Majority Statement

• Ted Stevens

  Senator
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  Majority Statement

  Ted Stevens

  Opening Statement of Chairman Stevens:

  I, too, welcome the witnesses who traveled great distances to be here today. And I want to thank you, Senator McCain, for chairing this hearing and for your continued commitment to the U.S. Olympic movement and drug-free sports, in general. The actions that we took as a Committee last year ensured that the United States did not send athletes who were not drug-free to Athens. Those were unprecedented actions, and I thank the U.S. Olympic Committee, the people here, for this unprecedented action.

  
  As someone who worked for the creation of the U.S. Olympic Committee and who has been involved now with Olympic issues in the Senate for almost 37 years, I reflect back with great pride on the tremendous accomplishments of our U.S. Olympic teams. I have grown increasingly concerned with the dramatic increase in doping at all levels of athletics, particularly among our youth. And several years ago I traveled with Donna de Varona to Geneva to meet with the International Olympic Committee to express our great concern over doping.

  
  In 2003, in a survey of over 15,000 high school students, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control found that more than six percent of high school students admitted to using non-prescription illegal steroids at some point in their lives. To me, that’s unacceptable.

  
  Doping is a stain at all levels of athletics. It taints the accomplishments of our elite athletes, creates unattainable expectations for our young athletes, and threatens their physical well being. I do commend the work of the U.S. Anti-doping Agency. It’s doing great work on behalf of the U.S. Olympic Committee, and much more remains to be done.

  
  But I do look forward to working with Senator McCain and the rest of the Committee to carry out your commitment, all of our commitment, to mitigate the problem of doping. I have another committee meeting this morning so I hope you’ll excuse me. Thank you all very much.

  
  ###

Testimony

• Dr. Don Catlin

  Professor of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology

  UCLA Medical School
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  Testimony

  Dr. Don Catlin

  Statement of Don H. Catlin, M.D.
  To the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee
  On May 24, 2005
  
  My name is Don Catlin. I am a Professor of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology at the University of California at Los Angeles Medical School and the Director of the UCLA Olympic Analytical Laboratory, the only lab in the U.S. accredited for sports doping control by WADA, the World Anti-Doping Agency. I have an M.D. degree from the University of Rochester and my specialty is Internal Medicine. I founded the UCLA Olympic Lab in 1982 and have been on the International Olympic Committee Medical Commission for many years, contributing expertise on scientific policy, medical issues, and laboratory methods. I have served on numerous national and international committees concerned with drugs in sports. You may think testing is great, but it is far from perfect. Athletes determined to cheat have little trouble beating the test. …and there are legions of Doctors telling them how to do it. Bill Llewellyn, a well-known underground chemist, stated in ESPN magazine “‘There are more than 500 steroids in here’ he says, flipping [a private book he keeps] to make his point. ‘All the drug tests in the world can maybe find 50.’” That remains true today. This is why research plays such a vital role in the anti-doping effort. My lab has taken in several grants from USADA, including a grant to dramatically improve urine testing for EPO, a blood booster, and a grant to improve carbon isotope ratio, or CIR, analysis. The grants resulted in substantial advances in our ability to detect prohibited drugs. That type of research, however, is inadequate if a serious effort at eliminating drug use in sports is to be accomplished. The most difficult problems have still not been solved. For example, there is no effective test for growth hormone today. Athletes determined to beat the system are still able to keep ahead of the game. As the BALCO investigation has brought to light, these athletes have sophisticated resources and are well funded. With the paltry amount of funding currently available, anti-doping research does not stand a chance. Several success stories will help illustrate this point. All of you are aware of designer steroid THG. USADA provided my lab with approximately $140,000 in direct costs to defray the costs of identifying an unknown substance in a used syringe. This money was only available because USADA had given my lab a small unrestricted grant to provide us some flexibility – only a few weeks before the syringe was turned over to USADA. Thus we did not have to apply for a grant to determine the contents of the syringe – a process that takes months - we were ready to go. It took our team of scientists – a team that represents over a century of total years of experience in anti-doping – one month to identify it and another six weeks to develop a test. It’s important to remember this research was done on a substance brought to us. In other words we were not out looking for designer steroids – it just came to us. If it were not for the unidentified coach bringing USADA the syringe, it is possible that THG would still be in wide use today. We need to find these drugs before athletes start using them. Two models of success that most resemble the type of research that should be going on all the time are darbepoetin and norbolethone. Darbepoetin is an improved form of EPO. Late in 2001 just before the Salt Lake Olympic Games opened, it was approved for medical use by the FDA. The product was launched approximately three months prior to the Games. Media publications before the Games had warned of its likely use because it was “undetectable.” Our lab, however, had done the necessary work to obtain reference standards required to report potential positive cases. Our insight was correct; it was in use and because we came prepared, three athletes who had won a total of eight medals were all caught as darbepoetin users. There are countless other pharmaceuticals that come to the market every year. Many of them are performance enhancing drugs that may be undetectable by the methods currently employed world wide in anti-doping. One of the cardinal rules of drugs in sport is that if the drug might work it will be used until its place in the cheater’s armamentarium is known. The lesson learned from this is that an effective anti-doping research program must be flexible enough to immediately respond when such pharmaceuticals hit the market. Another example is norbolethone - a steroid that was abandoned by the pharmaceutical industry before it ever made it to market over 40 years ago. It was not looked for in the normal steroid test used by all anti-doping labs world-wide. In this way it was essentially like THG – an unknown and undetectable steroid. Some very clever scientists at my lab noticed something peculiar about a sample. After review by our team, we all agreed something was there and we set out to determine what it was. Ultimately we determined its structure and began monitoring it in our routine screen. Although this was not known at the time, it did not take long after we reported a norbolethone positive for emails to circulate among the underground chemists informing cheating athletes that my lab was on to them. Just as with THG, it is now part of the testing process world wide, but no other case of norbolethone use has ever been found. This dramatic illustration underlines the importance of confidentiality. These stories should make clear to everyone exactly what we are up against. The athletes that cheat have sophisticated advisors and chemists. These underground chemists do not have to meet FDA regulations. They also have extraordinary resources. We cannot fight them effectively using the system and resources that are in place. What is needed is long-term, substantial funding so that teams of scientists with decades of experience in anti-doping 1) can work, sometimes with drug companies, to develop tests for new pharmaceuticals before they are even available to the public; and 2) can spend the time thinking like the dopers and develop tests for these designer drugs before athletes start using them. In May of 2003 a bill was introduced in the Senate that would have helped address these very issues, SB 1002 - the “Athletic Performance-Enhancing Drugs Research and Detection Act.” That bill would have provided the much-needed long term, well-funded research to the labs that have extensive experience in anti-doping. Unfortunately that bill never got off the ground. It is also vital to keep the work secret. As the cases of norbolethone and THG both teach us, as soon as the athletes know that the designer drug they are using is detectable they stop using that particular drug and move on to something else. (Remember the words of Llewellyn – ‘there are more than 500 steroids in here’.) As I mentioned at the beginning, the kind of research currently funded by USADA is a necessary part of the anti-doping effort. It keeps labs world wide up to date on their testing methods. It is, unfortunately, completely inadequate to keep up with the cheaters. If you want to seriously address drugs in sport then long term, well-funded, flexible and confidential research is what is needed. To help this fight, I have recently established the Anti-Doping Research Institute (“ADR”). Our efforts will focus on many of these areas I have outlined for you today. But it is just one small step. Without adequate funding and independence, anti-doping efforts are doomed to always be behind the cheaters.

• Mr. Terry Madden
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  Testimony

  Mr. Terry Madden

  Testimony of Terry Madden
  CEO of the United States Anti-Doping Agency (“USADA”)
  Before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and
  Transportation
  May 24, 2005
  
  Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, good morning. My name is Terry Madden and I am the CEO of the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA). I want to thank this committee for its long-standing interest in clean sport and for the opportunity to testify this morning. USADA has been recognized by Congress as the independent, national anti-doping agency for Olympic and Paralympic sport in the United States. Our mission is to protect and preserve the health of athletes, the integrity of competition, and the well-being of sport through the elimination of doping. Since it began operations on October 1, 2000, USADA has been responsible for managing the testing and adjudication process for Olympic and Paralympic athletes. USADA is also deeply committed to education and research initiatives, which are fundamental to our efforts to end doping in sports. USADA welcomes the increased attention that has recently been focused on the use of performance-enhancing drugs in sport. In this age of dramatically increased awards for athletic success, doping has, unfortunately, become an issue that affects every sport and threatens to undermine the integrity of athletics as a whole. The true victims of doping are today’s clean athletes who want to compete in clean sport, the young athletes of tomorrow who are being deceived into believing that doping is an acceptable path to winning and the public who is being defrauded by athletic performances that are dependent on the use of drugs. Since its inception in 2000, USADA has worked hard to protect the rights of the overwhelming majority of the United States Olympic movement athletes who compete clean, by instituting policies that ensure that athletes who choose to cheat will be held accountable. The USADA anti-doping program, which was developed with the assistance and approval of athletes in the Olympic movement’s, begins with a comprehensive sample collection plan that includes appropriately timed, year-round, no-advance-notice testing. A drug testing program will be ineffective if athletes know during what times of the year they will be tested. In 2004 USADA collected 7,630 samples from Olympic movement athletes. Over 4,400 of those samples were collected as part of USADA’s out-of-competition testing program. One lesson reinforced by the ongoing BALCO investigation, is that to be effective, an anti-doping program must incorporate sufficient flexibility to deal with the creation and use of “designer drugs.” Accordingly, USADA’s program is also based on a regularly updated, comprehensive list of prohibited substances and methods. An effective program must also combine clearly defined sanctions of sufficient magnitude to deter drug use with a fair means of imposing such sanctions. In the Olympic movement the sanction for a first steroid offense is a two-year suspension. A second steroid offense results in a lifetime ban. Accordingly, USADA’s adjudication system includes numerous protections for athletes to ensure that only athletes who commit a doping violation are sanctioned. Significantly, while USADA believes the privacy rights of individuals accused of doping must be respected, no individual’s privacy right should outweigh the rights of all athletes to compete in clean sport and to be assured that those who break the rules are appropriately sanctioned. For these reasons, in the USADA system, once an athlete has been found to have committed a violation there is complete public disclosure of the athlete’s name and the nature of the offense. Another important focus of USADA’s program is the education of athletes regarding the health risks associated with doping and the inherent value that is found in choosing to compete clean. To date more than 10,000 elite athletes and coaches have participated in education presentations by USADA. The 100% Me program, targeting adolescent youth will soon be expanded to focus on high school age youth. Also, USADA’s goal is to expand “Crossroads”, the 5th grade in-school curriculum which was developed with Scholastic Magazine. It is critical that both the elite athletes of today and the aspiring athletes of tomorrow learn that there are no shortcuts to true athletic achievement and that success through doping is winning without honor. Finally, USADA dedicates significant resources to research for the detection of new doping substances and techniques and the pursuit of scientific excellence in doping control. USADA is also strongly committed to funding continued research regarding the long term health risks associated with the use of prohibited substances. USADA’s ongoing commitment to research is demonstrated through the approximately two million dollars per year in grants that USADA awards to fund research initiatives aimed at fighting doping in sport. To date, USADA has awarded approximately $1,250,000 for the development of a scientifically reliable test for human growth hormone, a substance being used by dopers. We believe that the USADA program contains all of the important elements of a comprehensive and effective drug deterrence program and we continue to work each day to improve our system and further protect the rights of clean athletes. Specifically, we are focused on increasing the number of no-advance-notice tests that we perform. We are also seeking to improve our ability to systematically identify and sanction those athletes and other individuals who are engaged in the effort to create designer substances or otherwise gain an advantage over athletes who are competing clean. To this end, we continue to work with the Department of Justice and the United States Attorney for the Northern District of California in the ongoing investigation into the BALCO doping conspiracy. The BALCO investigation has also highlighted the great lengths that some athletes will go to in an effort to obtain an unfair advantage through doping. The science of doping is constantly evolving and complex issues, including genetic enhancement, must be addressed. If USADA’s efforts to uncover these sophisticated efforts to cheat, through comprehensive testing, research and education programs is to be successful then appropriate resources must continue to be allocated to the fight against doping. Since its inception in 2000, USADA has been funded through a combination of contractual payments from the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) and annual appropriations from Congress, ranging from $3 million in 2000 to $7.4 million in 2004. USADA appreciates the support of the USOC in this important struggle against doping in the Olympic movement. USADA is also extremely appreciative of the commitment that Congress has demonstrated to USADA over the last five years. The funds designated for USADA in Senate Bill 529 would provide much-needed fiscal stability for USADA and would significantly advance USADA’s mission. As the Committee with jurisdiction over this important issue, I thank you again on behalf of USADA and all of America’s athletes for your interest in and commitment to clean sport and ask that you approve the funding for USADA set forth in Senate Bill 529. Thank you for your time this morning. TESTIMONY OF TERRY MADDEN
  SUMMARY OF MAJOR POINTS
  · USADA is the independent, national anti-doping agency for Olympic and Paralympic sport in the United States. USADA’s mission is to protect and preserve the health of athletes, the integrity of competition, and the well-being of sport through the elimination of doping.
  
  · The problem of doping in sport affects every sport and threatens to undermine the integrity of athletics as a whole. USADA’s anti-doping program is designed to protect the rights of clean athletes to compete in clean sport by holding athletes who cheat accountable.
  
  · The USADA anti-doping program is based on a comprehensive sample collection plan that includes appropriately timed, year-round, no-advance-notice testing.
  
  · USADA’s program is also based on a regularly updated, comprehensive list of categories of prohibited substances and methods.
  
  · USADA’s program combines clearly defined sanctions of sufficient magnitude to deter drug use with a fair means of imposing such sanctions. USADA’s adjudication system includes numerous protections for athletes to ensure that only athletes who commit a doping violation are sanctioned.
  
  · USADA dedicates significant resources to education and research initiatives, which are fundamental components of the fight against doping in sport.
  
  · Efforts to cheat through doping are becoming increasingly sophisticated. A continued allocation of substantial resources is necessary to support USADA’s effort to end doping in sport.
  
  · Historically, USADA has been funded through a combination of contractual payments from the United States Olympic Committee and annual appropriations from Congress.
  
  · The funding authorized by Senate Bill 529 would provide ongoing fiscal stability for USADA and would significantly advance USADA’s mission.

• Mr. Roger Blake

  Assistant Executive Director

  California Inter-scholastic Federation
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  Testimony

  Mr. Roger Blake

  Testimony of Roger Blake
  Assistant Executive Director
  California Interscholastic Federation
  
  Mr. Chairman and the distinguished members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. My name is Roger Blake and I serve as the Assistant Executive Director of the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF), the governing body for high school sports for California. We are the largest state association in the nation with almost 1,400 high schools and 1.7 million students. I have also been a long time high school teacher, coach, athletic director, and dean and district office administrator.
  
  In my role as the assistant executive director of the CIF, I have been given the responsibility for ensuring our schools and governance bodies were given enough information regarding steroids and performance enhancing substances to make an informed decision. Three weeks ago, the CIF made national headlines when the representatives of our schools voted unanimously to pass three proposals that we believe are fundamental keys to slowing down and ultimately eliminating the use of these dangerous drugs in our schools, but we would not be where we are today without the assistance and USADA, particularly Dr. Catlin, Dr. Gary Green and Mr. Richard Young.
  
  Last fall, the CIF in conjunction with the Demand Reduction Program of U. S. Drug Enforcement Administration sponsored a “Steroid Summit” in Los Angeles. Deputy Director Scott Burns of the ONDCP spoke and Dr. Catlin was one of our key speakers. What we learned that day was that the time has come that we, too, are facing the same issues and dilemmas that face professional sports and our Olympic athletes and that we needed to act immediately.
  
  We also came to realize that as the science, the technology and the most importantly the marketing of these products that promise the user to get bigger, faster and stronger just by taking this pill or injecting fluid is an explosive combination. At the high school level, studies have shown that the number one reason kids play sports is because it is fun, but unfortunately in our society where the winning at all cost mentality prevails, more and more young people are turning to steroids and performance enhancing drugs to help “give them the edge.” Statistics tell us that over 7 million students participate in high school sports and that just over one (1%) percent of those athletes will receive an athlete scholarship to college, yet the pressure and the competition for those few athlete scholarships is fierce. If we are truly going to make a difference in the lives of millions of kids and young adults, then we must all get on the same page. We must all speak a common language and send a united message that the illegal use of steroids and performance enhancers is cheating and should not and will not be tolerated. We cannot not afford to be naïve about this subject, the marketing of these products is targeting our kids. A California high school athletic director whose young daughter plays youth basketball recently called and directed me to the teams’ web site. At the bottom of their web page were two advertisements, one for “muscle building nutrition” supplements and the other stating “HGH for Athletes.” And this on a web page that is for young girls in grades three (3) through high school in the San Francisco Bay Area. We must educate our parents, students and coaches to the risks, dangers and warning signs. The CIF has developed and sent to all of our member schools this CD Rom that contains a PowerPoint presentation so that school officials and coaches could share this information with their players and parents. But as the science and technology continues to advance, we will look to groups such as USADA to help us so that we can continue to inform our stakeholders. At the high school and youth level, we must also demand that coaches are qualified and trained. In the CIF we believe strongly that coaches are teachers first and just as we would want in every classroom a qualified and certified teacher – the same should hold true for coaches. Without a doubt a student athlete probably spends more time in the presence of their coach than any other individual with the exception of their parents and peers. But these can be only the first steps; Testing at the high school level will be venturing into the unknown frontier as we do not even know what steroids and performance enhancers we should advise schools to test for and the banned substance lists by USADA and the NCAA are a foreign language that high school coaches do not speak or recognize. We have been quoted prices ranging from $25 dollars to hundreds of dollars per test screening. What is reasonable? What do we tell our schools? State Associations will need the help of USADA when and if schools implement testing programs. The marketing of performance enhancing substances is a multi-billion dollar industry, the high schools of the nation, and I can speak specifically for California are going to desperately need the help and guidance of the USADA as we move into this new era that has now reach down to the high school and youth sports level. In closing, I would like to thank the committee for this opportunity to speak before you and to urge you to consider increasing the scope of the mission of USADA and the funding that increasing that scope would entail. Thank You.

• Ms. Kelli White

  U.S. Olympian

  Track and Field
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  Testimony

  Ms. Kelli White

  STATEMENT OF KELLI WHITE Mr. Chairman, esteemed members of the Committee, thank you very much for allowing me the opportunity to appear before this very prestigious group. My name is Kelli White, and I appear here today having made the regrettable mistake of using steroids and other performance enhancing drugs during my athletic career as a sprinter. With my experience and knowledge regarding use of performance enhancing drugs, I welcome the opportunity to assist in the efforts to remove doping from sport. By way of background, I competed in track and field for most of my life, having begun at the age of 10. In my early teen years, I began working with renowned coach Remi Korchemny, who would remain a significant figure in my life over the next decade and a half. I went on to compete collegiately and graduate from the University of Tennessee before turning professional in the year 2000. At that time, I returned home to the Bay area of California and began training full time with Mr. Korchemny. Shortly thereafter, in December, 2000, my coach introduced me to BALCO founder Victor Conte. Conte initially gave me a package containing both legal supplements, as well as a substance which later became known as the clear or the designer steroid THG. At the time, I was unaware that anything I received from Mr. Conte was a prohibited performance enhancing substance as I was told by both my coach and Mr. Conte that the vial they had given me contained flaxseed oil. A few weeks later, Mr. Conte admitted to me that the substance he had given me was indeed not flaxseed oil, but rather a prohibited substance that if not taken properly, could yield a positive drug test. I immediately ceased using the liquid because at that time in my career I did not believe it was necessary to take performance enhancing drugs to be competitive. I competed over the next two years without the use of any performance enhancing substances despite being constantly urged to do so. I was continuously being told that the usage of performance enhancing substances were necessary to be competitive because everyone else was doing so. My 2002 season was very difficult, as I struggled with injuries for most of the year. I had a great deal of uncertainty regarding my status as I entered by the 2003 season, and I did not want to miss it. I failed to make the 2003 Indoor World Team, and was receiving more pressure to start a performance enhancing drug regimen. My advisors were pointing to other performances of athletes, and saying I needed to do what they were doing in order to compete on that level. In March of 2003, I made a choice that I will forever regret. I visited Mr. Conte at his lab which was near my home, and we sat down and devised a program to utilize performance enhancing drugs in my training and competition. At that time, I began taking EPO, the clear (or THG), the cream and stimulants. I remained on this program over the course of four months, and with the help of Mr. Conte, I was able to pass 17 drug tests both in and out of competition while utilizing these prohibited performance enhancing substances. In a relatively short time period, I had gone from being a very competitive sprinter to being the fastest woman in the world! In June 2003, I captured both the 100 and 200-meter United States Championships, and followed that by winning the same events in the World Championships in August in Paris. Although I crossed the finish line first in all of those events, I knew in my heart it was accomplished partially because of the other line I had crossed. Instead of what should have been the high point of my career and a tremendous accomplishment in my life, I was ashamed of the choices I had made. In addition to enhancing my performance on the track, there were other physical effects I encountered while taking this mix of substances. My blood pressure was elevated, and I also experienced an acne problem, increased menstrual cycle and slight vocal chord trouble. The first and only failed drug test I experienced was following the World Championship meet in Paris when a stimulant known as Modafinil was discovered in my urine sample, but the penalty for that substance would not have been even a suspension from track and field. A few weeks after the World Championships, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies raided the BALCO Laboratory. A few months later, I admitted to the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) officials what I had done as I have outlined for you today. I received a two-year ban from competition for my actions, as well as lost all of the results from my previous four years of competition. I also agreed to assist USADA in its mission to clean up sport, and now offer to be of service to this Committee in any way you see fit. I believe athletes who use performance-enhancing drugs are hurting themselves, cheating the public and betraying our youth. A performance-enhancing drug user trades his or her overall health, well-being and integrity for a shot at fame and fortune. I believe it is important that you understand the reasons I made the choice to, in essence, cheat. I strongly believe that the use of steroids and other prohibited performance enhancing drugs are wrong, and the there is no place for such use in sports. However, athletes whom have made that choice are not necessarily bad people. In my own situation, there were many factors contributing to the very poor decision I made which included the influence of a long-time trusted coach. But most importantly, I began using these substances not to give me an advantage, but because I had become convinced I needed to use them to level the playing field with my competitors. It is a very troubling situation when you have trained to compete in a sport at the highest level, but feel those with which you are competing have an unfair advantage. I make neither any excuse nor justification for my horrible choice. I merely hope to lend some understanding to this Committee as to how someone who loved her sport and trained cleanly for most of her life got involved in this awful abuse. My attorney, Jerrold Colton, and I have worked with assisting USADA in its efforts, and we believe this Committee should further support USADA as the fight is a very difficult one. Being mindful that my use of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs was not detected through the extensive testing I received, USADA needs the resources to go further in its fight to detect the people who are breaking the rules. The BALCO scandal may not have been discovered without a competitor’s coach anonymously sending a syringe of THG to the USADA testers which ultimately led to the discovery of this heretofore unknown steroid. Although I have been troubled by the disparity of the penalties facing track athletes versus other sports, I am mindful we are not protected by a players’ association. I appreciate the many reasons why this Committee previously subpoenaed the BALCO documents pertaining only to the track and field athletes and turned them over to USADA rather than the other sports, but would like to see a more equal treatment of all sports. I also believe the roles of some national governing bodies involved in sports and the coaches which either assist in the wrongdoing or turn their backs on what they see must have some responsibility, culpability and penalty for their role in making sport unclean. The fight against drugs in sports is an extremely difficult battle. I am sorry that I cheated myself, my competitors, my sport, my family and the public for the choices I made in the past. As athletes, we know we are role models, and I betrayed my responsibility as such. Please feel free to call on me to play any role I can in assisting your Committee, USADA and anyone else you see fit in this very important matter. I hope in doing so, I help the sport I love more by what I do off the track, than anything I could have ever done on it. Thank you very much for your kind attention and for allowing me to appear here today.

• Mr. Jim Scherr
  Read statement

  Testimony

  Mr. Jim Scherr

  TESTIMONY OF
  JIM SCHERR
  CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
  OF THE
  UNITED STATES OLYMPIC COMMITTEE
  BEFORE THE
  SENATE COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE AND TRANSPORTATION
  
  Tuesday, May 24th, 2005
  10:00 A.M.
  
  Good morning Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee. My name is Jim Scherr and I am the Chief Executive Officer of the United States Olympic Committee. I am here representing the USOC and its entire Board of Directors, whose Chairman, Peter Ueberroth, is currently in Europe. On their behalf I am presenting testimony in support of an authorization for the United States Anti-Doping Agency, known by the acronym “USADA,” an independent entity that the USOC as well as this Committee had a hand in creating back in 2000 to lead the fight against doping in Olympic Sport. Quite simply, in the opinion of the USOC, USADA is doing the job it was created to perform, and in so doing, has become the model national anti-doping organization for the world. It can and should do more, and perhaps it should become a resource for professional and college sports as well, but for it to do more USADA will require additional resources from sources other than the USOC yet to be determined. But before considering the future let me briefly summarize how the USOC and the Senate Commerce Committee brought USADA to this point. On October 20th, 1999, against the backdrop of increasing public and media attention to the issue of performance-enhancing drug use in sports, this Committee conducted a hearing at which a number of experts, athletes, academicians and interested parties testified. Among the witnesses were representatives of the United States Olympic Committee. In their testimony and subsequent exchanges with Committee members, they described the existing drug testing program for U.S. Olympic and Paralympic athletes, noting that with the exception of actual Olympic and Paralympic competition, the USOC was responsible for testing its athletes. They observed that this practice would appear to represent a conflict because the USOC is charged with the responsibility of fielding a team whose objective is to win medals, and one might not have the greatest confidence that this same organization would penalize a potential medal-winner for a drug infraction. But more important, with the development of so-called “designer drugs” that avoided detection by standard analytical means it became apparent that a more professional and sophisticated process for testing would have to be developed and an organization created to conduct a comprehensive ongoing program that would ensure that America’s Olympic and Paralympic athletes would be competing on a level playing field. Describing the findings of a USOC task force that had been formed to address this issue, key recommendations were outlined which included the creation of an external, independent, transparent organization that would conduct a comprehensive anti-doping program on behalf of the USOC. Its responsibilities would include testing, adjudication, education, and research, and would operate with a professional staff under the oversight of a board of directors drawn from the sports, medical, and at-large community. Initial funding would come from the USOC, with the expectation that for this entity to do the job expected of it by the USOC and this Committee, funding would have to come from other sources, primarily the federal government. The proposal was well-received by the Committee, and partially on that basis and with its implicit support, this independent drug agency, soon to be named USADA, was launched, taking complete responsibility for the testing of U.S. Olympic and Paralympic athletes on October 1, 2000. With initial funding provided jointly by the USOC and the federal government, during its first fifteen months USADA conducted nearly 7,000 in-competition athlete drug tests and approximately 3,700 unannounced, out-of-competition tests of American athletes. This was a remarkable accomplishment during what was essentially a start-up period for a new organization that had to establish procedures, develop protocols, and attend to the most basic tasks such as securing office space and building a support staff that could attend to the myriad mechanical and administrative details required to operate in the manner expected of it by the USOC and by Congress. Since that time USADA has expanded its scope of activity, increased its aggressiveness, and greatly improved its overall effectiveness of operation, earning widespread respect both domestically and internationally. In so doing it has largely dispelled what was previously a widespread international impression that some American Olympic athletes were drug cheaters, with their behavior condoned by their respective sports federations. This hearing today as well as ones conducted recently by other Congressional Committees on the issue of doping in professional sports suggests that Congressional leaders believe that the federal government has a role to play in addressing the issue of drug use in sports at all levels. We also think that it does. The reality is that while professional as well as college and Olympic sports are private activities, the actions of the athletes are in the public arena, and have far-reaching social and health consequences. We are in agreement that performance-enhancing drug use has become a national issue that must be attacked at the federal level, with the federal government serving as a major participant, and bringing with it the financial resources to do the job. During the recent hearings on drug testing programs in professional sports it was suggested that perhaps USADA should be expanded to perform the same function for the professional leagues and perhaps the NCAA that it does for the American Olympic Movement. Without addressing the legal, structural, and logistical challenges as well as complicated collective bargaining and other concerns, we believe that the proposal warrants serious consideration. Our experience with USADA has been positive and has freed us up to devote more attention and financial resources to the development and support of American Olympic and Paralympic athletes, and it has brought credibility to our efforts to combat doping in sport as we have led by example. We would expect that other sports bodies would experience similar benefits and, therefore, they would welcome externalizing the whole drug testing and adjudication processes as we have done. But regardless of whether USADA becomes the entity for use by professional and other sports leagues, because the USOC is reaching the limits of its ability to increase its funding of USADA, USADA should receive all the support possible from the federal government so that it can continue its aggressive program that has been so effective in eliminating drug use in Olympic and Paralympic sport, and to expand its research activities that are so important in staying ahead of those who are constantly trying to develop substances intended to defy detection. We thank you for the opportunity to speak in support of USADA today and for the ongoing support and partnership of this Committee in our joint effort to address this important issue. We think that the fruit of this partnership – USADA – has more than fulfilled our early expectations when we first discussed the concept nearly six years ago, and believe that with increased federal support it will become an even more effective weapon to be used to eradicate this growing national problem.