COLORADO SPRINGS — News5 has learned some of the nation's leaders in testing athletes for performance enhancing drugs are now shifting funding and resources to fight the Coronavirus. This important research is being funded by Colorado Springs based Partnership For Clean Competition.
Scientists are learning more about Coronavirus every day. The goal is to eventually have enough information to help us defeat it. In Colorado Springs, an organization that helps to fund testing of some of the world's best athletes is now funding research that could be a game changer.
"To work with the lab partners that we work with regularly and to work with the sports leagues that fund the wonderful research that we do, but to do it for public health," said Partnership For Clean Competition Executive Director Michael Pearlmutter.
Colorado Springs based Partnership For Clean Competition is now funding crucial lab research in the fight against COVID-19. The non-profit formed by the U.S. Olympic Committee and other major American sports leagues funds lab research in testing and detecting athletes who cheat by doping or using performance enhancing drugs. Now, their focus is more information on the reach of Coronavirus.
"To provide the data that's necessary to understand what the a symptomatic population of the United States looks like through a 15,000 sample sized study all over the country," said Pearlmutter. "So that we can make decisions as to how fast it is spreading, where it is going, what we need to do for future policy."
The testing and lab work is being led by Doctor Daniel Eichner in Salt Lake City.
"So these will be regular people. These aren't people going into the hospital for testing. These aren't elite atheletes they are general population people," said Dr. Eichner, who works at the Sports Medicine Research and Testing Laboratory in Utah.
Colorado residents will be well represented in the nationwide testing. Doctor Eichner says it's research that could be crucial in charting a course to deal with COVID-19.
"Here's an example of sport giving back to public health and to the regular community," said Dr. Eichner. "It couldn't be a better partnership and I couldn't be more excited to be involved and honestly the initiatives that the Parnership For Clean Competition has been doing in Colorado is huge and it's going to have nationwide and worldwide attention when this data comes out."
News5 is told testing that's part of this research is getting underway this week and the experts hope to have much more information about Coronavirus in the days to come.
For more on the study and the work being done: Click Here
