The Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) are clear how the drug testing laboratories under their jurisdiction must be operationally independent and free from any potential conflict of interests.According to HISA, these Laboratories “shall be administratively and operationally independent from any organization or person(s) that could exert undue pressure on the Laboratory and affect the impartial execution of its tasks and operations.”For WADA, the reason for this operational independence is to “avoid potential conflicts of interest and ensure full confidence in the Laboratory's competence, impartiality, judgment and operational integrity.”The dual roles that former Horseracing Integrity and Safety Unit's (HIWU) general counsel Michelle Pujals executed as both regulator and as a board director for the non-profit that purchased the lab that took over drug testing out of the University of Kentucky appear to violate these rules and, according to governmental ethics experts, raise serious conflict of interest concerns.HIWU is the anti-doping and medication control enforcement arm of HISA.In July of 2022 when Pujals assumed the role of HIWU's general counsel, she joined the board of directors for the non-profit Sports Medicine Research and Testing Laboratory (SMRTL), which provides drug testing research and development services.According to business filings and legal documents, SMRTL purchased and owns the Equine Integrity and Anti-Doping Sciences (EQIAS) Lab, which took over drug testing responsibilities out of the University of Kentucky after the collapse of the university's former lab under director Scott Stanley.In August 2025, the EQIAS Lab was granted probationary accreditation to start conducting drug testing for HIWU after a months-long process to seek this formal approval. Pujals retired from HIWU this past June.Guadalupe Hayes-Mota, director of the bioethics program at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, explained that Pujals had a “fiduciary responsibility to the [SMRTL] nonprofit. So, she needs to act in the best interest of the nonprofit itself.”As the general counsel for HIWU, however, “her responsibility is to uphold the standards” of the regulator, said Hayes-Mota.“How could she actually have loyalties to both places?” said Hayes-Mota, describing it as a “strong conflict of interest.”HISA and HIWU have so far paid EQIAS Labs approximately $1.6 million, according to the two agencies.The decision by HIWU to use SMRTL President Daniel Eichner as an expert witness in several anti-doping and medication control cases, while initially failing to clearly disclose his ties to the EQIAS lab, also raises a similar conflict of interest and transparency questions according to ethics experts.Janelle Winston, who took over as HIWU's general counsel in May, disagreed that conflicts of interest existed in Pujals's dual roles, or in the way HIWU used Eichner as an expert witness.“It doesn't exist. There's no there there,” said Winston. “In the same way that you found two people to say that they think it's a conflict, we could just as easily find two experts that say it's not.”In the background of this issue is a key storyline that punctuated HISA and HIWU's nascent years as federal regulators.In March 2024, HISA and HIWU opened an investigation into the Equine Analytical Chemistry Lab (EACL) based out of the University of Kentucky after concerns arose concerning the facility's performance under Stanley.Subsequent investigative reports from HISA and HIWU and from the University of Kentucky identified multiple issues with the lab under Stanley's direction, including failure to perform mandatory confirmation analysis and the intentional misrepresentations of positive tests as negative.The UK fired Stanley in September of 2025. By that time, SMRTL president Eichner had purchased the university's laboratory and established the EQIAS Lab under the business auspices of Eagle Diagnostics, according to business filings and legal documents.The business ties between SMRTL and the lab currently operating out of the University of Kentucky is clouded somewhat by an acronym soup of different business names. These names include Eagle Diagnostics, the Sports Drug Testing Laboratory and the EQIAS Lab.As outlined across multiple legal documents filed by the defendant's counsel in HIWU's case against trainer Christopher Fung–who was facing charges related to a clenbuterol positive–Eichner allegedly signed a transfer agreement to purchase the UK Lab's assets listing the Sports Drug Testing Laboratory as D/B/A (doing business as) Eagle Diagnostics.In its 2025 tax filing, SMRTL is listed as the sole owner of the Sports Drug Testing Laboratory.Another legal filing in Fung's case dated October 2025 details Eichner's conflicting testimony concerning the professional and financial relationship between SMRTL and the EQIAS Lab.“At times, Dr. Eichner would acknowledge that Eagle Diagnostics and EQIAS were wholly owned by SMRTL, but then would attempt to state that the performance of Eagle Diagnostics and EQIAS had no bearing on the financials of SMRTL,” according to the legal documents filed by Fung's counsel challenging Eichner's impartiality.“Dr. Eichner also attempted to claim separation of interests due to SMRTL's non-profit status, yet at the same time acknowledged that Eagle Diagnostics and EQIAS were revenue producing entities owned by SMRTL,” according to the filing.Eichner is also the president of Eagle Diagnostics.HIWU similarly claims that SMRTL and EQIAS Lab are connected but separate entities.“Eagle Diagnostics has its own separate board of directors, of which Pujals is not a member. SMRTL's board members, including Pujals, are not involved in the daily activities of EQIAS and do not provide oversight of its management in any way,” wrote HIWU in an email.It's unclear who sits on Eagle Diagnostic's board of directors. For one, this information does not appear readily available online. When asked, HIWU referred TDN to Eagle Diagnostics directly.When the TDN called Eagle Diagnostics, SMRTL's Chief Operating Officer Thane Campbell answered. He explained he worked for Eagle Diagnostics but wasn't accepting questions by the media at that time, and he didn't know who at the company was handling such enquiries.Neither Eichner nor Travis Mays, the director of the EQIAS Lab, responded to multiple attempts to seek comment, including to name the Eagle Diagnostics board of directors.In her interview with TDN, Winston also argued that “SMRTL had nothing to do with buying EQIAS.”In a follow-up email, HIWU asked for documentation illustrating where Eichner “allegedly stated” that SMRTL owns EQIAS. The TDN shared the legal documents and business filings illustrating this connection. HIWU acknowledged the email but did not provide any further response.In its “Closing Book of Evidence” in the Fung case, HIWU inserts portions of Eichner's testimony in which he admits the documents provided by Fung's legal team show the initial bid to purchase the UK Lab “was submitted by and awarded to SMRTL.”During his testimony, Eichner admits “there was a concern that SMRTL would not be able to retain its 501(c)(3) status if it purchased and operated the UK Lab,” according to HIWU's closing book of evidence.“To the best of my recollection and understanding,” Eichner adds in the filing, “it was never intended that SMRTL would be the entity that purchased the UK Lab.”In 2025, Eichner was paid $581,028 and compensated an additional $41,086 bonus by SMRTL. Tax filings show that Eichner's bonuses were based on a review by the SMRTL board of directors, of which Pujals was a member.Tax filings show Pujals was compensated $4,500 for her position on the SMRTL board in 2025.Central Washington University's Matthew Altman, who sits on the board of the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics, a national body geared around the education and advancement of professional ethics, said that standard practice would have been for Pujals to step off the SMRTL board or at least recuse herself when the company considered purchasing the Kentucky lab.The actual purchase then exacerbated the potential conflict, Altman added. “I just don't know why she would stay on the board, given this relationship,” he said.At the bare minimum, Pujals should have recused herself from any cases involving samples processed by the EQIAS lab, said Hayes-Mota.If she didn't, “it puts into question the scientific integrity and accountability” of the samples processed by that lab, said Hayes-Mota.Contacted through HIWU, Pujals declined to speak for the story.Instead, HIWU wrote that Pujals was not required to recuse herself from any of the cases where samples had been processed by the EQIAS lab.“She did not represent HIWU before arbitrators in specific cases; rather, she oversaw overall operations of the HIWU legal department,” explained HIWU.When asked about the remit of the general counsel's role, however, Winston admitted in an interview that it's “possible” Pujals could have discussed the specifics, and offered her guidance and expert opinion, on any of these cases with the litigating attorneys.“But those attorneys have the same ethical obligations as any other attorney on the planet, and they make their own decisions on their cases and litigate them as they see fit, same as they do now,” Winston added.As for the way HIWU used the services of Eichner as an expert witness, it doesn't matter if the SMRTL board doesn't oversee the day-to-day operations of the EQIAS lab, said Altman.“All that matters is whether there's a benefit or potential benefit. That's what introduces the conflict,” said Altman.“He benefits from being hired by HIWU, and HIWU benefits by hiring him as an expert witness, so he has a financial stake in the case,” said Altman. “The other way to think about this is, imagine if the other side wanted to bring in Eichner as an expert witness for them. He has an incentive not to do that.”Eichner has testified as an expert witness for HIWU in about a half dozen anti-doping and medication control cases.“HIWU will continue to utilize Dr. Eichner as an expert witness in future cases, as appropriate,” wrote HIWU when asked.Bernard Taylor, the arbitrator in Fung's case, ultimately denied the trainer's attempts to disqualify Eichner's testimony noting, among other arguments, how the SMRTL president's “misrepresentations regarding his independence and relationship with EQIAS” were beyond the agreed-upon scope of the briefing.According to HIWU, Pujals's ties with the SMRTL board had no bearing on her retirement this past June.Hayes-Mota suggested the HISA Authority should review its program-wide conflict of interest policies.Without clear such policies that are strictly adhered to, warned Hayes-Mota, “their credibility is going to erode with the public.”Winston, however, argued that such an internal review is not necessary.“We constantly review all of our cases, all of the people that we interact with, to make sure that there is no conflict, and we'll continue to do that,” said Winston. “This is not a basis for us to do anything additional, because we've already determined that there wasn't a conflict.”The post The EQIAS Lab, The General Counsel and the Conflicts of Interest Concerns appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.