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LETTER OF THE DAY - Anti-doping agency on the mark
Dr Elliott
I WRITE IN response to an article published in your paper on Thursday, August 1, 2013 entitled 'JADCO did 106 tests in 2012 - Dr Elliott says agency did enough given population size'.Given the local and, in fact, global interest that has been paid to the statistics quoted in this article, I think that it is important to set the record straight as to the total number of tests actually conducted by the Jamaica Anti-Doping Commission (JADCO) in calendar year 2012, which is the common period used when comparing anti-doping tests statistics by WADA, International Federations like the IAAF, and national anti-doping organisations like JADCO.
I state, without fear of contradiction that, for calendar year 2012, JADCO conducted a total of 179 tests - with 108 tests conducted in-competition and 71 tests conducted out-of-competition. This total includes 25 in-competition tests which were conducted by JADCO at the request of an international federation.
Therefore, for its own account, JADCO conducted and paid for 154 tests in calendar year 2012, with 83 tests in-competition and 71 tests out-of-competition across nine sports. These tests were all paid for using funds provided to JADCO through the Government's Estimates of Expenditure for FY 2011-2012 and 2012-2013, respectively, and can be verified by the financial and testing records of the commission.
This level of testing indicates that approximately 51 per cent more tests were carried out by JADCO in 2012 than have been reported by the JADCO chairman and which were also stated in the WADA 2012 Anti-Doping Testing Figures Report. The number of tests referred to in your article of August 1, 2013 by WADA and apparently confirmed by Dr Herb Elliott do not seem to correspond with the tests conducted by JADCO doping control teams for the 12-month calendar period, sent to the Montreal Lab for analysis, and paid for out of the coffers of the commission in 2012.
The WADA report states that for 2012, JADCO conducted 106 tests as the testing authority in nine sports, broken down as follows - see table at left. (NOTE: All tests conducted by JADCO in 2012 were urine tests - in essence the commission did not perform any blood testing).
I contend that JADCO authorised and paid for more tests on Jamaican athletes, particularly in track and field, than have been reported and published in the WADA statistics in 2012, primarily due to a reporting error that has not been corrected in the ADAMS database that was made before I arrived at JADCO in mid-July, 2012.
I further state that these official figures do not show the true picture of the work carried out by the Jamaica Anti-Doping Commission as testing authority on behalf of the Government and taxpayers of Jamaica.
I would challenge the chairman and the board of JADCO to refute my statement. And I suggest, respectfully, that the record needs to be amended by the board of JADCO forthwith to reflect the true level of testing carried out by the commission in 2012.
Finally, on the question of the vexing issue of whether or not JADCO actively conducted testing in the "off-season" (i.e. the October-January period), I can further verify that during the period August-December 2012, in keeping with international best practice to place greater emphasis on out-of-competition testing in the off-season, JADCO conducted a total of 72 tests - with 12 tests conducted in-competition and 60 tests out-of-competition. And this level of testing continued into the first quarter of 2013.
It can, therefore, be seen, sir, that even though the tests actually conducted by JADCO in 2012 were not as much as the agency or the Government would have/might have wished for, I suggest that the facts, when thoroughly researched, will support my position that in terms of tests authorised and paid for by the Jamaica Anti-Doping Commission as the testing authority in calendar year 2012, the picture is somewhat better than what has previously been reported.
R. ANNE SHIRLEY,
Former Executive Director,
JADCO
[email protected] -
Ostler: What about the Jamaican stuff (sprinters busted for alleged use of steroids)?
Conte: Well I’ve believed for a long time that it is state-sponsored doping. I believe the Jamaican Olympic Committee is in on it, I believe the Jamaican Anti-Doping Commision is in on it, I believe they’re being tipped off. When Usain Bolt gets a $6 million piece of beachfront property in exchange for winning the gold medals, this is tremendous for tourism in Jamaica—and understand, these are my opinions, right?—and I said this a long time ago, I’m highly suspicious of this, and I’m going to tell you when it started.
In 2008 I was asked by(British sprinter) Dwain Chambers to write a letter to the UK anti-doping (commission) listing all the drugs that I gave these athletes, the seven or eight different drugs, the purposes, the frequencies, the dosages, etc., which I did. This was in March. Then in May or June when they have the Jamaican Olympic trials, Veronica Campbell. . .competed in the 100 meters, she was already an Olympic gold medalist, she came in fourth and ran 10.88, which is very fast. And I thought, “Who are these other runners, that she doesn’t even make the team?”
Shelly-Ann Fraser, I looked it up and in 2007 her PR was 11.31. Less than a year later she goes to the Olympics and wins in 10.78. Now that is more than five meters faster. Who improves five meters in one year? So I went on the record. . .”Oh, my god, this is highly suspicious.” Bolt’s fastest time was something like 10.03, next thing you know he runs 9.72. It was just too much, too soon.
I worked with a couple athletes from another Caribbean country, and (one of them talked to a friend of mine) who calls me and says, “Oh my god, you’re not going to believe this but. . .they won all the medals in the women’s 100, they read your article that was sent to WADA that you gave to the UK, and they’re using all your protocols, that were used by Dwain Chambers and Kelli White, including the T3, the thyroid medication.” So they followed my blueprint, but WADA didn’t pay any attention to it.
I know all the track writers, and in the mixed zone under the stadium in Beijing, they said when (Jamaican) athletes came into the mixed zone to do interviews with the media, that Herb Elliott, who is the head of (Jamaican anti-doping), the medical director who is in charge of collecting the urine samples from the athletes, was chest-bumping with all the guys on the relay team!
Dick Pound wrote a recent report. Two things. One, he followed my recommendation that they do more CIR testing, and secondly, he said the primary problem was that the WADA officials were really looking the other way, they didn’t really have a genuine interest in catching people, that they’re more worried about the political aspects and receiving funding.Comment
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mercy...any sports enthusiasts want to comment on the blog...I read it thru n it is a lot to think about.....more so if anyting in it is credible...mercyComment
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That JADCO controversy
On another matter, if Renée Anne Shirley is speaking the truth in her piece entitled 'An inside look at Jamaican track's drug-testing woe', Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller has a lot to answer to concerning the failure of the Jamaica Anti-doping Commission (JADCO) to preserve the integrity of the country's sporting image.
Shirley alleges that Jamaican anti-doping efforts are far from satisfactory and that neither the Government nor JADCO appears seized of the need to correct the maladies in the system. She has pointed out, for example, that JADCO did not have a large-enough staff in place to carry out rigorous anti-doping programmes when she took up the job.
"The Doping Control/Technical Services and the Education/Communications Units had only one junior staff member each, and the director positions were vacant. There was no Whereabouts Information Officer - in charge of keeping track of athletes so that they could be tested out of competition - and only one full-time doping control officer," Shirley wrote.
To add insult to injury, JADCO has not produced financial statements in five years, failing to account to the country for what it has been doing with the taxpayers' money. It cannot be that this very important body continues to operate like a rogue institution by not updating the parliament on its activities by way of annual reports, and failing to safeguard the integrity of the country's sports programme.
Prime Minister Simpson Miller must commit to ensuring that JADCO lives up to its mandate. She must tell Natalie Neita Headley, the Minister Without Portfolio in her office, who watches over sport for her, to spare no efforts in turning JADCO around. The urgency as of now requires that parliament intervenes in the matter.
Maybe, Hugh Buchanan, MP for South West [COLOR=blue !important][COLOR=blue !important]St [COLOR=blue !important]Elizabeth[/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR], who has a very strong sport and physical education background, or fellow first-time MP Keith Walford, also a sportsman, may want to consider moving a motion for the Human and Social Development Committee of Parliament to consider an urgent cure to this untidy JADCO affair. http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/2...ews/news9.htmlComment
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