WADA Prohibited List

The World Anti-Doping Agency Prohibited List is the international standard that defines what is banned in sport. It is revised annually through a consultation cycle, published around the start of October, and takes effect the following first of January, so the applicable version is the one in force on the date of sample collection rather than the current one. Substances enter the list when at least two of three criteria are met: potential to enhance performance, actual or potential health risk to the athlete, and violation of the spirit of sport.

Some classes are prohibited at all times, in and out of competition; others only in competition; a few apply only in particular sports. For peptides the governing section covers peptide hormones, growth factors, related substances and mimetics, and is prohibited at all times, capturing growth hormone and its releasing factors, growth hormone secretagogues, erythropoietin-receptor agonists, chorionic gonadotropin in male athletes, and insulins. A separate opening class sweeps in any pharmacological substance with no current approval by any governmental regulatory health authority for human therapeutic use, which is what places most research-only peptides squarely inside the list without their being named.

That catch-all is the practically important feature. An athlete cannot conclude that a compound is permitted because it does not appear by name; unapproved status is itself sufficient, and novel analogues are covered on the day they are synthesised.

The related misreading is treating the list as a safety classification or as a statement about efficacy. It is neither. Inclusion means the criteria were met in the judgement of an expert group, and exclusion means only that a substance has not been listed, which is a statement about sport regulation, not about efficacy or safety.