The 2007 WADA Questionnaire for laboratories...

This post is being published (nearly) simultaneously at:

+ + + + crystelZENmud and WADAwatch + + + +

A questionnaire for the WADA-accredited laboratories was laboriously elaborated, fine-tuned and published, to request information of a public nature. It was emailed to each of the WADA-accredited labs via the email addresses that were public record via the WADA website. Nearly one hundred hours of legal-training, and evaluation-training, went in to the drafting of this document.

It also put these publicly-financed entities 'on notice' that the world was watching them, and WADA, as that organization (publicly-financed through contributions from governments and Sporting Federations) bore down on the month of November 2007: the month in which WADA would 'elect' its new President, to replace outgoing iconoclastic Dick Pound, and approve the changes that had been drafted into the WADA CODE 2003 (soon becoming WADA CODE 2007).

The Questionnaire was only eight pages long (another link to it here), and a DISCLAIMER advised the recipients (from each of the then-34 laboratories) that the Questionnaire had no (Zero) affiliation with WADA, nor was it sponsored, nor approved in advance, by WADA.

The Questionnaire was also sent to these laboratories on three separate occasions, to ensure timely attention to the important issues that were presented.

TODAY, ZENmud productions announces the results.

?

Correct!

Not one laboratory, in the interests of transparent, independent research, was capable or inclined towards revealing its institutional opinion on the issues that were raised, by crystelZENmud.

Not one laboratory went on the record, with its stated goals for improving their own performance, and that of their co-Signatory institution labs;

Not one laboratory preferred to show the world that self-evaluation and self-improvement were a part of their agenda for the WADA World Conference on Doping in Sport.

Are these laboratories perfect? If they were, cases would not be falling apart as they have from many cycling-world incidents, and many more beyond.

What were the issues that these laboratories avoided answering? Not very difficult to list them:

1. Were labs satisfied as to WADA's ability to uphold 'universal harmonization' as found in the WADA CODE Introduction? (Question 1)
   
2. Is the FUNDAMENTAL RATIONAL applicable to Athletes only, or other Signatories (such as labs), in terms of 'respect for rules and laws'? (Q 3)
   
3. Should the 'presumption' provided for lab work, found in Article 3.2.1, which allows labs an advantage as to the quality of their lab work, be coupled to an Article that would offer means whereby a lab could be suspended or discredited if its work were found to be sub-standard? (Q 4)
   
4. Does Article 6.4 of the WADA CODE need amplification, or should a new sub-Article of the CODE be introduced, which would create a mechanism for WADA to address Signatories' requests for investigation of a lab, upon well-founded bases for investigation of lab test results, or results management issues? (Q 5)
   

As author of this Questionnaire, ZENmud Central is saddened that the laboratories chose not to respond: they will receive a final chance to do so in Madrid, at the WADA World Conference on Doping in Sport.

Did ZENmud productions really anticipate voluntary disclosure of such information?

Yes! The news we receive, especially from the cycling world, is an amalgam of intrigue, testing failures and laboratory 'vacations' (read: 'work stoppages' or STRIKES)

If a change of heart possesses any of the laboratories, crystelZENmud will post results in the future: but it looks bleak at the present, for 'transparency' to reign in WADA-world.

Watch WADA-accredited laboratories

..........@..........WADAwatch