Accuracy of Oral Fluid / Saliva Test Validated

Journal of Psychoactive Drugs

A comparison between instant and laboratory oral fluid analysis among arrestees.
Yacoubian GS; Wish ED.

Research studies that collect biological measures of drug use have traditionally utilized laboratory urinalysis.
Several recent studies have also documented the utility of laboratory oral fluid (OF) analysis.
A new method of drug testing -- instant OF technology -- may offer a quicker, equally accurate alternative to laboratory OF assays.
To date, however, no field studies have compared the two methods.

In the current study, an instant OF test (Avitar ORALscreen (TM)) was administered to adult arrestees surveyed through Maryland's Substance Abuse Need for Treatment among Arrestees (SANTA) study.

Following a research interview, a second OF sample was collected (Avitar ORALconfirm (TM)) and shipped to the manufacturer's laboratory for analysis.

The Avtiar ORALscreen instant OF test was:

96% sensitive and 83% specific for cocaine,

100% sensitive and 75% specific for opiates, and

100% sensitive and 94% specific for marijuana.

Copyright 2006, Haight-Ashbury Publishing
Reference Source: Yacoubian GS; Wish ED. A comparison between instant and laboratory oral fluid analysis among arrestees. Journal of Psychoactive Drugs 38(2): 207-210, 2006. (10 refs.)

Safety Management - Computing Accident / Incident Rates

How To Compute a Firm's Incidence Rate for Safety Management

Incidence rates can be used to show the relative level of injuries and illnesses among different industries, firms, or operations within a single firm.

Because a common base and a specific period of time are involved, these rates can help determine both problem areas and progress in preventing work-related injuries and illnesses. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has developed these instructions to provide a step by step approach for employers to evaluate their firm's injury and illness record.

BLS also has a new online calculator that makes it easy to compute incidence rates for your establishment and to compare them to your industry's averages.

How to compute incidence rates:

(a) The number of nonfatal injuries and illnesses.
This number is available several ways:
From your Log of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses (Log), OSHA's Form 300--you can count the number of OSHA recordable cases for the year, or
From your Summary of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses (Summary), OSHA's Form 300A--you can add the number of recordable cases entered in Column H (cases with days away from work) + Column I (cases with job transfer or restriction) + Column J (other recordable cases),
From the BLS Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses form, if your company was surveyed for the calendar year for which incidence rates are desired--you can add the number of nonfatal recordable cases entered. Add the entries from Part 1B: Summary of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses. Only include the entries in Column H (cases with days away from work) + Column I (cases with job transfer or restriction) + Column J (other recordable cases) in your calculation.

(b) The number of hours all employees actually worked. "Hours worked" should not include any nonwork time, even though paid, such as vacation, sick leave, holidays, etc. If actual hours worked are not available for employees paid on commission, by salary, or by the mile, etc., hours worked may be estimated on the basis of scheduled hours or 8 hours per workday.

This number is also available from several sources:
From your Summary of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses,
From the BLS Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses form, if your company was surveyed for the calendar year for which incidence rates are desired,
From payroll or other time records.
An incidence rate of injuries and illnesses may be computed from the following formula:
(Number of injuries and illnesses X 200,000) / Employee hours worked = Incidence rate
(The 200,000 hours in the formula represents the equivalent of 100 employees working 40 hours per week, 50 weeks per year, and provides the standard base for the incidence rates.) You can use the same formula to compute incidence rates for:
Injury and illness cases with days away from work (Column H),
Injury and Illness cases with job transfer or restriction (Column I),
Injury and illness cases with days away from work, or job transfer or restriction, or both (DART) (Column H + Column I),
Other recordable injury and illness cases (Column J),
Injury-only cases (Column M1),
Illness-only cases (Column M2 + M3 + M4 + M5 + M6).NOTE: When comparing illness rates by types of illness, use 20,000,000 hours instead of 200,000 hours to get a rate per 10,000 full-time employees.

An example
The following discussion illustrates how ABC Company---a fictitious construction machinery manufacturer with 200 employees---might conduct a statistical safety and health evaluation.
The ABC Company has 15 injuries and illnesses logged and 400,000 hours worked by all employees during 2005. Using the formula, the incidence rate would be calculated as follows:
(15 x 200,000) / 400,000 = 7.5
The same formula can be used to compute the incidence rate for the most serious injury and illness cases, defined here as cases that result in workers taking time off from their jobs or being transferred to another job or doing lighter (restricted) duties. ABC Company had 7 such cases.
The incidence rate for these 7 cases is computed as:
(7 x 200,000) / 400,000 = 3.5

How are incidence rates used?
Incidence rates take on more meaning for an employer when the injury and illness experience of his or her firm is compared with that of other employers doing similar work with workforces of similar size. Information available from BLS permits detailed comparisons by industry and size of firm.

Drug Testing - Proved Legal & Necessary - Yet Again

Alberta Court of Appeal ruling upholds construction workplace drug testing
(Source: Canadian Press)

EDMONTON - Construction and energy companies are happy with an Alberta court ruling that upholds the right of employers to test workersfor drugs.


The Alberta Court of Appeal's decision overturned a lower court judgment that said Kellogg, Brown & Root Co. discriminated against a man in 2002 when it fired him from an oilsands project near Fort McMurray after he tested positive for marijuana.
John Chiasson, who admitted to being a recreational pot smoker, filed a complaint with the Alberta Human Rights Commission, which ruled against him. The commission said there needs to be a balance between an individual's human rights and the needs of an employer in protecting others.
But Court of Queen's Bench Justice Sheilah Martin then ruled in his favour. She said he should have been treated the same as someone with a drug addiction, which is considered a disability in human rights case law.
The panel of three Appeal Court justices disagreed. The judges said it is legitimate for Kellogg, Brown & Root to presume that people who use drugs at all are a safety risk in an already dangerous workplace.

"We see this case as no different than that of a trucking or taxi company which has a policy requiring its employees to refrain from the use of alcohol for some time before the employee drives one of the employer's vehicles," the justices wrote.
"Extending human rights protections to situations resulting in placing the lives of others at risk flies in the face of logic."

Kellogg, Brown & Root, one of the largest construction firms in the world, was helping to build an expansion to Syncrude Canada's plant at the time of Chiasson's case and is still active in the oilsands.
Andrew Robertson, a lawyer for the company, said the Appeal Court's decision is important to energy and construction industries.

"It is refreshing to see the Alberta Court of Appeal factor in risk management in safety-sensitive workplaces in a circumstance when there had been a recent focus on human rights issues," he said.

Heather Browne, a spokeswoman for Texas-based Kellogg, Brown & Root, hailed the ruling.
"KBR is a leader in workplace safety, and maintaining that commitment is the company's top priority," Browne said Wednesday.
"The court ruling upholds that commitment and we look forward to continuing our work in that regard."



During the original court case, officials with oilsands giant Syncrude testified that the company's lost-time rate from accidents has dropped in part because of drug and alcohol testing.

Syncrude, Suncor, Albian Sands and other major oilsands heavyweights test their employees for drugs before they are allowed on jobsites.

Kara Flynn, a spokeswoman for Syncrude, said that in a broad sense, the Appeal Court ruling supports the company's drug-testing policy and goals.
"Any judicial decisions that support that are greatly appreciated," she said.
The impact of the ruling is already starting to ripple beyond Alberta's boundaries.

Phil Hochstein, president of the Independent Contractors and Business Association in British Columbia, said while workplace drug testing is common on major projects in Alberta, it is the exception in B.C.
He expects that is going to change.

"I think that workplace testing of construction workers is probably an issue whose time has come," he said from Vancouver.
"I think this case is going to spur more of this jobsite testing, not only on big industrial jobs, but on commercial and institutional jobs throughout the country."