New Agency To Bust Drug Cheats -- April 17, 2000

Boston, MA - The new head of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, Terry Madden, says his new agency will conduct more than 5,000 tests on athletes next year and will have the power to punish the athletes. "We will protect the innocent but we're going to catch the cheaters and we're going to aggressively prosecute those athletes," Madden said at the USOC's executive committee meeting on Friday. The agency will have a budget of more than $6 million in its first year, including $2 million in research to come up with better tests for existing performance-enhancing drugs and to stay up to speed with new drugs that might come along.