WADA takes away drug lab’s ‘legit’ tag

With less than 365 days left for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has given a massive blow to India's anti-doping program by suspending the accreditation of the National Dope Testing Laboratory (NDTL) for six months.

Going by WADA's missive, the suspension has been imposed due to "non-conformities with the International Standard for Laboratories as identified during a WADA site visit", including in relation to the laboratory's isotope ratio mass spectrometry (GC/C/IRMS) analytical method, as regulated by the relevant technical document (TD2016IRMS).

The WADA suspension, with effect from August 20, 2019, prohibits NDTL – the country's only WADA-accredited laboratory – from carrying out any anti-doping activities including all testing of urine and blood samples. Any samples undergoing confirmatory procedures, any pending samples and those reported for adverse findings would be securely transported to another accredited lab.

"NADA can end assessments but ought to capture the samples to at least one other WADA-permitted lab outside India, which could be in Thailand, South Korea, Japan, Qatar or China," a senior official in National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) told DNA on Friday.

In May this year, disciplinary proceedings were launched by WADA laboratory group following which an independent committee took up the case as per the procedure. This process has been now completed.

Pursuant to Article 13.7 of the World Anti-Doping Code, the laboratory may appeal this decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport within 21 days of receipt of notice.

This decision will put a huge foreign exchange burden on the Sports Ministry in order to send samples for testing outside India. And, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), which was under pressure to come under the ambit of NADA, may again escape by putting the blame on high cost of testing outside India. "We're not going to pay any extra amount for players' testing outside labs in the country. We've always maintained that BCCI gets all samples collected by NDTL and then gets it tested from private labs. NADA or NDTL should first get their own house in order before putting pressure on cricketers," a senior BCCI official said.

Meanwhile, the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) also lashed out at the NADA for the suspension of the laboratory, saying NADA's "mistakes" have jeopardised India's anti-doping program.

"We will now have to pay in dollars instead of rupees. Who will bear the extra cost?" IOA president Narinder Batra said: "The National Sports Federations are not in a position to bear the extra cost. And, why should we bear the extra cost for NADA's mistakes?

"Batra put the blame on NADA, which was sitting on the issue for a long time despite repeated reminders from WADA. "This issue has been going on internally for the last one year. The WADA has been pointing drawbacks in the NDTL's testing methods but the NADA has failed to manage its affairs," said the IOA chief.

The WADA said the suspension came after its Laboratory Expert Group initiated disciplinary proceedings with regards to status of WADA-accredited laboratories across the globe.

If the WADA is still not satisfied after corrective measures of the Indian lab, it may reimpose an additional period of six months' suspension.