Why do toxicology tests take so long? I seems that most, if not all, newspaper articles about someone’s death always say “toxicology tests will take about six weeks.” Why is this?
Being a lab flunky myself I can say it’s not because the actual testing takes that long. Rather it has to do with workload and priorities usually. Testing on live people takes precedence over dead ones. Also a lot of testing is batched, a run on an instrument is not started until you have a certain number of specimens. This is done to save money on reagents, maintenance, calibrators, etc. In a high volume facility with a tight budget it can make a difference.
Or as I always answered whenever students or new employees would ask me about the lower priority of autopsy testing “Dead people aren’t in a hurry.” 