Appendix 3C. .
Verification Programs for Purity and Banned Substances
| Resource |
Description |
| NSF Certified for Sport72 | Includes supplement verification: |
| • Product testing for banned substances and confirmation of label contents | |
| • Formulation and label review | |
| • Production facility and supplier inspections | |
| • Ongoing monitoring | |
| In addition, tests are performed against 164 analytes that could act as banned substances. The process includes 2 facility audits per year, including the other raw ingredients a company has on site and other finished products it manufactures to help ensure no cross-contamination. Product formulation and dosing are also evaluated to avoid any toxicity problems. This certification process includes unannounced plant inspections and ongoing product monitoring. | |
| NSF certifies products and inspects facilities for a range of substances identified by leading sports organizations, such as the National Football League, National Football League Players Association, Major League Baseball, Major League Baseball Players Association, Professional Golf Association, Ladies Professional Golf Association, and Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport. Tested products include stimulants, narcotics, steroids, diuretics, β2-agonists, masking agents, and other substances. | |
| Banned Substances Control Group partnered with Anti-Doping Research Laboratory73 | Process includes |
| • Familiarization with the company history, facilities, and prior concerns and determining whether motivation for seeking approval is true product development or marketing | |
| • Ingredient review of formula sheet, looking for overt banned substances, including alternative names of banned substances | |
| • Unique product validation process in which the product is intentionally spiked with each analyte of interest and tested to identify the substance in the unique matrix of each supplement. This ensures high performance standards and sensitivity of each assay. Product performance varies widely in this step of the process; validation determines the threshold of banned substance the assay can identify | |
| • Product validation is performed once and used for future batch or lot certification; updated only if formula for product changes | |
| Menu of substances includes steroids and stimulants with development of prohormones and search for 56 banned substances. Ingredient competition in the matrix drives the menu of products that can be evaluated accurately, so menu development is unique for each product. New development underway includes β2-agonists and diuretic testing for an additional 30 substances. | |
| Informed-Choice program74 partnered with UK-based HFL Sport Science Testing Laboratory75 | Informed-Sport (HFL) tests products or specific ingredients for more than 200 banned substances that are prohibited by Major League Baseball, National Collegiate Athletic Association, National Football League, and the World Anti-Doping Agency. The substance list is reviewed regularly against current knowledge and updated as necessary. The facility is reviewed for |
| • Product/ingredient evaluation | |
| • Raw material evaluation at each production or packing site | |
| • Raw material supplier assessment procedures | |
| • Certificate and standard operating procedure review for all production, packing, and storage areas | |
| • Label claim, purity, and contaminant testing review | |
| • Third-party manufacturer | |
| Before a product or ingredient can be registered with Informed-Choice, 5 samples (from 3 batches) are tested and must be free of prohibited substances. Informed-Choice independently purchases and samples registered products. |