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Clinical Chemistry 20: 126-140, 1974;
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Clinical Chemistry, Vol 20, 126-140, Copyright © 1974 by the American Association for Clinical Chemistry

Alcohol, Traffic, and Chemical Testing in the United States: A Résumé and Some Remaining Problems

M. F. Mason 1 and K. M. Dubowski 2

1 Department of Pathology, University of Texas Health Science Center at Dallas and the Institute of Forensic Sciences, Dallas, Tex. 75235.
2 University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, Okla. 73190.

We give a résumé of "chemical testing" for alcohol in the United States in connection with traffic-law enforcement. Recent procedural and instrumental developments are briefly reviewed. Various factors involved in discrepancies between the results of analyses of near-simultaneous venous blood and breath specimens from the same subject are examined. Because the causes of these discrepancies cannot adequately be controlled in law-enforcement practice, we suggest that calculation of a blood-alcohol concentration based on the result of a breath analysis be abandoned. We recommend that when breath analysis is performed for law-enforcement purposes, the interpretation of the result should be statutorily based on the amount of alcohol found per unit volume of alveolar ("deep-lung") air. Serum or plasma of capillary blood is recommended as the sample when blood is to be analyzed.

Submitted on June 4, 1973
Accepted on November 30, 1973






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Copyright © 1974 by the American Association for Clinical Chemistry.