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From: Robert Swotinsky, MD
Password: orange
Date: 26 Aug 2009
Time: 17:57:01 -0700
Remote Name: 98.229.131.90
P, thank you for posting your thoughts to this site.
In your post, you suggest that the donor bring his/her bottle of over-the-counter, alcohol-containing cough medicine to the test site to prove he/she has an alternative medical explanation for any positive alcohol result. In fact, there is no determination of whether or not the employee has an alternative medical explanation for his or her alcohol concentration. Instead, the employer's policy prohibits being at work with a high alcohol concentration without regard to where and why it may have occurred, because the employer believes the high result poses a significant safety threat or other untenable situation. It is up to the employee not to drink 4 beers right before going to work, or a dozen bottles of cough medicine, or a dozen bottles of vanilla extract, or whatever.
For example: If you were about to get on board an airplane, you wouldn't care much where and why the pilot got his blood alcohol concentration to 0.10. You would just know that you don't want that guy piloting your flight.