If you're a team doctor, clinician, or federation medical staff, you probably already use Global DRO. This page is a side-by-side for clinicians weighing tools. Full disclosure: we publish FairMed — we tried to be fair; read with that in mind and form your own view.
Global DRO is the best substance lookup when you know exactly which substance to check and you're covered by one of the 4 participating countries (Canada, Japan, Switzerland, UK, USA). It is a lookup tool, maintained by national anti-doping organizations.
FairMed covers substance lookup too — with the WADA 2026 list directly — and adds the clinical layer around it: AUT/TUE pathway reasoning, in-competition washout calculator, supplement contamination risk, AI-assisted clinical chat with WADA citations, and LATAM-specific ONAD directory. Reviewed by SPMD physicians. Multilingual (EN / ES / PT).
Use both. DRO remains the authoritative lookup in its participating countries. FairMed fills the clinical-workflow and regulatory-reasoning gap.
| Capability | Global DRO | FairMed |
|---|---|---|
| Substance lookup by brand name | ✓Canada, Japan, Switzerland, UK, USA product DBs | ✓WADA 2026 list + LATAM pharmacy cross-reference (medication-scanner.html) |
| WADA Prohibited List coverage | ≈Indirect via product DB | ✓Direct in EN/ES/PT-BR, 480+ substances |
| AUT/TUE decision pathway | ✗Not covered | ✓10-condition wizard with documents, alternatives, CAS precedents |
| In-competition washout window | ✗Not covered | ✓20-substance calculator with route-dependent clearance (WADA 2022 guidance) |
| Supplement contamination risk | ✗Not covered | ✓Risk score, certifications, known contaminants |
| Penalties + CAS precedents | ✗Not covered | ✓11 violation types, 8 CAS precedents, mitigating factors |
| AI clinical chat with WADA citations | ✗Not covered | ✓AXIS Core with source-cited responses (WADA Code, ISTUE, ISL) |
| Clinical review layer | ✓National ADO authority | ✓SPMD physician board (Panamanian Society of Sports Medicine) |
| LATAM coverage | ✗Not served | ✓32 ONAD directory, ES + PT-BR content |
| Regulatory document watch | ✗Manual | ✓Weekly DocWatcher scans WADA + alerts on new standards |
| PDF export of consultation | ✗Not available | ✓Pro+ plans |
| Clinic / federation deployment | ✗Public website only | ✓Institutional plans, REST API, white-label |
| Languages | ≈EN, FR, JP, DE | ✓EN, ES, PT (native, not machine-translated) |
| Cost | ✓Free | ✓Free to explore · Pro $29/mo · Institutional on request |
If you practice in Canada, Japan, Switzerland, UK, or USA and you only need to verify whether a specific branded product contains a prohibited substance — DRO is excellent and free. It's backed by the national ADO itself, and the product database is directly maintained by that authority.
If you need the clinical reasoning around the substance — "does this patient need a TUE?", "can I prescribe this before competition?", "what's the washout?", "is this supplement a contamination risk?" — DRO isn't designed for that. FairMed is. And if you practice in LATAM, Portugal, or any Spanish/Portuguese-speaking context, FairMed is multilingual-native with ES and PT-BR content, plus the only tool with a 32-country ONAD directory.
Global DRO is a reliable lookup tool inside its 5-country scope. FairMed is a clinical decision support platform — it covers the lookup, then layers AUT/TUE reasoning, washout windows, supplement risk, AI chat with citations, and institutional workflow. For a sports physician in LATAM, Europe, or any multilingual context, FairMed fills the gap DRO doesn't address.