Endogenous interpretive false positives

These considerations show clearly that endogenous interpretive false positives are the main problem confronting urinalysis. It is, however, a problem with which hair analysis can provide considerable assistance, since passive exposure as a cause for a positive urinalysis result can be excluded by a positive hair analysis result. As indicated previously, this support is particularly critical in the case of opiates, where considerations of public safety demand that the numerous overturned urinalysis results be further investigated. 

The main issue in hair testing is the avoidance of exogenous interpretive false positives, i.e., positives caused by external contamination of hair by drugs present in the environment, e.g., smoke, powder. This type of false positive is not the major issue for urinalysis where endogenous interpretive false positives are the main concern. But, the effective avoidance by urinalysis of exogenous false positives due to specimen contamination in the laboratory depends critically on the exclusion of drugusing personnel, and this can best be achieved by evasion-proof hair analysis. However, when such false positives occur, or when urinalysis labs are unable to guarantee that they have taken effective measures to exclude such contamination, then very little can be done to remedy the problem. For, in contrast to hair, the collection of a new urine specimen identical to the first one is not possible. 

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