From Deseret News archives:
Lab at U. to study banned substances
Detecting illegal substance use to be facility's goal
The lab will conduct "research into the use of and detection of prohibited and performance-enhancing substances," according to an announcement released Monday.
The University of California at Los Angeles houses the only other such laboratory in the United States.
"It's a new application of what we've been doing at the (U.'s existing) Center for Human Toxicology," said Diana Wilkins, center co-director and associate director of the new Sports Medicine Research and Testing Laboratory. "It's an incredibly interesting area. I'm continually amazed at what athletes can and will do."
The National Football League and United States Anti-Doping Agency, which tests athletes in Olympics-related events, are helping pay for the lab and plan to use it for testing. Organizers say it should be up and running by the end of the year.
The new facility at the U. results from a confluence of several factors:
Testing for performance-enhancing drugs is a continual and increasing battle in professional sports, requiring a great deal of resources. A recent report that three Major League Baseball players and an NFL football player used steroids is only the latest evidence of a seemingly ubiquitous problem.
"New challenges are constantly being presented and must be aggressively addressed by all of us in professional and amateur sports," NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue said. "The establishment of this new lab . . . is an important step in this process."
A drug-testing lab at Indiana University in Indianapolis accredited by the International Olympic Committee closed in 2000, "and we felt there were sufficient numbers of drug cases to support two labs in the United States," anti-doping agency spokesman Rich Wanninger said. The UCLA lab conducted more than 7,000 tests last year.
In addition, organizers of Salt Lake's 2002 Winter Games have long intended to help create such a lab as a legacy of the Games. Half a million of the Games' multimillion-dollar surplus was contributed to that end. Another $110,000 is coming from United States Olympic Committee research funds.
"It's a legacy of the Salt Lake Games, obviously," USOC spokesman Darryl Seibel said. "There is no issue of greater importance to the worldwide Olympic family than the elimination of doping in sport."
