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Survey of Toxicologic Testing Practices for a Violent Death Surveillance System

University of Utah, Gitte.Larsen{at}hsc.utah.edu

Catherine Barber

Harvard School of Public Health's Injury Control Research Center

David Kosegarten

Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences

Lenora M. Olson

University of Utah

To explore the comparability of postmortem forensic toxicologic testing across jurisdictions, the authors administered a survey to 11 laboratories serving pilot sites for a violent death reporting system. With few exceptions, all sites tested for the same substances but did not use the same methodology. Limit of detection thresholds for drugs of abuse and psychoactive medications varied up to 30-fold, limiting the comparability of cross-jurisdictional toxicologic data.

Key Words: forensic science • drug • toxicology • violent death

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