No vaccine worry - Former JAAA president doesn’t anticipate adverse findings in COVID-19 prevention medicines
Published:Tuesday | December 15, 2020 | 12:16 AMDaniel Wheeler/Staff Reporter
Former Jamaica Athletic Administrative Association (JAAA) President Dr Warren Blake says that he does not anticipate anti-doping challenges for athletes who take the coronavirus vaccine whenever it becomes available.
His comments come as the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) recently clarified its stance on the matter with regard to concerns that its composition could contain substances on its ‘List of Prohibited Substances and Methods’ and lead to doping violations.
International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach recently encouraged athletes to get vaccinated ahead of the rescheduled Tokyo Olympics, which are scheduled for July 2021. The games were postponed in March because of the pandemic and Bach says that COVID-19 vaccinations would not be an entry requirement to participate.
With the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine becoming the first to be approved and administered, Blake, a general physician, says that he does not foresee complications with adverse findings for athletes if they take it because vaccines do not contain pharmaceutical substances.
“As far as I know from an anti-doping point of view, they have no banned substances,” Blake told The Gleaner. “It would be just like a flu vaccine and should not pose an anti-doping challenge.”
WADA said on December 11 that it will monitor all information regarding all vaccines and would provide guidance to its members if an adverse finding is detected. However, it does not anticipate such a scenario.
THE PRIMARY CONCERN
“The health of athletes is this primary concern of WADA during this pandemic, and they can rest assured that in the highly unlikely event that a vaccine may cause a possible anti-doping rule violation under the World Anti-Doping Code, WADA’s oversight of any subsequent results management will ensure that vaccines and the principles of anti-doping do not come into conflict.” WADA said. “To be clear, despite the novelty of these vaccines, there is no reason to believe such vaccines would contravene anti-doping rules.”
Jamaica Anti-Doping Commission Chairman Alexander Williams says that they would be guided by any changes that WADA makes in such situations. When asked what should be part of the guidance for those incidents, he said that WADA could make provisions to the banned list of substances.
“They would need to make a concession, I would think, on the prohibited list,” Williams said. “I would expect that the executive committee of WADA would need to meet very quickly and do the necessary adjustments to the prohibitive list.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is the only one that is approved and recommended to prevent COVID-19. AstraZeneca, Janssen, and Moderna are three other vaccines still undergoing trials.