There is a test on the market that tests for alcohol consumption via saliva. It is a paper strip that resembles a tester for swimming pools.The manufacturer claims 100% accurate. However:
Last week 9 people, including myself, were administered this test. 4 tested positive for alcohol consumption within the previous 24 hours(one tested highly positive, two moderate and one slight). 3 tested negative and 2 tested ‘iffy’.
2.Of the four that tested positive, they were retested and registered positive again.
3.These four were then driven to the hospital for a blood test. The results were unanimously negative (<1mg/dl).
4.The time between the saliva and blood tests were less than 2 hours.
5.The nine original saliva tests were administered within 5 minutes in the same room by the same person.
I know for certain that at least one of the four that tested positive via saliva test had not imbibed any alcoholic beverages since late december 2004 (me).
There isn’t a known variable that would have caused the false positive amongst the four that doesn’t hold true for the remaining 5.
I now believe the ‘mouth swabs’ are completely bogus. Is my logic unsound?
What about alcohol containing mouthwashes, such as Listerine?
Commonly used, and unlikely to get you drunk if you don’t swallow it.
Something similar to that could give a lot of false positives, blood alcohol levels are accurate, I agree that these test strips would not appear to be accurate, and have a much greater possiility of contamination.
If anything of importance hangs on this, you would want to see evidence of the reliability of the test, in the form of proper science done by an independent agency (actually peer-reviewed & published in a respected journal)(which likely has not been done).
P-R type statements by others (the manufacturer, law enforcement authorities, the Pope) are not the same thing.
For instance, law enforcement has been known to use unfounded statements to coerce people into admissions, even into false admissions.
Disclaimer: I have no foundation for the suggestion that this might be a law enforcement issue.
Do you know the name of the product that was used in this test? It should be possible to do some research on the web to find out some technical details on it. Was the person administering the test qualified to do so? Were the test strips opened in your presence and handled in a way as not to get contaminated? Were the strips used before the expiration date?
On preview, it looks like MaryEFoo suggested something similar although I assumed that this was a workplace test and not a law enforcement issue. Either way, it’s a serious matter.
The circumstances that subject me to drug and alcohol screening could be surmised if you were to google “Oxford House”.
The brand name of the test was Alco-Screen. The strips were handled and read in our presence. They were each opened and handled by the person being tested. All tests were placed on the same piece of blank paper, spaced apart. All tests were marked by our first names with a dry erase marker, including the ones that showed negative. All tests were within the expiration date.
I googled “Alco-Screen” and read the manufacturer’s documentation on the product. There are a couple of important limitations, such as that the color change should be read after 120 seconds but no later than 150 seconds, and the strips need to be stored properly. Was that done? And I wonder whether the dry erase marker you mentioned might throw off the results.
Please do not use large fonts or colored fonts here, as most folks find it distracting and annoying.
Also, please note that the thread you have responded to dates back to 2005. We do allow old threads to be raised, but only if something of substance is contributed. The General Questions forum is for factual questions, and your posts do not contribute factually to the thread.
Since nothing of substance factually was added here, I am closing this.
I have also merged your other thread into this one as it appeared to be a single post that was intended for this thread.