Contents    Prev    Next    Last

 Chapter[ XI. Recommendations ]

 Section[ D. 2. The Program Should Be Transparent                                                                 ]

                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

2. The Program Should Be Transparent

Drug testing programs must respect the privacy rights of the athletes who are

tested. Yet to instill public trust and ensure accountability, they must be as transparent as

possible consistent with protecting those rights. Transparency can be achieved by such actions

as submitting to outside audits, and publishing periodic reports of de-identified aggregate testing

results, retaining records of negative test results so that confirmation is available to correctly

interpret subsequent tests, which may inure to the benefit of a player charged with a positive

result in a later test. A transparent program should provide the public with aggregate data that

demonstrates the work of the program and the results achieved by it (but that does not reveal or

permit the determination of individual identities).

The importance of transparency is illustrated by an article about the Major League

Baseball joint drug program that appeared in the San Diego Union-Tribune in May 2007.581 The

article reported that the number of positive tests reported by the Montreal testing laboratory that

is used by Major League Baseball and other organizations increased from around 20 in 2005 to

104 in 2006. Under WADA standards, the laboratory was required to segregate its reported data

580 See supra at 276-77.

581 Mark Zeigler, Report: Stimulant Positive Tests Up; Strong Indication of Use in

Baseball, San Diego Union-Tribune, May 11, 2007.

304

 

by sport but not by client, and that laboratory has other clients whose data are included in the

laboratory’s aggregate baseball/softball data.

Nevertheless, the article drew speculative conclusions from the aggregate data

about the effects of including stimulants among the prohibited substances under the joint

program, observing that “in the absence of a fully transparent testing program by baseball, the

WADA report may be the closest thing to real numbers of positive tests.”582

	Contents    Prev    Next    Last