tdavie
Unconscious Objector
Maybe not successfully, but.....
As someone who doesn't have to worry about drug testing (we're not allowed to be tested at work, and even if I did fail a test I would only be referred to an EAP Employee Assistance Program while I was placed on paid disability leave) it never occurred to me that some might find this useful. I'm basing this on knowledge that I've gathered while working in a lab since 1981; since 1990 as a means of putting food on the table. Worked with HPLC since 1990, and actively with GC since Nov/2004.
I'm assuming a failed screening test that is Immunobased, and a failed subsequent lab analysis involving GC.
1) Ask for the manufacturing date of the radio immunoassay kit; they do have an expiry date.
2) If you've failed a lab based Gas Chromatography test answer every from here on.
-was the GC operator formally trained? (I wasn't)
-did the GC operator ever have to have someone else solve an equipment problem for him/her?
-how was the GC standardized (a single standard run simultaneously? an entire standard curve run simultaneously? by reference to a previously run standard/set of standards?)
-what was the determined level of the compound that caused you to fail? (No GC that isn't properly maintained or serviced is capable of better than +/- 10% reproducibility. If your determined level of 'x' is 52 and the definition of pass is 50% for a level of 'x' I would not testify in a court of law that you were above 50.
-Then if they have retained your sample, ask how it was stored, and under what security conditions (a previous lab I worked in had 100% Cocaine HCL, Flourofentanyl, Morphine Sulfate and a 10 mg vial of LSD in a simple locked cabinet inside of a locked lab inside of a rarely locked building with NO electronic security).
-If your samples was run as part if a group of samples, ask if there were problems with ANY of the other samples run during that set.
-Ask if the lab measured the pH, specific gravity or ran any other analyses on your sample.
-Finally, ask if the sample was secured at all times or was EVER left unsupervised even in a locked lab. I had a brand new pipette that went walking iver lunchtime once and all that could be said is 1/40 people who had access could have taken it, so we didn't even raise the issue.
I hope that no one ever has to use this information, but labs can and do make mistakes. All the time.
Tom
As someone who doesn't have to worry about drug testing (we're not allowed to be tested at work, and even if I did fail a test I would only be referred to an EAP Employee Assistance Program while I was placed on paid disability leave) it never occurred to me that some might find this useful. I'm basing this on knowledge that I've gathered while working in a lab since 1981; since 1990 as a means of putting food on the table. Worked with HPLC since 1990, and actively with GC since Nov/2004.
I'm assuming a failed screening test that is Immunobased, and a failed subsequent lab analysis involving GC.
1) Ask for the manufacturing date of the radio immunoassay kit; they do have an expiry date.
2) If you've failed a lab based Gas Chromatography test answer every from here on.
-was the GC operator formally trained? (I wasn't)
-did the GC operator ever have to have someone else solve an equipment problem for him/her?
-how was the GC standardized (a single standard run simultaneously? an entire standard curve run simultaneously? by reference to a previously run standard/set of standards?)
-what was the determined level of the compound that caused you to fail? (No GC that isn't properly maintained or serviced is capable of better than +/- 10% reproducibility. If your determined level of 'x' is 52 and the definition of pass is 50% for a level of 'x' I would not testify in a court of law that you were above 50.
-Then if they have retained your sample, ask how it was stored, and under what security conditions (a previous lab I worked in had 100% Cocaine HCL, Flourofentanyl, Morphine Sulfate and a 10 mg vial of LSD in a simple locked cabinet inside of a locked lab inside of a rarely locked building with NO electronic security).
-If your samples was run as part if a group of samples, ask if there were problems with ANY of the other samples run during that set.
-Ask if the lab measured the pH, specific gravity or ran any other analyses on your sample.
-Finally, ask if the sample was secured at all times or was EVER left unsupervised even in a locked lab. I had a brand new pipette that went walking iver lunchtime once and all that could be said is 1/40 people who had access could have taken it, so we didn't even raise the issue.
I hope that no one ever has to use this information, but labs can and do make mistakes. All the time.
Tom
