US Drug czar blasts World Anti-Doping Agency over proposed changes that could undermine Olympics

Drug czar Sara Carter blasted the World Anti-Doping Agency in a letter published Monday over proposed changes it could make this week that she argued would “undermine the trustworthiness of the performances of competitors” at future Olympics.

Carter sent an open letter to WADA and its stakeholders ahead of its planned meeting on Tuesday, where its executive committee is expected to discuss recommendations from a “working group” made in the wake of a doping case involving Chinese swimmers.

The United States is not expected to attend the executive committee's meeting because it failed to pay its dues to WADA, according to the Associated Press.

Among the recommendations expected to be discussed at the meeting is transferring some testing responsibilities to an independent agency and away from a host country's anti-doping agency, which would be the United States in the next Olympics.

“The robust and vigorous participation of [National Anti-Doping Operations] in the anti-doping ecosystem is of particular importance to the United States as we strive to ensure the cleanest Olympic and Paralympic Games ever,” Carter wrote.

"The solution to WADA’s past failures is not to tie the hands of operationally independent NADOs and burden them and their governments with unfunded WADA mandates," she continued. "As the United States has consistently maintained, the best way for WADA to restore trust would be to submit to an operational audit of WADA by independent experts and auditors."

WADA spokesman James Fitzgerald rejected Carter's assertion that the recommendation would weaken or undermine the trustworthiness of performances in future Olympics in a statement to the Associated Press.

“The working group’s objective and recommendations are designed to strengthen the independence and credibility of the anti-doping process, including at major events,” Fitzgerald said.

He added that the panel is not expected to vote on the recommendations at Tuesday's meeting, but merely discuss them. 

Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.