WADA: Announcing the Divorce...

Dear ZENers...

Some are aware, some are not, yet...

But in the last several days, at ZEN Central, an executive decision was taken to split off a new entity, to harness and separate, for focal excellence, the two recurring themes that have dominated our crystelZENmud world:

Making a better tomorrow ... sustainable and real development in the world...

And

The anti-doping situation, as seen via the Floyd Landis case and the WADA-controlled empire of laboratories and non-harmonious 'harmony' as espoused by its bellowing elephant of a President, Dick Pound.

Thus, am proudly announcing or reminding you that ZENmud productions is now running two blogs:

WADAwatch

crystelZENmud

As you can guess, WADAwatch will follow the upcoming Madrid CODE revisions, etc., and crystelZENmud would revert to opinions and news items that bring the real news to the world as we know it.

Proudly, this decision means more work and more details to faithful readers...

Thank you,

ç*”*”*””*ç”*”* ZENmud ”*””*ç*”*”*””*ç”

WADA: an open Letter to you and the 34 laboratories...

Dear ZENfans, darling ZENdetractors,

Below you may read the letter which has just been sent, to the 34 WADA-accredited laboratories (contact your favorite local laboratory HERE), as a second correspondence towards the burning issues for the upcoming redrafting exercise, scheduled for Madrid, the 15 - 17 November, 2007.

After a mild spanking by the Floyd Landis Arbitration Decision, as well as a Guantanamo-strength waterboarding by the Minority Dissention offered by Christopher Campbell (at least as far as the French 'département des analyses' is concerned), I, your Humble Narrator and Champion of International Justice, have sent the following:

+ + + + + + + + + + +

Dear WADA, and accredited laboratories,

One week ago today, I sent to the 34 WADA-accredited laboratories, via the email addresses provided to the public through the WADA-AMA website, a Questionnaire that I personally developed, to help your facilities move forward, stand higher and broadcast to a troubled world, that you are collectively aware of the URGENT need to re-draft the WADA CODE, the International Standard for laboratories, and the International Standard for Testing.

In that email, I stated I would send a second copy if I had not received confirmation of the receipt of the first transmission. I have the pleasure to send to your facilities, the same, identically-worded Questionnaire, today.

Since I first sent to your facilities the Questionnaire regarding Laboratories, the Floyd Landis Decision has been published and discussed world-wide.

I do not need to remind you how that Decision (both the Majority Decision, and the Minority Dissent) has opened the doors to the world, for all to see the various lacunae that exist currently, as they operate under the documentation of which you are all aware. The words of Attorney Christopher Campbell are, nevertheless, worth your time to become familiar with his vital, and on-point concerns.

However, I feel it even more urgent to reach you, as the weeks to come are your last chance to show the world that you care about correct scientific determinations, derived at through adherence to the standards you subscribe to, and are accredited by.

I end this second transmission, by quoting my own blog on this issue:

QUOTE:

Given the anticipated, returned questionnaire responses, hopefully prior to mid-October, from WADA-accredited Laboratories, international Federations or other Signatories, three vital steps will have been achieved:

* Participants to the Madrid redrafting session will be 'on notice' that the current WADA CODE lacks transparency in procedures of discipline and accountability, as to the Signatories that work together to promote a drug-free sporting world;

* They can go on record, prior to the Madrid session, as being in favour of increased discipline and accountability concerning those WADA CODE imbalances, and;

* They have now, the opportunity to arrive in Madrid with an 'action plan' to create a finely-tuned, and better-harmonized body of regulatory procedures that will enforce the transparency and accountability of Signatories, as they have mandated towards the Athletes whose world they serve and control.

ENDQUOTE

PLEASE find attached the same questionnaire you were provided one week earlier.

PLEASE respond with your fully transparent observations, so that the world is aware of your position in favor of making the Sporting world cleaner, and more transparent to observers such as myself.

I remain your faithful correspondent,

ç*”*”*””*ç”*”* ZENmud ”*””*ç*”*”*””*ç”

WADA LOSER: the Presumption...

Quoting (not!) Christian Prudhomme, Director of the Tour de France:
“Whaaaaah, the legal process is too long...”

Quoting (not!) Patrice Clerc, President of Amaury Sport Group, owners of the Tour de France, and French Sporting newsjournal L'EQUIPE:
“Bwwaaaaah, why the agony of waiting? The testing was finished months ago...”

Les Guignols de France (the clowns)...

Dear ZENers, there's really only one reason why Floyd and supporters are out $2 million, and fifteen months have flown by (on snail's wings) as the phases – the Process, the Pre-Hearing, the Hearing, the Post-Hearing and the Decision – stretched on from last August through this September, 2007.

Only one reason why the Decision, and the Dissent, are 110 pages of legalese, legal mumbo jumbo, whatever description you'd prefer.

One word, actually...

That reason, is simple: the WADA 'presumption' of ISL compliance that benefits, that protects beyond rationale reason, the actions of a series of mostly second or third rate laboratories around the world.

Strong words? Yes, based on the evidence.

If, as ZEN Central has postulated in this post: PART III, the Analytical Wrap-up , WADA had formulated its CODE, ISL and IST with the standard of Strict Liability for Laboratories (identical as a standard to which it holds Athletes: evidence of drug presence need not be supported by evidence of intent, or otherwise: proven in the system of the body is sufficient), there would be two effects...

Firstly, WADA-accredited laboratories worldwide, would stand in equal light with forensic and clinical laboratories around the globe. Their standards in training experts, running tests, preserving Samples and data would show them to be 'institutions of excellence', a title reserved today for only a few of the 34 laboratories now associated to WADA.

Secondly, and pertinent to our studies of the Floyd Landis case, a laboratory such as LNDD, now infamous for incompetence, verging on the edge of losing its WADA-accreditation, would not have been supported throughout the process recently concluded (Barring appeal to the CAS in Lausanne, Suisse). Its case against Floyd Landis would more than likely have been thrown out.

Presumption(s)...

In WADA CODE 3.2.1 (2003), the pertinent phrase reads: “WADA-accredited laboratories are presumed to have conducted Sample analysis and custodial procedures in accordance with the International Standard for laboratory analysis. ...”

Had the ZEN Central hypothesis been in place, LNDD may have lost its chance to 'convict Floyd' in offering scurrilous evidence, 'cherry-picked' test results from different sequences (Not MY words: see the Campbell Dissent at paras. 4 – 12)

The WADA CODE, as it stands today, prior to the coming redrafting session (which may already be 'in the bag' as to further changes, which would be a TRAVESTY of Justice for Athletes), is a mockery of Justice. It condones LAX laboratory practices, far below those of Forensic Scientific standards, while judging Athletes who, due to the 'Strict Liability' standards, may have innocently or negligently absorbed a Prohibited Substance.

Laugh all you want, those who 'KNOW' that 'Floyd doped' and the 'Lab tests proved it'...

I wish you the same reality, some day, that you enjoy now in facing Mr. Landis... nothing yet proven, millions spent, and one word: PRESUMPTION, is the winner!

PS: need some good news? French Minister Jean-François Lamour, formerly the SHOE-IN candidate to replace Dick Pound, now must face an election 'primary' against Australia's John Fahey.

ZENmud supports John Fahey 100 per cent, and urges you to write your NADA (Nat'l Anti-doping Agency) in his favour!!! Time is short!

;-)

ç*”*”*””*ç”*”* ZENmud ”*””*ç*”*”*””*ç”

WADA decision – The Landis case

If 'legalese' numbs your senses, better stop reading. Here at ZEN Central, the overtime hours (unpaid, volunteer, weekend-absorbing at that) are accumulating.

As the 'verdict heard 'round the world', you are by now aware that 'Floyd lost'. As of this writing, I am unclear whether Floyd will, can afford or has chosen not to pursue his appeal to the Cours Arbitral de Sport in Lausanne, Suisse.

I could have written 'Floyd doped', or 'Floyd cheated' or another phrase, but we really don't know that yet. The focus of this blog remains on the future, and if Floyd wants to appeal his case, he has the right to.

Yet before the dry antiseptic review... (anti-skeptic review?), a couple thoughts...

In having read my fair share of legal opinions, I noted a difference in this arbitration decision, which includes the Decision, penned by the two-arb majority of Attorneys Patrice Brunet and Richard McLaren, as well as the Dissent written by Attorney Christopher Campbell. This 'For/Against' decision displays one very disconcerting aspect.

Namely, one often reads, in US Supreme Court or Appellate Court decisions (that often contain Dissents) reference is customarily made to the other side's writing, which serves as a signpost of collegial discussion and, ultimately, adds depth to their disagreements.

The Majority can write their contentions concerning the items discussed in a Dissent, while those Judges or Justices who contribute to the Dissent can attribute their legal reasoning to counter that of the Majority.

There is no sign, as far as my twice-through readings this weekend of each part of this decision have found, that the majority wanted to discharge the emphasis of Mr. Campbell's points. As well, Mr. Campbell displayed minimal integration, or rather counterbalance, of his Dissent to that of the majority's Decision.

What am I on about? It could very well be that, from nearly the debut of this case's decision-writing session, that the majority had not shared, nor admitted, any of Mr. Campbell's points. More upsetting, is it stimulates the thesis that, from nearly the moment of writing both parts of this one Decision, that the minds of the Majority were not disposed to entertain the contentions of Mr. Campbell.

The best example of this, from my first, early analysis of a total of 103 relevant pages (of some 110 total), is found in the Campbell Dissent, and concerns the topic of 'cherry picking through separate sequences for ICRS evidence' (see Campbell, paras. 4 – 12).

In the majority's Decision, there is no mention of 'cherry picking' of evidence from the vital testing sequences that resulted in the Floyd decision of positive. Why not? Why ignore the most powerful statements made by the third member of this Arbitration panel?

Furthering that dichotomy, the Campbell Dissent passes from 'cherry picking' into the potentially perjurious testimony by certain WADA experts (Campbell, paras. 13 – 17).

As Campbell stated (concerning the USADA 'expert witnesses', all of whom are or were WADA-accredited laboratory directors): “The Laboratory Directors in this case were Dr. Ayotte, Dr. Wilhelm Schänzer and Dr. Catlin. They all testified they had carefully reviewed the documents provided by the LNDD. None of them disclosed the problem associated with the cherry picking of data.”

Thus one is left to ponder wherein the justice flows? Were Brunet and McLaren even aware that the Decision they produced did not address the central tenet of the Dissent?

More to come, ZENers... analysis of a massive brief, such as the Floyd Landis Tour de France case, will take a week or two, as more information is gleaned from... 'The Record'.

But I leave you with two thoughts, by Mr. Christopher Campbell. These come from the first paragraph of his Dissent, and nearly the last (para. 61) paragraph. I myself, would not write these words if I didn't have one-hundred percent certainty of my conviction as to the veracity:

“1. From the beginning, the Laboratoire National de Dépistage et du Dopage (“LNDD”) has not been trustworthy. In this case, at every stage of testing it failed to comply with the procedures and methods for testing required by the International Standards for Laboratories, Version 4.0, August 2004 (“ISL”) under the World Anti-Doping Code, 2003 (“WADA Code”). It also failed to abide by its legal and ethical obligations under the WADA Code. On the facts of this case, the LNDD should not be entrusted with Mr. Landis’ career.”

“61. These doping adjudications can cause substantial harm to a human being financially, physically and emotionally. It can destroy families. If, from time to time, WADA's mission obligates it to inflict such harm, it should be obligated to get it right – all of it. As athletes have strict liability rules, the laboratories should be held strictly liable for their failure to abide by their rules and sound scientific practice.”

Simply put, inarguably true. As the crystelZENmud Questionnaire stated, regarding WADA, its CODE and the various official derivative documents (and which was published Tuesday, prior to the Decision being rendered on Friday):

“I am convinced, and hope to convince readers, that the upcoming session will not focus, as it should, on the most important, heretofore ignored aspect of the WADA CODE: full harmonization of laboratory procedures, and further tightening of sanctions against laboratories that do not display adherence to the scientific International Standards, or who fail proper, 'results management' procedures by allowing premature releases (or leaks) of 'A Sample' results, prior to the 'B Sample' testing/confirmation of those, to the press.”

And read this post (“PART III: WADA questionnaire – analytical wrap-up...”), published on Wednesday, for a more in-depth analysis of what WADA must do this November, if it wants to retain credibility amongst an athletic world that will be aghast at what actions were taken to “convict” Floyd Landis.

COURAGE, friends!!!

ç*”*”*””*ç”*”* ZENmud ”*””*ç*”*”*””*ç”

Your choice....

What a production line today, at ZEN Central!

Hi ZENers,

While things are certainly heating up around the Floyd Landis case, it may be small potatoes compared to this worldwide issue:

Oil prices...

While riding through the vinyards of eastern France, and western Switzerland, I often wonder how oil and wine will fare, price-wise, in the next several decades...

WINE:
225 liter barrels contain enough product to fill 300 normal 0.75l bottles, so pick your favorite wine, worth 6 to 20 CHF, and multiplying (Oh! in the USA? Just change the currency :-) will find that that's from CHF 1800 to CHF 6000.

So something that pleases us, that warms our mealtimes, that rejoices in the diversity of its origins, and brings life to the concept of AOCs (Appellation d'origine contrôllée)


Is at least 22 times more expensive than that fluid with which we: burn, move with, lubricate, fertilize with...




OIL?

Well it just cracked $82 this week.

And in another year?

$ 100?

Or

$ 125?

Get ready for the Bicycle years...

;-)

ç*”*”*””*ç”*”* ZENmud ”*””*ç*”*”*””*ç”

WADA do about 'Measurement Uncertainty' = ???

Hi ZENers!

In cleaning up my trusty laptop (some 40 open websites or PDFs from WADA, UNESCO, etc)...

I stumbled onto this page from WADA:

And if you scroll down to the bottom, you find that this document: the WADA Technical Documents List, has one pending 'action item' (ZEN moniker)... the "Measurement Uncertainty for Anti-doping Analysis"...

Is this a means whereby WADA is *Actually* striving to improve scientific performance? Or is it something within that which we've come to call the WADA-Omerta?

Here's some links to documents that appear to derive from this debate or call for a WADA standard (one would think WADA would allow the EXPERTS at ISO to work this out??? If they haven't already?):

Here's an abstract from an article entitled "The role of measurement uncertainty in doping analysis"

Here's another work entitled "Reply to 'Measurement uncertainty and doping control in sport" by A. van der Veen", which is authored by Peter Van Eeno and Frans T. Delbeke.

I am hoping to learn more in the hours and days to come, as we await the flurry (of replies or menacing emails) of correspondence that could be produced by my Questionnaire... for WADA-accredited laboratories.

Back to your regularly-scheduled lives, which are ... already in PROGRESS!

;-)

ç*”*”*””*ç”*”* ZENmud ”*””*ç*”*”*””*ç”

PART III: WADA questionnaire – analytical wrap-up...

Hello again ;-)

If you have read, ZENers, my posts 'Part I' and 'Part II' about the WADA CODE and its revision period which ends in November (as scheduled), it may appear to you that I 'left out' crucial analytical points and conclusions...

You may be right! :-)

But, but! Evidently so did WADA, and its 570 Signatories, non?

Sometimes for me it's much better to think overnight and 'swallow' the substance of the argument... and allow all of the readers here to grasp their own threads and weave their own tapestry... and this year has been my uphill-learning curve: I admit no prior expertise in the world of Sports Doping International Regulation.

Thus, today, we complete the triumvirate of this pre-Madrid session analysis.

Allons-y... Here's what I see as being the imbalanced logic of the WADA CODE.

STRICT LIABILITY – TESTING

... is applied against the Athletes, in every case, while the Laboratories which produce the evidence that inculpates those Athletes, are given 'a pass' in ANY case, through the famous 'presumption' that is found in sub-Article 3.2.1: “WADA-accredited laboratories are presumed to have conducted Sample analysis and custodial procedures in accordance with the International Standard for laboratory analysis.”

That sentence, as lax and permissive as possible, should read as follows (merely a ZEN-legal drafting mental exercise):

“WADA-accredited laboratories are presumed to have conducted Sample analysis and custodial procedures in accordance with the International Standard for laboratory analysis; the failure to so perform, based on evidentiary proof, shall render void any relevant analyses and subject that laboratory to suspension or revocation of their WADA-accreditation.”

OR?

“WADA-accredited laboratories are strictly liable in conducting Sample analysis and custodial procedures in accordance with the International Standard for laboratory analysis, evidentiary proof of substandard analysis or custodial procedures shall render void any relevant analyses, and subject that laboratory to suspension or revocation of their WADA-accreditation.”

Why 'strict liability'? Is this not too severe?

Well, if it is necessary for the Athletes, it is even more necessary for the Laboratories who will exonerate or inculpate the tested individuals. In this world of million-Euro athletes, sponsors and events, where laboratories are testing the blood or urine of participants on machines more complex, more sensitive than your laptop, often costing hundreds of thousands of Euros, the facility that holds such a responsibility must adhere to the highest standards possible.

Standards? The International Standards Organization (ISO) regulates many industries, many commercial activities, through officially-codified Standards. Go look at your bike helmet, or your automobile's windshield... and the analytical laboratories of the world that conform to ISO:EC 17025:2005 (‘General requirements for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories’: On sale (for CHF 114.00)) are agreed-upon global standards, of which most patients in hospitals worldwide are both ignorant, and thankful for their existence.

So it is mandatory that the laboratories conduct their work, in testing Athletes, to the highest standards of excellence. Non?

There is another aspect to this. We are ALL humans (if you're reading this, voilà the proof), and we are prone to errors, sometimes inconsequential, sometimes grave. Sometimes, our errors are so embarrassing, if related to our profession, that there is a desperate instinct to 'cover them up'.

If ever a soldier was cited for bravery when in fact heinous acts were perpetrated in the heat of battle (or an “Abu Ghraib” situation?), if ever an automobile design engineer was promoted after putting an unsafe car on the streets, with sales in the millions of Euros, a laboratory technician could produce an erroneous report with enormous repercussions.

But errors, whether by Athletes or laboratories, will happen. Athletes are certainly well-informed that their ingestion of a wrongly-labeled 'nutritional supplement' could end their days of Glory.

Employees of the 34 WADA-accredited laboratories should be working under that same 'tension' for clean performance, non?

STRICT LIABILITY – RESULTS MANAGEMENT

... is the term for how testing results are kept confidential, when and how Athletes and Federations are informed, and what must sequentially happen before the Press is informed. This aspect is such a vital link in the chain, that ANY violation of Results Management should also be dealt with as a Strict Liability situation: announcement in the Press of an 'A Sample' test result, should banish that facility from the WADA-accredited list for at least two years. Analysis of this follows from the preceding analysis on 'testing'... based on sub-Article 3.2.1, as well as the relationship between sub-Articles 7.1 and 7.2, in liaison with sub-Article 14.2 (Public Disclosure).

Another aspect of the interrelationship of these articles is very important, and is examined separately.

OMISSION OF LIABILITY

Sub-Article 7.1 states: “... the Anti-doping Organization ... shall conduct a review to determine whether ... (b) there is any apparent departure from the International Standards for Testing or laboratory analysis that undermines the validity of the Adverse Analytical Finding."

Sub-Article 7.2 states: “If the initial review under Article 7.1 does not reveal ... [a] departure that undermines the validity of the Adverse Analytical Finding, the Anti-doping Organization shall promptly notify the Athlete."

Omission? What happens when the Anti-doping Organization DOES find an 'apparent departure'?

SILENCE in the CODE...? as we know from Contract Law, what is not expressed in an agreement, is not part of the agreement.

Somewhere, between 7.1 and 7.2, included text must be introduced, that mandates the investigation of the 'apparent departure', with express language to mandate the suspension of key personnel, or of the Laboratory itself, from WADA-accreditation, with a stated period or means whereby that Laboratory can redeem itself and re-apply for accreditation. Such could be the firing or re-assignment of laboratory staff, severing of ties between Laboratory staff and members of the Press (In cases falling under the obit of sub-Article 14.2), or other solutions.

I do not offer a variant to the existing sub-Articles... because I think sub-Article 14.2 should become sub-Article 7.4. It would then follow a new sub-Article 7.3, which would define what procedures to follow in the case whereby an ADO has found an 'apparent departure'.

This is a serious 'Black-Hole' in the legal basis of the WADA CODE 2003.

OMISSION of LABORATORY SUSPENSION PROCEDURES.

Worldwide, Athletes live in terror of being 'busted' for something that perhaps was not their own fault. Recall the Alan Baxter case: First British Olympic medal for skiing (Bronze, Slalom, Salt Lake City)... Alan was strictly liable for the purchase (This author accepts the evidence of the case) of an inhaler, sold by the same company, but with a different chemical formulation in the USA than in the United Kingdom.

A ZEN opinion would appreciate a world in which Laboratory staff live under the same 'fears': perfection in testing competence and techniques, as well as custodial maintenance of samples, must be the standard; to fail to uphold these, with direct implications on the lives and the careers of Athletes, is destructive, and certainly a violation of the ISO:EC 17025:2005 standards.

POTENTIAL COVER-UPS

Referring back to the analogies of soldiers or automobile executives being promoted (Should we add in the Alberto Gonzales' of the world? Or the L. Paul Bremers?), scandals in organizations are often 'covered-up' at great expense to Truth and Honesty (Ummm: Watergate?).

One shudders when thinking that an Athlete's revealed test results, which may have been negligently produced, are going to make that person suffer horrendously, and bring dishonor to him or herself, their family, and their sport. Evidence of any cover-up, against a laboratory, would negate the entire purpose established by the anticipated harmonization through revisions to the WADA CODE: playing 'by the rules', 'ethics' and 'the law'.

If a Labo-gate case were unveiled, what consequences are established within the WADA CODE?

NONE.

Strict liability for testing and results management; omission of liability for violations of those two important laboratory responsibilities; omission of the substantial and procedural aspects of laboratory suspension, and/or revocation of WADA-accreditation...

The WADA CODE v2007 is, perhaps, at a crucial moment: to either choose to continue its charade of 'neutrality and harmonization', which appears to this independent analyst to be more hype and PR than currently regulated reality, or...

To perform the necessary 'grafting' of new controlling language, new 'branches' onto the already-rooted 'tree' that the International Olympic Committee entrusted to WADA.

We'll observe and note the responses to my Questionnaire, or... whether the Anti-doping world, the WADA-directed, WADA-accredited, WADA-financed world, will consciously circumvent this opportunity.

Athletes are, it should be noted, at the global international level, paying a high price for the less than two per cent of Athletes that are doping. Yes that's right, in the growth industry which sports testing has become, the global statistics prove that only 1.96 per cent of Athletes are tested positive for prohibited substances or procedures.

[Keep in mind that statistic portrays only one of two possible worlds: either Sport itself is ALREADY much cleaner than the Society that sustains it (And thus there is a lot of hype behind 'Doping!!! Again!!!' to augment budgets of certain Signatories), or the ancillary domain of 'Doping Masking Agents' is proving better attenuated than is the world of Doping Testing, to present]

That's certainly a lower percentage of their small community, than non-athletic drug-users in normal society, automobilists who violate the laws, and taxpayers who ... never mind...

Watch the politicians, all Athletes, all concerned parties, to hold them accountable for the work they undertake, the documents they produce, under our name(s), achieved from various tax-related sources or donations.

;-)

ç*”*”*””*ç”*”* ZENmud ”*””*ç*”*”*””*ç”

PART II: WADA gonna do about Madrid in November?

Serious work product week...

Click here for Part I of this two-part post concerning the upcoming Madrid conference to revise the World Anti-doping Agency (WADA) CODE.

At ZEN central, recent, incessant work has been under way, to produce and now publish a questionnaire with a very focussed audience: the 34 World Anti-doping Agency (WADA) accredited laboratories, the current listing of which you may link to here...

After a profound immersion in the 'macro-legal' aspects of the Floyd Landis doping case, for which I've written nearly 20 separate articles here on crystelZENmud, I'm confronted with the legal dilemma that I now share with you. In Madrid, Spain, this coming November, WADA is convening its final session for the approval of drafting reforms to its controlling documents, especially the WADA CODE.

If you care about doping and sport, I'm glad you're reading this.

I care as well, that the documents that allow athletes to be prosecuted are in legal balance, with responsibilities and rights that fall on each of the incumbent parties... comprising the 570 'Signatories' as denominated in the CODE.

Signatories are the governmental, or quasi-governmental national Antidoping Agencies (eg: United States Anti-doping Agency, or USADA), the Olympic and Paralympic International Committees, the international Federations (eg: Federation Internationale de Ski (FIS)), major event Organizers (eg: Tour de France, owned by the Amaury Sport Group), etc. (WADA CODE 2003, Appendix One)

I have reviewed the latest available version of the WADA CODE, displaying proposed 'redline revisions', which (as of September 18th, 2007) you may not download until AFTER OCTOBER 17 (it's been pulled!! Why??).

This column does not discuss the proposed CODE reforms that are oriented towards the Athletes.

I am convinced, and hope to convince readers, that the upcoming session will not focus, as it should, on the most important, heretofore ignored aspect of the WADA CODE: full harmonization of laboratory procedures, and further tightening of sanctions against laboratories that do not display adherence to the scientific International Standards, or who fail proper, 'results management' procedures by allowing premature releases (or leaks) of 'A Sample' results, prior to the 'B Sample' testing/confirmation of those, to the press.

For this Questionnaire, I outlined the WADA clauses that, as currently enforced, create the perceived imbalance. The imbalance, is a lack of comprehensive control of potentially sub-standard laboratory performance. The results of WADA CODE reform, without addressing the Articles or sub-Articles that I've listed, which denote unlinked points, or untied threads that threaten this novel system's stability and improved acceptance.

Links to the survey I developed are for each page, from the previous post. You may download these for printing:

Page one
Page two
Page three
Page four
Page five
Page six

Page seven
Page eight

As an 'interested party' (under the applicable WADA definition) I hope to provide insights to ZENmud readers, and to the 34 WADA-accredited laboratories that function to serve Athletes, and to provide incentives for cleaner competition, by offering them an opportunity to rectify the imbalance that was written into the WADA CODE that became official in 2003.

The WADA CODE Articles, or sub-Articles that I find incomplete (clicking on the links will connect to the JPG content of this annexed ZENmud post: WADA QUESTIONAIRE FOR LABS, so you can sequentially track the questions raised), include the following:

INTRODUCTION (p. 1): ... The purpose of the WADA CODE, itself, is to advance the anti-doping effort through universal harmonization of core anti-doping elements. It is intended to be specific enough to achieve complete harmonization on issues where uniformity is required...

FUNDAMENTAL RATIONALE (p. 3) ... the essence of Olympism; it is how we play true. ... the following values: [.....] Respect for rules and laws. ...

WADA CODE 3.2.1 (p. 12): WADA-accredited laboratories are presumed to have conducted Sample analysis and custodial procedures in accordance with the International Standard for laboratory analysis. ...

WADA CODE 6.4 (p. 21): Standards for Sample Analysis and Reporting

Laboratories shall analyze Doping Control Samples and report results in conformity with the International Standard for laboratory analysis.

WADA CODE Article 7 (p. 22-23): Results Management

7.1 ... the Anti-doping Organization ... shall conduct a review to determine whether ... (b) there is any apparent departure from the International Standards for Testing or laboratory analysis that undermines the validity of the Adverse Analytical Finding.

7.2 Notification after Initial Review

If the initial review under Article 7.1 does not reveal ... [a] departure that undermines the validity of the Adverse Analytical Finding, the Anti-doping Organization shall promptly notify the Athlete ....

Article 8 (p.24-25): Right to a Fair Hearing

Each Anti-doping Organization with responsibility for results management shall provide a hearing process for any Person who is asserted to have committed an anti-doping rule violation... (Defined as “A natural Person or an organization or other entity.”)

Article 13 (p. 40): Appeals

[.....]

13.5 Appeals from Decisions Suspending or Revoking Laboratory Accreditation

Decisions by WADA to suspend or revoke a laboratory's WADA accreditation may only be appealed by that laboratory with the appeal being exclusively to CAS.

14.2 (p. 40-41) Public Disclosure

The identity of Athletes whose Samples have resulted in Adverse Analytical Findings ... may be publicly disclosed by the Anti-doping Organization with results management responsibility no earlier than completion of the administrative review described in Articles 7.1 and 7.2. [.....]

Given the anticipated, returned questionnaire responses, hopefully prior to mid-October, from WADA-accredited Laboratories, international Federations or other Signatories, three vital steps will have been achieved:

• Participants to the Madrid redrafting session will be 'on notice' that the current WADA CODE lacks transparency in procedures of discipline and accountability, as to the Signatories that work together to promote a drug-free sporting world;

• They can go on record, prior to the Madrid session, as being in favour of increased discipline and accountability concerning those WADA CODE imbalances, and;

• They have now, the opportunity to arrive in Madrid with an 'action plan' to create a finely-tuned, and better-harmonized body of regulatory procedures that will enforce the transparency and accountability of Signatories, as they have mandated towards the Athletes whose world they serve and control.

+ + + + + + + + +

Without a conclusion for this post, we at ZEN Central await a chance to return to it, in the fall months to come: the serious cards are now on the WADA table.

What's 'table' in Spanish?

COURAGE, friends for CLEAN SPORT!!!

ç*”*”*””*ç”*”* ZENmud ”*””*ç*”*”*””*ç”

Part I : A Questionaire for WADA Signatories

Hello ZENers...


This is a special post, (click here for Part II) because what you see to your left and below, is a questionnaire, that has been developed here at ZEN Central, that is destined to the Signatories of WADA and its infamous CODE.

Note bene: this is NOT a WADA-approved questionnaire, but my own.




Each page reflects, on its right column, official text selected from the WADA CODE 2003 ("WADC 2003"), and on the left column are questions relating mostly to the legal text on that page.



I have hopes to receive some interesting feedback from the various laboratories (Currently numbering 34), who will receive a copy of this independent survey via email.




You can click on each page to receive an A4-sized jpg, which can be printed for study, if you choose to participate.





I have set up a special email account (at some risk of being slammed by various and sundry ne'er-do-wells, or worse), with the hopes that some readers will respond and offer commentary that can also be applied to the cause.







And what, is the cause, one may ask? Since I have begun tracing the trail laid down by WADA, under the guidance (I hesitate to use that term) of its President, Dick Pound, through the focalized world of cycling and testing, I have discerned one or more discrepancies in the WADA CODE, which focus more on the inquisitorial aspects and less on the 'due process' aspects of justice against Athletes accused of doping.






This is not to suggest that doping Athletes should not be rendered before Justice to receive their Doom - it merely points to the facts that the other players are ignored, in a more than curious fashion.



The Questionnaire goes page by page, through the Articles that should enforce the behaviour of Laboratories and other relevant Signatories, and I hope to have noted where the greatest lapses are to be cured, through prompt and unbiased revisions in the upcoming Madrid conference (Nov. 15 - 17, 2007), sponsored by WADA.



There is a post to follow, but I needed to lay out this work first, so I had in place the links to it for Part II.



Interested parties can spread the word, and Athletes more than any, should be following this issue closely.






After all, tis they who sometimes "die" in their sporting careers, at the whim of scientific testing gone awry, through negligence, inattention or improper training.


Being one who believes that he laboratories, as well as the Athletes, should be subject to unannounced testing and visits, I am sure you agree that were improvements are necessary, they should be implemented, not swept behind a curtain; they should be codified, not left to the man pulling the levers of a Sporting world that legitimately is doing everything possible to improve the balance for cleaner, proper Sport.








If you are not of a similar mind, I would respectfully request that you desist from antagonizing myself or others: we have lives, jobs and our precious time is worth respect.





If, again, you are not of a similar mind, please ponder why you resist the change towards a better, more objective and scientifically-neutral codified Sporting law system?



I spent many hours on this Questionnaire: the errors within are entirely my own misfortune. I apologize in advance if you find any egregious errors.














COURAGE, friends!!!

ç*”*”*””*ç”*”* ZENmud ”*””*ç*”*”*””*ç”

CASE: the US Media v General Petraeus

As if we, ZENers all, needed to know something more than this:

That 'the Surge' is another "state-of-mind", any different from that which was 'the Invasion', or 'the Democratization', or 'the Reconstruction' of Iraq...

Today is the day that the real war begins... the US Media, the MSM ('Mainstream media'), will begin its slagging of General Petraeus, whose efforts to sustain or retain or maintain the War on Iraq, the War to Promote Terrorism ...

Remember this cartoon? It's more applicable each month...
(And reminds me it's almost time for the Best of ZENmud Vol II annual cartoon-a-thon)

Originally published at Bartcop.com, I've revived it now, in this period - nearly two years since I first photoShopped (TM) the concept - while Bush is continuing to klaxon his intentions: to bust up another country, before he achieves TPAD:

TOTAL
PRESIDENTIAL
ANARCHY and
DOMINATION

And so, what will the Petraeus report give us, and what will its contents display, and how will Congress react, and even more importantly:
how will the MSM downplay its contents, as much as they've downplayed the war in Iraq, the destituted economy that we've destroyed much more than did Saddam H.?

'Boggles the mind' may be the single most appropriate phrase to use when describing the totality of the GW Bush era (Without combining it to the Reagan/Bush era of yore).

Destitution of morals, of responsibilities, of direction, of justice... GW Bush and his misAdministration certainly cannot claim to be in touch with 'Christianity', that religion which has based its precepts on the words of the Ten Commandments.

Although 'Honor thy Father and thy Mother' seems to be the only one that Bush is capable of respecting, what has he done for the rest of the list??

"Thou shalt not Kill"
"Thou shalt not Steal"
"Thou shalt not Bear False Witness"
"Thou shalt not Covet thy Neighbor's Goods"

Leaving aside the personal, sexual list that is still questionable, here we see that a strong portion of what Bush claims to be his guiding principles, are no better than the sand that blows across the heated Iraqi deserts...

And only the US Media stands between Bush, his sordid record, and the rectification of the historic changes he and his Republican Party have wrought on our Constitution, and our Founding Values.

United Hates of Hysterica? (coming soon...)


Courage, keepers of History

..............................ZENmud