Why do we test? The use of performance enhancing substances has plagued professional sport in recent years, if not decades. Athletics has seen the greatest share of sports men and women fall from grace, but athletics is not the only sport to suffer from this curse. In the soccer world, various athletes have been tested positive and also sports where doping seamed to be no topic at all, such as cricket. Athletes have frequently claimed their innocence and protested the validity of positive results from tests of banned substances. Athletes have blamed the presence of steroids such as nandrolone and the stimulant ephedrine on inadvertent consumption through other substances, be it medication or a nutritional supplement. Such loud protestations of innocence in the media from athletes have called the purity of sports supplements into question. Claims of innocence from athletes have been backed up in research conducted by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). In 2002 the IOC tested 634 supplements to find that 15% contained banned substances, and none of the products listed any steroid as an ingredient. With this evidence and help from the media, consumer confidence in the contents of nutritional supplements has dramatically decreased and raised question to an ever growing and important industry to the sporting world. Even though EAS was not one of the companies found to have banned substances in their products; ensuring the purity and quality of products has demanded increased vigilance over suppliers, ingredients, equipment and production processes. EAS has even gone so far as to have their own products tested for banned substances before they are marketed and sold. EAS works in cooperation with one of the world's largest anti-doping laboratories, which tests products for banned substances, i.e., steroids and stimulants, that should not be in the products. The tests are performed using state of the art mass spectrometric detection, which produces highly discriminating results and can detect substances down to 10 nanograms per gram, or 10 parts per billion. Control samples, containing the drugs covered by the tests, are analysed alongside every batch of samples to ensure the procedures are performing correctly. The laboratory and testing service used by EAS is currently the only one of its kind in the UK to be accredited by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS). These tests, while costly, provide reassurance to EAS and its customers that their products are free from contamination from substances that could potentially cause a positive urine test taken under IOC rules. Products that are found to deliver a positive test result, provides EAS the opportunity to investigate the processes and supply chain involved in production and determine why a positive result has occurred and stop the release the product into the market. While EU legislation is being introduced to cover the contents of herbal medicines, the production and contents of sports supplements, EAS as the industry leader is taking steps beyond what is required today - and may be required tomorrow.
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