In this section...
Every Autumn the World Anti Doping Agency publish changes to the prohibited list of medications.
The most recent changes which will come into place on 1st January 2010 have quite a major effect for good and for bad.
Category S.3 Beta2antagonists
These are the drugs that are widely used in asthma. Use of Salbutamol (trade name might include Ventolin) and Salmeterol (trade name might include Serotide) will no longer require a therapeutic usage exemption (TUE) certificate but will need a declaration of use on the website.
Address for the website is 
www.ukad.org.uk/forms/declaration/
However excess doses may trigger a threshold testing but this is unlikely in normal circumstances. This will be good news for those that suffer from Asthma, exercise induced asthma or exercise induced bronchial constriction, but some athletes will be on Terbutaline (trade name Bricanyl) and Efmometerol (trade name Oxis) will still need a therapeutic usage exemption certificate with appropriate testing.
Stimulant Category
In the stimulant category there are 3 extra amphetamine derivatives have been added to the list. This is unlikely to have any effect on any SIS Athlete.
Still in the stimulant area, one piece of bad news is that pseudoephedrine (one of the major ingredients in many common cold cures such as Sudafed) is being re introduced as a banned substance at a threshold level for in-competition testing. Most pseudoephedrine cold cures can be used safely away from competition but my advice would be to stop well away from an actual competition, three to four days before.
The logic of a threshold is that low doses would be acceptable in a competition test but there are some published papers that suggest that the combination of exercise and or exercise and dehydration may put even a normal dose over the threshold.
Hence my advice of do not take pseudoephedrine within three days of competition.
If you do have a cold or flu Paracetamol and Olbas Oil are still perfectly safe.
If there are any questions about this please get in touch with Doctor Brian Walker at the SIS.
