Dr. Clive Pearce:

However, the vast majority do not have such concentrations, so it is up to each laboratory to cover those 2,500 or 3,000 molecules as best and as sensitively as we can.

Zilpaterol, which is where interest lay last year, is a known feed contaminant, but not in Europe. It had not really been raised as an issue in Europe prior to 2020, which was the first time zilpaterol was detected by a laboratory as a feed contaminant in Europe. Zilpaterol is a banned substance.

As I said, laboratories are encouraged to report concentrations as low as possible for such substances. Modification of doping control labs is required in order to detect many hundreds of such prohibited substances, particularly if it is constant, but every lab uses a range of what we call multi-residue methods. There is potential within those methods to focus on particular areas and drugs but there are usually trade-offs. A lab has to work conscious of the fact it is trying to cover as many substances as possible in this multi-residue method. It simply cannot set up methods to detect 3,000 separate compounds. It has to bolt them together in multi-residue methods.

Prior to 2020, LGC's routine methods were capable of detecting zilpaterol in, typically, two to three weeks in urine. That is how the method was set up. When LGC was made aware of LCH's findings, we quickly assessed, in collaboration with LCH, our detection capabilities. We discovered that while we were detecting at about one part per billion, which is a very low concentration, typically giving coverage for three to three and a half weeks, LCH had better methods set up, at about five times greater sensitivity. As soon as we were made aware of that issue, we took it on board and adjusted our method in order that we could be at least as sensitive as LCH, in the space of 48 hours. At the same time, there was a great deal of international interest. The issue was discussed at the advisory council of the IFHA, and within EHSLC. Internationally, within a matter of weeks, agreed reporting levels were decided for zilpaterol in both urine and blood. LGC, LCH, the other European labs and labs throughout the world are now operating to those reporting levels. That is a good example, in many ways, of how communication and collaboration among the regulators and testing laboratories can adjust to an incident or threat, and that is exactly what we do. All the time, through the various racing and analytical bodies we are involved with, we pick up intelligence, act on it and adjust and refine our methodologies in order that we counter these incidents and the new threats to the integrity of racing and the safety of competitors.

That is how it all works. It works through communication. LGC, as one of the world's major racing laboratories, is at the heart of much of that communication and collaboration, in both our testing programmes and our extensive research programmes.