Drug testing is the evaluation of urine, blood or another type of biological sample to determine if the subject has been using the drug or drugs in question. There are many circumstances that may require drug testing: Pre-employment drug screening test or random, work-related drug testing to identify on-the-job drug abuse. College or professional athletic drug testing. Post-accident drug testing - a vehicular or on-the-job accident which may have involved human error and resulted in casualties or property damage. Safety-related drug testing - if an employee's job could lead to safety issues if judgement or physical ability were impaired.

Urine is the most common sample type used for drug testing by employers. A urinalysis will show the presence of a drug in the system after the drug effects have worn off; however, the length of time varies by drug. Urine is the only sample type approved for testing of the federally mandated, safety-sensitive workforce. Typical urine drug tests for employment purposes usually screen for 5 to 10 drugs. Urine screening may detect amphetamines or methamphetamines, barbiturates, benzodiazepines, cocaine, marijuana, MDA-analogues (MDA or MDMA), opiates (codeine, morphine, 6-acetylmorphine [indicative of heroin use], hydromorphone, hydrocodone, oxymorphone, oxycodone), nicotine, or alcohol. Employers may request additional drugs to be screened.

After urine drug screening, oral fluid (saliva) testing is the most common method to test for drug use. It may be referred to as a mouth swab test, and used if an employer or other tester is interested in knowing about recent drug use. It is not ideal to survey long-term use of drugs. Most saliva drug tests can detect usage within a few hours up to 2 days. The donor should avoid any food or beverages for at least 10 minutes prior to the sample being collected. Saliva is an easy lab test to gather samples, is less susceptible to adulteration or substitution, and can be tested for alcohol, barbiturates, benzodiazepines, cocaine, ecstasy, marijuana (THC), opiates, amphetamines, phencyclidine (PCP), and methamphetamines. It is suitable for all testing reasons, including pre-employment testing, random and post-accident testing.

Hair testing may be used to determine drug use over the longer term, usually over a 90-day period of time. Hair can be tested for cocaine, marijuana and THC, cocaine, opiates, amphetamine and methamphetamine, ecstasy, phencyclidine, and alcohol. In general, hair testing allows the longest time frame to detect drugs of abuse. The collector usually takes a 100 gram sample of hair (100 to 120 strands) cut close to the scalp. This method lessens the risk for hair adulteration or substitution, as the sample is collected in full view of the lab personnel.

An applicant is notified that pre-employment drug testing will need to take place as part of the application process. They may have to present to the laboratory within a specified time frame, for example within 24 hours, to lessen the chance that drugs in their system will be excreted and undetectable. Applicants are directed to a specific laboratory to submit a sample for drug screening (usually for urine test results). Once at the facility, the applicant must submit a sample at the discretion of the laboratory personnel and in keeping with their standard policies. Hair, sweat, saliva or blood drug test samples may also be used in pre-employment drug screen, although this is not common practice. During the laboratory evaluation, strict chain-of-custody practices and standards are followed to prevent adulteration of the sample. This legal procedure requires documentation of each person who handles the specimen through the entire phase of testing. Certain laboratory procedures may require direct visual observation while the specimen is being voided, although this is not common. This occurs most often when the donor has previously attempted to tamper with a sample.

Many variables may affect the amount of time that a drug remains detectable in the urine or other biological samples, including: a drug's half-life subject's state of hydration and fluid balance frequency of drug use route of administration cut-off concentration used by the testing lab to detect the drug. General guidelines are available for detection times but can very by individual. Many drugs stay in the system from 2 to 4 days, although chronic use of marijuana can stay in the system for 3 to 4 weeks or even longer after the last use. Drugs with a long half-life, such as diazepam, may also stay in the system for a prolonged period of time.

When you drink alcohol, it goes into your stomach and small intestine. It gets absorbed into your blood, which carries it through your body and into your brain and lungs. You exhale it when you breathe. A breath alcohol test measures how much alcohol is in the air you breathe out. The device uses that measurement to estimate how much alcohol is in your blood. That number is known as your BAC, or blood alcohol content. It may go up as soon as 15 minutes after drinking. BAC is usually highest about an hour after you drink.

The results of genetic tests are not always straightforward, which often makes them challenging to interpret and explain. Therefore, it is important for patients and their families to ask questions about the potential meaning of genetic test results both before and after the test is performed. When interpreting test results, health care providers consider a person’s medical history, family history, and the type of genetic test that was done. A positive test result means that the laboratory found a change in a particular gene, chromosome, or protein of interest. Depending on the purpose of the test, this result may confirm a diagnosis, indicate that a person is a carrier of a particular genetic variant, identify an increased risk of developing a disease (such as cancer), or suggest a need for further testing. Because family members have some genetic material in common, a positive test result may also have implications for certain blood relatives of the person undergoing testing. It is important to note that a positive result of a predictive or presymptomatic genetic test usually cannot establish the exact risk of developing a disorder. Also, health care providers typically cannot use a positive test result to predict the course or severity of a condition. Rarely, tests results can be false positive, which occur when results indicate an increased risk for a genetic condition when the person is unaffected. A negative test result means that the laboratory did not find a change that is known to affect health or development in the gene, chromosome, or protein under consideration. This result can indicate that a person is not affected by a particular disorder, is not a carrier of a specific genetic variant, or does not have an increased risk of developing a certain disease. It is possible, however, that the test missed a disease-causing genetic alteration because many tests cannot detect all genetic changes that can cause a particular disorder. Further testing, or re-testing at a later date, may be required to confirm a negative result. Rarely, tests results can be false negative, which occur when the results indicate a decreased risk or a genetic condition when the person is actually affected. In some cases, a test result might not give any useful information. This type of result is called uninformative, indeterminate, inconclusive, or ambiguous. Uninformative test results sometimes occur because everyone has common, natural variations in their DNA, called polymorphisms, that do not affect health. If a genetic test finds a change in DNA that has not been confirmed to play a role in the development of disease, known as a variant of uncertain significance (VUS or VOUS), it can be difficult to tell whether it is a natural polymorphism or a disease-causing variant. For these variants, there may not be enough scientific research to confirm or refute a disease association or the research may be conflicting. An uninformative result cannot confirm or rule out a specific diagnosis, and it cannot indicate whether a person has an increased risk of developing a disorder. In some cases, testing other affected and unaffected family members can help clarify this type of result.

DNA paternity testing (sometimes called parentage testing) uses DNA, the biological basis of inheritance, to prove or disprove the biological relationship between a child and an alleged father. It is based on the fact that we inherit half of our DNA from our father and half from our mother.

DNA paternity testing is 100% accurate when done properly. Our process helps to ensure a strict chain of custody and error-free results through proper handling, testing, and analysis of samples.

Testing through our partnered laboratory DNA Diagnostic Center follows a strict chain of custody, which allows our results to be defensible in courts and other government agencies. Many of our clients use our legal paternity tests results to obtain child support and to claim Social Security benefits or inheritances.

For a chain of custody test, all test participants must bring a valid, government-issued ID such as a driver’s license, state ID, or passport. The child’s legal guardian must sign a consent form allowing the minor to be tested.

A concern for anyone undergoing drug testing is the possibility of a false positive result. Initial screening drugs tests may infrequently result in false positive results, although confirmatory (GC-MS) testing greatly lessens the chances of a false positive - reducing the risk to close to zero. It is important that a person undergoing drug testing complete an accurate history of all prescription, OTC, and herbal drug use prior to the time of the sample collection. Certain substances, over-the-counter (OTC) or prescription drugs may result in false positives due to cross-reactivity with other substances, although many assays have been reformulated to avoid these possibilities. For example, decongestants like ephedrine have been implicated in causing false positives for amphetamines.

No. Because DNA is set at conception and generally does not change, paternity tests can be performed even on a sample from an unborn child (called prenatal testing). At birth, blood from the umbilical cord can be taken for use as a DNA sample source, or a buccal swab may be collected from the newborn.

Chain of custody testing requires a custodian to sign the minor’s testing consent form. Verification of guardianship must be obtained at the time consent is given.

No. Private individuals can take a DNA test without a doctor’s request or court order.

The first option that should be considered is viability testing of samples taken from the deceased, such as stored blood or a tissue sample. If usable DNA is found in such a sample, we can conduct a paternity test using this DNA as the alleged father’s sample. If there are no available biological samples from the alleged father, grand parentage testing is the next option to consider. If one or both paternal grandparents are unavailable for testing, other family relationships may be tested to indirectly determine paternity such as siblingship tests, avuncular and others.

HIV tests are very accurate, but no test can detect the virus immediately after infection. How soon a test can detect HIV depends on the type of test being used. There are three types of HIV tests: antibody tests, antigen/antibody tests, and nucleic acid tests (NAT). Antibody tests look for antibodies to HIV in a person’s blood or oral fluid. Antibody test scan take 23 to 90 days to detect HIV after exposure. Most rapid tests and the only FDA-approved HIV self-test are antibody tests. In general, antibody tests that use blood from a vein can detect HIV sooner after infection than tests done with blood from a finger stick or with oral fluid. Antigen/antibody tests look for both HIV antibodies and antigens. Antibodies are produced by a person’s immune system when they’re exposed to viruses like HIV. Antigens are foreign substances that cause a person’s immune system to activate. If a person has HIV, an antigen called p24 is produced before antibodies develop. Antigen/antibody tests are recommended for testing done in labs and are common in the United States. An antigen/antibody test performed by a lab on blood from a vein can usually detect HIV 18 to 45 days after exposure. There is also a rapid antigen/antibody test available that is done with a finger stick. Antigen/antibody tests done with blood from a finger stick can take 18 to 90 days after exposure. NATs look for the actual virus in the blood. This test should be considered for people who have had a recent exposure or a possible exposure with early symptoms of HIV and have tested negative with an antibody or antigen/antibody test. A NAT can usually detect HIV 10 to 33 days after exposure. An initial HIV test usually will either be an antigen/antibody test or an antibody test. If the initial HIV test is a rapid or self-test and it is positive, the person should go to a health care provider to get follow-up testing. If the initial HIV test is a lab test and it is positive, the lab will usually conduct follow-up testing on the same blood sample as the initial test. Although HIV tests are generally accurate, follow-up tests allow the health care provider to confirm the result.