibited substances found in their system or for the use of any prohibited method. Therefore before taking supplements athletes must assess the risk and understand their personal responsibility.
In an attempt to support athletes a number of initiatives have been created globally to identify whether a prohibited substance can be identified within a supplement. As such, supplements may claim to be drug free or safe for drug tested athletes. It is not possible to guarantee that specific supplements will be free of prohibited substances but only to reduce the risk of inadvertent doping by making informed decisions.
In the UK HFL Sports Science has taken the initiative to create a scheme to support athletes in assessing the risk. The Informed-Sport programme is designed to evaluate supplement manufacturers for their process integrity and screening of supplements and ingredients for the presence of prohibited substances that are present on the WADC Prohibited List. For further information on UK HFL Sports Science visit www.informed-sport.com/
UK Anti-Doping believes this risk minimisation service to be a positive step and welcomes the approach being taken by industry and the HFL owned Informed-Sport programme.
Ultimately we wish to remind athletes that strict liability will still apply and the appropriate sanctions will be imposed on any athlete returning an adverse analytical finding from any supplement product, as with all other anti-doping cases.
