Database should benefit athletes

A NEW booklet will help to minimise the dangers of sportsmen and women taking substances which could find them in hot water for taking illegal substances.

MIMS, the monthly index of all prescription products for doctors and pharmacists, is in the process of preparing a database for Over The Counter (OTC) products which will prove invaluable for sports people and others who take nutritional or vitamin supplements.

In recent years, some athletes who have tested positive for illegal substances, have blamed contaminated nutritional supplements.

Doctor Conor O’Brien, who heads the Irish Sports Council’s Anti-Doping Committee, warned last week that this meant if an athlete took a supplement he or she stood a one in five chance of testing positive for a prohibited substance. He said fit, healthy athletes did not need supplements.

However, many continue to do so and the move by MIMS to set up a database will prove invaluable.

“It is an enormous task because every company has to be contacted and, logistically, it will not be possible to update it every month because they change so frequently,” managing editor of MIMS Ireland Arlene Wall says. “But we are hoping to have it together towards the end of the year.

“We don’t know yet who will have access to the database and that is something we will need to talk to the Sports Council about. Our remit is to put the database together and at the moment we are working on that.”

What she described as nutricuticals were becoming very fashionable and said that, along with herbal supplements, this was a grey area.

“Herbals are not regulated and, in some cases, even the standard of manufacture might be questionable,” she said.

Any prescription medicine or licensed OTC’s are subject to rigorous requirements. Prescription products now carry colour coded symbols to indicate whether or not a product is permitted in sport.

John Treacy, chief executive of the Irish Sports Council, said yesterday a database such as this was to be welcomed as it was in everybody’s interest to be informed on such things.

“Our policy is that we don’t encourage people to take supplements,” he said. “We would say if a person feels he or she is unwell or needs a tonic or something like that, they should go to their doctor.”

He said it had not been decided who would have access to the data base but stressed that it was important people who take supplements should know what they are taking.