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Treating or Cheating? The TUE Question

Recent fallout over the hacking of the World Anti-Doping Agency’s athlete medical data files has been far-reaching. Most of the world now knows which champion athletes have competed using a therapeutic use exemption, or TUE; the use of doctor-prescribed medication in and/or out of competition.  Despite this unfair invasion of the athletes’ privacy by a hacking group called Fancy Bears, the old ethical question has again been raised – as to whether the TUE is a progressive development to preserve health and equitable career opportunities, or whether it is simply another loop-hole which can be exploited by certain athletes to win at any cost. Cycling, like many other sports overseen by the WADA codes, allows athletes to receive TUEs from their respective national anti-doping organizations, but only after rigorous medical testing and diagnosis confirmation. The most recognizable examples...

Black and white anti-doping fight nears stalemate – here’s how to break it

(Editors’ Note:  This guest editorial is written by anti-doping researcher, Dr. Paul Dimeo, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Health Sciences and Sport at the University of Stirling, in the United Kingdom.) The world of anti doping in sport sometimes feels like a battle between opposing forces on the same side. The debate has become polarised between those advocating zero tolerance and those who want to accept performance enhancement as a reality to be managed. The latest leak claiming to reveal the banned substances cleared by sporting authorities for use on medical grounds by top athletes might offer us one route to a middle way in all this. Perhaps total transparency about these so-called therapeutic use exemptions (TUEs) might work? The past few months have witnessed a glut of scandals reminiscent of the crises of the 1990s that led to the creation of the World Anti Doping...