(Ottawa, Ontario – April 27, 2016) – Australia has become the latest country to join the Global DRO network, in an effort to provide more athletes than ever before with the opportunity to benefit from easily accessible and accurate information about the status of their medications.
With the addition of the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA) to the Global DRO family, Australian athletes will now be able to easily check the status of specific substances purchased in their home country. The benefits of the new partnership also extend to athletes and support personnel from the UK, USA, Canada, and Japan who can now check the status of any medication purchased in Australia, as well as being able to access a list of the top searches conducted.
“I am very pleased that Australia could be a part of this international resource,” said Ben McDevitt, CEO of ASADA. “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. That athletes can not only check substances purchased at home, but also those in Canada, the US, the UK, and Japan, will be invaluable for our elite athletes that train and compete on the international stage. 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.”
Global DRO – which is available both online and via any mobile device – is offered through a partnership between the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), the UK Anti-Doping (UKAD), the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport (CCES) and Anti-Doping Switzerland (ADCH) to provide athletes with a resource by which to check the prohibited or permitted status of licensed medication in accordance with the World Anti-Doping Agency Prohibited List. The Japan Anti-Doping Agency (JADA) became a licensee in 2013, expanding the Global DRO network even further. Speaking to the immense popularity of the resource, since 2009, there have been 2.5 million inquiries between the three initial partner countries, with 654,000 searches conducted in 2015 alone.
“As one of the founding partners, we are pleased to see Australia joining the Global DRO and we encourage other national anti-doping agencies to join as well,” says Paul Melia, President and CEO of the CCES. “As more countries’ drugs are added to the database, there is an exponential benefit for athletes that train and compete internationally: a single, consistent source for this critical information.”
The CCES is an independent, national, not-for-profit organization with a responsibility to administer the CADP. We recognize that true sport can make a great difference for individuals, communities and our country. The CCES acknowledges funding, in part, from the Government of Canada. We are committed to working collaboratively to activate a values-based and principle-driven sport system; protecting the integrity of sport from the negative forces of doping and other unethical threats; and advocating for sport that is fair, safe and open to everyone.