Joint Media ReleaseJapan Joins Global Drug Reference Online AthleteResource Network28 June 2013Japan has become the latest country to join the Global Drug Reference Online (GlobalDRO) network, providing more athletes than ever before with the opportunity tobenefit from easily accessible and accurate information about the status of theirmedications.
Global DRO is a tool available online and on mobile devices originally created througha partnership between UK Anti-Doping (UKAD), the United States Anti-Doping Agency(USADA) and the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport (CCES) to allow athletes to checkthe prohibited or permitted status of licensed medication according to the latest WorldAnti-Doping Code Prohibited List. In 2012, there were more than 314,000 inquiresbetween the three initial partner countries, speaking to the popularity andeffectiveness of the resource.
Now, athletes based in Japan will be able to check the status of specific substancespurchased in their home country as the Japan Anti-Doping Agency (JADA) has becomepart of the Global DRO system. The benefits of the new partnership extends toathletes and support personnel from the UK, USA or Canada, who can now check thestatus of any medication purchased in Japan, as well see the top searches performed.
Athletes are advised to check on Global DRO before taking any medication by simplytyping the name of the product in to the search engine, where they will receiveinformation on whether the substance is prohibited or permitted, both in and out ofcompetition.
Shin Asakawa, CEO of JADA, was delighted to be part of Global DRO network andcommented, “Joining the Global DRO platform is significant for our athletes, theirsupport personnel and sports pharmacists. This will provide us a good opportunity toshare an important resource with our colleagues from the UK, USA and Canada, andJADA is able to ensure that all competing Japanese athletes can feel more comfortableby accessing Global DRO to check substances and products on the WADA ProhibitedList in conjunction with direct access to JADA sports pharmacists.”“We would like to continue working with the Global DRO partners and making thesearch engine in Japanese more comprehensive.”	  	  UK Anti-Doping Chief Executive Andy Parkinson said “It is great to see Global DROexpanding to include Japan. All athletes in Japan can now instantly check whether anymedication contains substances banned on the Prohibited List.
“The expansion of Global DRO is a great illustration of how anti-doping organisationscan work together to better service our clean athletes.”“As one of the founding partners, we are pleased to see Japan joining Global DRO andwe 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: asingle, consistent source for this critical information.”“Global cooperation is a vital part of the success of any anti-doping organization,” saidUSADA CEO Travis T. Tygart. “We want athletes to have access to as muchinformation as possible about their rights and responsibilities, and we are excited towork with our fellow partners to expand this network so that an even greater numberof athletes can benefit from this simple system that provides accurate informationabout the status of their medications and helps them become more informedconsumers.”