New Test Screens for Chemicals Used to Obscure Employee Urine Samples

Be punctual, dress nicely, look people in the eye--and make sure your urine is clean. So many employers now demand a cup of the yellow stuff as part of a job screening for new workers that products with names like Urine Luck! and Klear have found a market; the solutions flood the urine with chemicals that can obscure the results of urine tests. But now a team of Tennessee researchers has demonstrated that a test used to analyze contaminated water can detect and identify those chemicals. The new application, they say, should add one more screen for employers to use when checking for drug use. Workplace drug testing has become increasingly popular over the past decade, in part because the federal government requires testing programs of some of its contractors.

Urine tests typically screen for at least five illegal substances--cannabis, cocaine, amphetamines, opiates and phencyclidine (PCP)--all of which stay in the system for a couple of days minimum. But the tests are hardly airtight; false results can occur when the sample has been contaminated, either by accident or on purpose. The Tennessee scientists say their screen could at least cut down on the latter.