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trenchkamenI seldom like to talk about personal issues on livejournal, but this may benefit somebody in the same situation.
I know somebody who stands to lose her medical license--her career, her livelihood, practice and business, something she went to school for a decade to gain--because of a faulty, error-prone alcohol test.
This test is called the EtG (ethylglucuronide) Test, and most laboratories in the United States use it. Non-therapeutic lab tests are not under the jurisdiction of any regulatory agency, as drugs are by the FDA -- in other words, the test and its validity had to be approved by nobody but the vendors themselves.
I know an obvious answer for false positives is that they're not false at all, but I truly believe this person is telling the truth: she has not been drinking. The test results are far too random and *low*, within normal boundaries, to indicate intentional consumption of alcohol. The test was created by two men both of whom tested *on themselves* by drinking and doing the tests *while drunk*, and they were they only two people to ever try the test before it went to market. There were no other control tests to gain a spectrum of 'normal' values allowing for fluctuations due to multiple factors--day-to-day contact with ethanol (it's in vanilla, hand cream of various types, soy sauce, and multiple other foods), which are comparatively trace amounts compared with having a drink; the concentration of urine dependent on how much water one drank before the test; and multiple factors as inconsequential as this.
Different laboratories use different values as the cutoff for 'positive'; some use values as low as 100, and some 'negatives' extend to 500. It has been suggested that the 'normal' blood-alcohol concentration extends past the 500 result. The lab my family member is using has the cutoff at 250; she was counted positive on paper for a result of 260 after using, we found in retrospect, an estrogen cream with ethanol. Despite this and the hours of research that went into dissecting the invalidity of the test and the probable alcohol sources, the medical board was skeptical, and we had to go to the family week at the Betty Ford center just to put forth a good face, even though this family member had been clean and sober for eight months. Just recently, she received another false positive marginally above the arbitrary cutoff for her particular lab; she has gone on a diet void of anything with vanilla, soy, and multiple other things the rest of us take for granted every day.
A test this haywire and poorly-engineered has zero place deciding anybody's fate, especially when he or she is doing all in his or her power to fight a neuropsychological disease.
The attitude, as is understandable, toward recovering alcoholics, is that they are lying when they get a positive test, end of story, and that there is no such thing as a false positive. Sadly a good portion of alcoholics *do* relapse and lie, and often very convincingly, fooling the family and friends to whom they had promised to quit. However, for those who are genuinely clean and sober and trying to get their lives back on track, this test is devastating. Multiple professionals have lost their licenses due to marginally 'positive' tests--their families have gone bankrupt, their practices shut down immediately, and their livelihoods and graduate educations are now invalid. It is unjust; I have had to watch my loved one jump through every hoop the medical board has placed before her, sacrificing her energy and life for almost a year, and yet, she is being suspected a liar and is in danger of losing her license on false accusations.
Life is not fair, yes, and the medical board thinks it is protecting patients for the better good, even if it means the sacrifice of a few individuals. This is understandable; after all, they got themselves into trouble in the first place, didn't they? But this test makes dangerously difficult for recovering alcoholics to make a true recovery. Thankfully the medical board is becoming aware of the nature of the test, but I know nothing about other boards of regulation -- for airline pilots, or lawyers, or veterinarians, or other licensed professionals who have to answer to a board to maintain their professional status.
The labs and the test vendor are making money, so few-and-weak steps have been made to look into the true validity of the test; they don't care. The arguments made by the vendors and its defenders are weak and scientifically unsound, full of practical-logical fallacies. They suggest that the person I know checks into rehab for a month and tries to replicate a false positive while in there; rehab food is specially prepared to be void of environmental ethanol. This sort of suggestion is bullshit.
If you know somebody in the same situation, please, educate that person and yourself. Arm yourself; the more you know, the better you have a chance to defend yourself against a false positive. They may or may not genuinely be relapsing. Each individual has a different case, but this is something he or she needs to be aware of. There are multiple people in the same boat; they frequent the message board of the test's official website. Sadly, there are people on the board who taint the credibility of each person on there (like the kids who want legalized drugs; they don't care about the test itself), or those people who are actually lying and drinking.
If this helped at least one person reading this weblog, by random chance or by friendship, I will consider this time well-spent.
For those of you who know more specifically what is going on: yes, something did bring this post about. Please do not worry. Everything is going to be fine, regardless of what happens.
I know somebody who stands to lose her medical license--her career, her livelihood, practice and business, something she went to school for a decade to gain--because of a faulty, error-prone alcohol test.
This test is called the EtG (ethylglucuronide) Test, and most laboratories in the United States use it. Non-therapeutic lab tests are not under the jurisdiction of any regulatory agency, as drugs are by the FDA -- in other words, the test and its validity had to be approved by nobody but the vendors themselves.
I know an obvious answer for false positives is that they're not false at all, but I truly believe this person is telling the truth: she has not been drinking. The test results are far too random and *low*, within normal boundaries, to indicate intentional consumption of alcohol. The test was created by two men both of whom tested *on themselves* by drinking and doing the tests *while drunk*, and they were they only two people to ever try the test before it went to market. There were no other control tests to gain a spectrum of 'normal' values allowing for fluctuations due to multiple factors--day-to-day contact with ethanol (it's in vanilla, hand cream of various types, soy sauce, and multiple other foods), which are comparatively trace amounts compared with having a drink; the concentration of urine dependent on how much water one drank before the test; and multiple factors as inconsequential as this.
Different laboratories use different values as the cutoff for 'positive'; some use values as low as 100, and some 'negatives' extend to 500. It has been suggested that the 'normal' blood-alcohol concentration extends past the 500 result. The lab my family member is using has the cutoff at 250; she was counted positive on paper for a result of 260 after using, we found in retrospect, an estrogen cream with ethanol. Despite this and the hours of research that went into dissecting the invalidity of the test and the probable alcohol sources, the medical board was skeptical, and we had to go to the family week at the Betty Ford center just to put forth a good face, even though this family member had been clean and sober for eight months. Just recently, she received another false positive marginally above the arbitrary cutoff for her particular lab; she has gone on a diet void of anything with vanilla, soy, and multiple other things the rest of us take for granted every day.
A test this haywire and poorly-engineered has zero place deciding anybody's fate, especially when he or she is doing all in his or her power to fight a neuropsychological disease.
The attitude, as is understandable, toward recovering alcoholics, is that they are lying when they get a positive test, end of story, and that there is no such thing as a false positive. Sadly a good portion of alcoholics *do* relapse and lie, and often very convincingly, fooling the family and friends to whom they had promised to quit. However, for those who are genuinely clean and sober and trying to get their lives back on track, this test is devastating. Multiple professionals have lost their licenses due to marginally 'positive' tests--their families have gone bankrupt, their practices shut down immediately, and their livelihoods and graduate educations are now invalid. It is unjust; I have had to watch my loved one jump through every hoop the medical board has placed before her, sacrificing her energy and life for almost a year, and yet, she is being suspected a liar and is in danger of losing her license on false accusations.
Life is not fair, yes, and the medical board thinks it is protecting patients for the better good, even if it means the sacrifice of a few individuals. This is understandable; after all, they got themselves into trouble in the first place, didn't they? But this test makes dangerously difficult for recovering alcoholics to make a true recovery. Thankfully the medical board is becoming aware of the nature of the test, but I know nothing about other boards of regulation -- for airline pilots, or lawyers, or veterinarians, or other licensed professionals who have to answer to a board to maintain their professional status.
The labs and the test vendor are making money, so few-and-weak steps have been made to look into the true validity of the test; they don't care. The arguments made by the vendors and its defenders are weak and scientifically unsound, full of practical-logical fallacies. They suggest that the person I know checks into rehab for a month and tries to replicate a false positive while in there; rehab food is specially prepared to be void of environmental ethanol. This sort of suggestion is bullshit.
If you know somebody in the same situation, please, educate that person and yourself. Arm yourself; the more you know, the better you have a chance to defend yourself against a false positive. They may or may not genuinely be relapsing. Each individual has a different case, but this is something he or she needs to be aware of. There are multiple people in the same boat; they frequent the message board of the test's official website. Sadly, there are people on the board who taint the credibility of each person on there (like the kids who want legalized drugs; they don't care about the test itself), or those people who are actually lying and drinking.
If this helped at least one person reading this weblog, by random chance or by friendship, I will consider this time well-spent.
For those of you who know more specifically what is going on: yes, something did bring this post about. Please do not worry. Everything is going to be fine, regardless of what happens.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-14 06:47 pm (UTC)You know I'm here to talk to if you want to, for whatever good that does.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-14 09:38 pm (UTC)And I know mah Whitto is always there.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-14 07:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-14 09:39 pm (UTC)And, hey, you never know. I'm just hoping this helps at least one person who needs the help.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-15 09:38 am (UTC)That is absolutely ridiculous. She...might even be able to get some organization on her side to fight it and restore her credibility...but I can't think of any at the moment (ACLU maybe? Would this even qualify as something they'd help with?).
Hmm.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-15 08:35 pm (UTC)Thank you, though.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-15 12:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-15 08:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-17 09:17 am (UTC)