The Forensic Science of the identification of Osama bin Laden President Barack Obama announced yesterday (5/1/2011) that Osama bin Laden had been killed. As historic and newsworthy as that event is, this post isn’t about that event. Instead, this post is about the technology and the science mostly likely used that lead to the confident […]
Pharmacology For Lawyers Part 4: Bioavailability
This is post number four of our six part post on Pharmacology. Our posts will focus on the following topics: Part 1. Introduction Part 2. Pharmacokinetics Part 3. Pharmacodynamics Part 4. Bioavailabilty Part 5. “Free versus Bound Drug” Part 6. Elucidating Pharmacodynamic Effect from an Analytical Chemistry Result We talked in Part 2 Pharmacokinetics about […]
Pharamacology For Lawyers Part 3: Pharmacodynamics
This is post number three of our six part post on Pharmacology. Our posts will focus on the following topics: Part 1. Introduction Part 2. Pharmacokinetics Part 3. Pharmacodynamics Part 4. Bioavailabilty Part 5. “Free versus Bound Drug” Part 6. Elucidating Pharmacodynamic Effect from an Analytical Chemistry Result Pharmacodynamics is the study of the time […]
Pharmacology For Lawyers Part 2: Pharmacokinetics
This is post number two of our six part post on Pharmacology. Our posts will focus on the following topics: Part 1. Introduction Part 2. Pharmacokinetics Part 3. Pharmacodynamics Part 4. Bioavailabilty Part 5. “Free versus Bound Drug” Part 6. Elucidating Pharmacodynamic Effect from an Analytical Chemistry Result Pharmacokinetics is defined as the study of […]
Pharmacology For Lawyers Part 1: Introduction
Together we are going to embark on a multi-part series on this blog much like our ISO 17025 series. This series will be surrounding the wonderful world of pharmacology. Wikipedia has a good definition of pharmacology as follows: Pharmacology (from Greek φάρμακον, pharmakon, “poison in classic Greek; drug in modern Greek”; and -λογία, “Study of” […]
Why doesn’t your state crime laboratory use AMDIS?
I have written about chromatography, gas chromatography (GC) and even gas chromatography with mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Here they are (in no particular order): GC-MS is not perfect: The case study of methamphetamine Why do I see two peaks on my EtOH analysis using HS-GC-FID? What is the difference between HS-GC-FID and GC-MS? Drugs of Abuse (DOA) […]
Why do I see two peaks on my EtOH analysis using HS-GC-FID?
Why do I see two peaks on my EtOH analysis using HS-GC-FID? This is a frequent question asked by criminal defense lawyers. Typically in the analysis of an accused’s motorist’s blood for EtOH composition (his or her Blood Alcohol Content) by way of Headspace Gas Chromatography with Flame Ionization Detector (HS-GC-FID) we will see two […]
Can someone honestly answer why there is still Breath testing for EtOH in America?
Can someone honestly answer why there is still Breath testing for EtOH in America? Disclosure: As I have posted before, when people speak of Evidentiary Breath Testing (EBT) as a means of measuring Blood Alcohol Content (BAC), I shut off. My personal opinion is that: 1. The Paradigm Shift as Dr. Michael Hlastala writes is […]
NFPA Releases NFPA 921:2011 and Rejects Negative Corpus
There is a lot that one can read at this blog about what is wrong with forensic science, but there are also great efforts to reform and make forensic science better and scientific. As I stated a long time ago when I started this blog, I was going to be critical of those disciplines and […]
Retesting Blood Alcohol Results
Sometimes, one of the scariest tests in the forensic science world are the more “routine” ones, such as Blood Alcohol analysis (meaning EtOH). There are such high demands in terms of throughput and such little real training in analytical chemistry in performing the assay given to the analysts that the potential for error is rather […]
What is the difference between HS-GC-FID and GC-MS?
First let’s remove the short hand and really write out what we are doing typically. For blood analysis for EtOH, its proper technical name is Isothermal Static Headspace Gas Chromatography using Wall Coated Open Tubular Capillary Columns with Flame Ionization Detector. We just short name it to HS-GC-FID. The technique is made up of distinct […]
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