Well, they say that if it appears in the NY Times, it has officially “arrived.” And so it appears that nutritional supplement use by athletes has, on this day in history, found its place in the pages of the paper of record. See: Just Say Yes: U.S.O.C. Hires a Maker of Nutritional Supplements and Requires Testing
The U.S.O.C. recently reached the agreement with Ajinomoto, a Japanese food company, to market an amino-acid replacement product called Amino Vital…As a part of the agreement, Ajinomoto agreed to have every batch of Amino Vital tested by the U.C.L.A. laboratory, the only World Anti-Doping Agency-approved lab in the U.S. Ajinomoto pays for the costs of the testing, which screens for every substance on the International Olympic Committee’s banned list. The U.S.O.C. receives the results of every test.
So far, three batches have been tested over the last four weeks and the U.S.O.C. said the initial tests have all come back clean. The U.S.O.C. has taken this step with a certain amount of trepidation, particularly with the Olympic Games looming in February, when failed drug tests are vaulted into front-page news. There is a long history of athletes’ blaming contaminated supplements for those failed tests.
About Joel Rothman
Joel B. Rothman represents clients in intellectual property infringement litigation involving patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, defamation, trade libel, unfair competition, unfair and deceptive trade practices, and commercial matters. Joel’s litigation practice also includes significant focus on electronic discovery issues such as e-discovery management and motion practice relating to e-discovery.
