A leading expert in forensic chemistry has challenged an Italian research team?s paper on hair follicle testing, saying it ?doesn?t ask the right questions? about drug testing.

Scotsman Thomas Cairns ? who steered clear of the specifics concerning ousted King Edward VII Memorial Hospital vascular surgeon James Brockenbrough ? said the public must remember that the scientific community ?is like a debating society? and the 2001 study led by Guido Romano of the University of Catania is ?scientifically flawed?.

Dr. Cairns ? who has taught in California since 1968 and is also senior scientist at Psychemedics Corp. ? said ?my interest today was to testify in a hearing ? that will not take place ? to attest to the validity of hair testing? before admitting the Culver City, California based corporation provides testing facilities to King Edward VII Memorial Hospital.

Psychemedics provides hair testing for cocaine, opiates (like heroin), PCP, amphetamines (like Ecstasy and other designer drugs) and cannabis.

Citing the United States? Food and Drug Administration?s stringent testing and certification programme, he attested to the ?confidence in and reliability of hair drug testing?.

Hair follicle drug testing ?is a superior detection method? because it provides a 70 day ?window? of a person?s exposure to drugs as opposed to the two days provided by urine.

By ?clearing? Psychemedics? tests, the FDA said that its examination of the company?s procedures ?are safe, reliable, precise and accurate for the purpose of detecting drug abuse?.

Dr. Brockenbrough dismissed Dr. Cairns as the Hospitals Board?s ?hired gun? and said he had an expert that was willing to show why certain parts of the US government did not use hair follicle testing.

But Dr. Cairns claimed: ?Even the (US) Federal government has published their intention to adopt hair analysis for employee drug testing.

?Why would the BHB and KEMH use hair follicle drug testing?

?It?s because its a 90 day look back, where urine is just two days.

?You have a higher degree of surveillance of the employee.

?Dr. Romano didn?t follow Psychemedics procedures and we follow US government procedures,? Dr. Cairns continued. ?I?m not trying to discredit Dr. Romano, but if you don?t follow the right procedures and have good science that has been cleared (by regulatory bodies like the FDA) then you?ll get bad results.

?We understand why he got those results. Psychemedics did the responsible thing after he published.

?As you know, in science, we?re really a debating society and we go back to the lab and reproduce your results.

?It?s my conclusion that you design a study and if you don?t ask the right questions, you?ll get the wrong answers.

?It would be scientifically flawed. He got those conclusions because he did the testing the wrong way.?

He added: ?The test cannot without equivocation say if the drug was ingested or external contamination.

?I agree that science is a debate.

? The jury is still out with respect to the certainty of the test as a stand alone.?

Citing Italy?s tough use of hair testing for a person convicted of a traffic offence while impaired to get back on the road, Dr. Cairns said: ?I?d characterise Dr. Romano as part of a small minority.

?The general scientific community in Italy supports and believes in hair follicle testing.

?To me, the value of science in the human arena is that yes, the hospital is protecting society with this drug testing, but the reality is that it is saving a life of drug abusers. Everybody wins.?

Dr. Brockenbrough said last night: ?He has to defend the company and their proprietary technology.

?He is a hired gun for the company. The hospital has to do it for vindication.

?I have no quarrel with the technology except that I, along with other disinterested scientists, do not feel it has been perfected to the point that they can say without equivocation that a positive result means drug ingestion.?

Dr. Cairns cited Tom Mieczkowski?s 1997 paper on distinguishing distinguishing passive from active cocaine consumption, and two 2004 papers in which he participated, ?Removing and identifying drug contamination in the analysis of human hair? and ?Levels of cocaine and its motabolites in washed hair of demonstrated cocaine users and workplace subjects?.

All were published in the journal, Forensic Science International.