The Need to Confirm Urine Drug Screens
A pH strip can help an employer to detect a urine sample that could give a false negative result. That fact has uncovered attempts by some employees to disguise their drug use during a number of urine drug screens. Yet a pH strip can not reveal the ability of a sample to give a false positive result. That is why employers are cautioned against a reliance on the results their urine drug screens. The following article provides details on the confirmatory tests that employers should turn to, in order to obtain the needed confirmation of a positive result from any drug screen.A number of different web sites offer information on ways to beat a drug test. Yet sometimes the ability of a chemical to confuse one of the urine drug screens can create real problems for the tested individual. Sometimes the immunoassays used in such urine drug screens can yield a false positive result.
There are reports on the Internet that demonstrate the ability of a urine drug screen to become “confused” by the appearance of a chemical that is similar to an illegal drug. More than once, a person who was taking the antidepressant drug Zoloft came up as positive for benzodiazepines or narcotics following one of the routine urine drug screens.
Scientists who do routine testing label such results as “false positives.” The occurrence of such false positives should not be seen as evidence that there is a defect in the process behind conducting urine drug screens. It does, however, show that the results from any such screening process need to be confirmed by a more reliable testing procedure.
The immunoassays used in the urine drug screens can not always distinguish between two different chemicals with a similar composition. Zoloft, for example, “looks” to the immunoassay a great deal like benzodiazepine. The more traditional antidepressant, imipramine, would not give a false positive result. It gives a patient freedom from depression, without causing that patient to risk getting a false positive result during a drug screen.
Still, not every physician feels inclined to prescribe imipramine to every depressed patient. That is one of the reasons why employers must seek a confirmation of the results from any drug screen. There are three different tests that can be used to confirm or reject the results of a drug screen.
One such test involves use of gas chromatography. During the test a vaporized test chemical becomes what is called a mobile phase. That mobile phase then becomes separated in stationary phase. The separation process shows the exact nature of the vaporized chemical.
Another confirmatory test uses mass spectroscopy. That test measures the atomic mass of the components in a test chemical. The mass spectrometer generates a mass spectrum of those particular components.
One can also confirm the drug screen results by using a combination of gas chromatography and mass spectrometry. When those tests are used in tandem, they produce a molecular fingerprint. Lawyers defending a person accused of drug use would relish the ability to show the judge a molecular fingerprint from a GCMS machine.
That is why no employer should dismiss an employee solely on the basis of the results from a drug screen. Such an employer could soon be called to court, and might discover too late that the drug screen had delivered a false positive result.
There are reports on the Internet that demonstrate the ability of a urine drug screen to become “confused” by the appearance of a chemical that is similar to an illegal drug. More than once, a person who was taking the antidepressant drug Zoloft came up as positive for benzodiazepines or narcotics following one of the routine urine drug screens.
Scientists who do routine testing label such results as “false positives.” The occurrence of such false positives should not be seen as evidence that there is a defect in the process behind conducting urine drug screens. It does, however, show that the results from any such screening process need to be confirmed by a more reliable testing procedure.
The immunoassays used in the urine drug screens can not always distinguish between two different chemicals with a similar composition. Zoloft, for example, “looks” to the immunoassay a great deal like benzodiazepine. The more traditional antidepressant, imipramine, would not give a false positive result. It gives a patient freedom from depression, without causing that patient to risk getting a false positive result during a drug screen.
Still, not every physician feels inclined to prescribe imipramine to every depressed patient. That is one of the reasons why employers must seek a confirmation of the results from any drug screen. There are three different tests that can be used to confirm or reject the results of a drug screen.
One such test involves use of gas chromatography. During the test a vaporized test chemical becomes what is called a mobile phase. That mobile phase then becomes separated in stationary phase. The separation process shows the exact nature of the vaporized chemical.
Another confirmatory test uses mass spectroscopy. That test measures the atomic mass of the components in a test chemical. The mass spectrometer generates a mass spectrum of those particular components.
One can also confirm the drug screen results by using a combination of gas chromatography and mass spectrometry. When those tests are used in tandem, they produce a molecular fingerprint. Lawyers defending a person accused of drug use would relish the ability to show the judge a molecular fingerprint from a GCMS machine.
That is why no employer should dismiss an employee solely on the basis of the results from a drug screen. Such an employer could soon be called to court, and might discover too late that the drug screen had delivered a false positive result.
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