YOU CAN TAKE COVID VACCINES SAFELY: WADA

Speaking to Reuters TV from Montreal on Thursday (February 4), WADA’s Senior Executive Director, Sciences and International Partnerships, Dr Olivier Rabin, said there was “no reason to believe” materials contained in vaccines would provoke a positive when athletes were tested for performance enhancing drugs.

His words come ahead of a busy 12 months for the agency, which will oversee anti-doping measures at two Olympic games, in Tokyo (summer) and Beijing (winter).

Photo: Reuters

Video Transcript

OLIVER RABIN: “We have no reason to believe that there would be any interference of the vaccines with an anti-doping test. I mean, there are several reasons for that. I mean, first of all, the technology that is being used– having vaccines are not new, of course. And we know what an immune reaction is to vaccines.

The only element that is a bit new is that they are two vaccines, namely the Moderna one and the Pfizer-BioNTech one that are based on new technologies, namely mRNA that is encapsulated in lipid nanoparticles. So this technology is a little bit new. And the list of prohibited substances and methods does refer to the prohibition of injecting nucleotides in the body for athletes.

So we looked into this. But I mean, this doesn’t violate the rules, first of all. The excipients that are used for the vaccines are well-known to us, and none of them are prohibited. The only element we are just verifying now to be absolutely sure is that there is no cross-reaction post-vaccines between a protein and some of the anti-doping tests we are using.”

 

MORE ON:   https://news.yahoo.com/covid-vaccines-safely-wada-084658605.html 

SOURCE:     REUTERS       

PUBLISHED: February 05, 2021