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The $4 billion dollar-a-year Drug and Alcohol Testing Industry Association convenes in Washington D.C. today to talk shop on lobbying Congress. Industry bigwigs will also likely discuss a recent blow to business -- just last month the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration (SAMHSA) issued an advisory concerning the unreliability of the newest screening technology on the market. The urine-alcohol test screens for ethyl glucuronide, or EtG, a byproduct from metabolizing alcohol, that the Industry claims can definitely prove whether or not someone drank alcohol in the last two to three days.

The month before SAMHSA issued the advisory, The Wall Street Journal ran an expose reporting that the widely used screen is so sensitive that it fails to differentiate an EtG positive from beer versus from hand sanitizer or cough medicine or from variety of common household products, such as vanilla extract. The paper also reported that the physician who developed EtG testing in America believes that the test is currently being used inappropriately, stating, "Use of this screen has gotten ahead of the science." Additionally, the Drug and Alcohol Testing Industry never conducted any published large scale trials of the technology.

The SAMSHA advisory states that an EtG positive result should not be used as sole evidence in the legal or disciplinary context. Since courts and medical regulators have been using this technology, false positive results have devastated individuals who lose their jobs or freedom. Since no federal regulatory approval is required for firms to market the product, the advisory holds no binding authority.

The warning unearths a slew of questions that need to be asked about the oversight and regulation of this booming industry where the accuracy of the product can determine whether a person will loose their job, parental rights, medical license or freedom. The Drug and Alcohol Industry needs to be held accountable.http://www.nooked.com/news/itemtrack...0e86962ff929ad

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