Quote:
And critics say Millennium – one of the largest drug screening companies in the nation – has produced a self-serving study designed to drum up more business for itself.
“It does not surprise me that Millennium would show a high rate of inconsistencies with the POC test,” said a source with broad experience in the drug testing industry. “Remember, their business is to sell confirmation testing, so they will skew the way they present data to try to influence the market to do more confirmation testing. In most cases, that’s how it works in any study conducted or funded by a device or pharmaceutical company.”
The source told Pain News Network the data in Millennium’s study was “skewed toward exaggeration” and questioned the need for further testing.
“In addiction centers, there is not really a large demand for confirmation testing. I understand Millennium wants to increase that business because that’s what they do. However, medical necessity does play into all laboratory testing. The great majority of the time, when a patient in a treatment center is confronted with the results of a POC test that shows a drug in their system that shouldn’t be there, they will confess to taking the drug. So, what would be the medical necessity of confirming that test?
“I believe many of the urine drug testing labs are promoting confirmation testing when it is not medically necessary.”
So, I tried to fund an another source for info on the likelihood of the quick POS/UDS tests indicating false positives. And what I found wasn't encouraging for your argument.
Quote:
Q: Can you explain the reason for a false-positive urine drug screen for marijuana?
A: In 2013, an estimated 19.8 million Americans aged 12 years or older were current (past month) users of marijuana and 8.1 million were daily users.1 An analysis of 7.6 million urine drug screens performed in the U.S. workforce, indicated the positivity rate for marijuana was 1.7%.2 A positive urine drug screen (UDS) can have an impact on a person’s life, so it is important to ensure the result is accurate.
Comment: If these quick tests had a 21% false positive rate, we'd see a
Quote:
Summary
When screening a person for possible marijuana use, it is important not to make assumptions from an initial result from a positive immunoassay test, and to confirm a positive result with GC-MS. If a person is taking efavirenz, you have limited evidence to suspect a false-positive result, whereas it is much less likely for NSAIDs, hemp food consumption, or passive marijuana inhalation to cause a false-positive result. It is important to take into consideration recent medication use before making a decision on how to act on a positive UDS for marijuana.
To be frank, I would be very surprised that the whole drug-testing regime has not already been rigorously challenged using the false result rates reported in the article you found if it could stand up to scrutiny in a court of law by other experts not affiliated with the company that produced that study. But perhaps I'm just not aware of such a game-changing lawsuit already underway.
