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From: Ben Withers, MD, MPH
Password: orange
Date: 13 Mar 2008
Time: 08:20:50 -0800
Remote Name: 198.70.200.131
I am working on a contract basis for a company that would like to consider using saliva testing for drugs and alcohol for non-DOT pre-employment, random, for cause, and post-accident testing. They propose doing nothing further if the result is negative, but doing urine testing or BAT for a positive result. This would clearly be a plus logistically. My chief question is whether saliva tests are good enough to assume that there are few if any false-negatives? False positives would be taken care of by follow-up testing. I've done some surfing and haven't found much that helped in a scientific comparisons of saliva vs. urine. I found one study that compared saliva to urine and showed a higher positive rate on the saliva testing (by a small amount) on each drug in the panels, but didn't directly address the false-negative rate. I would welcome references, specific experience, and opinions on this subject. Thanks.