Clinical Chemistry
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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




The following articles in journals at HighWire Press have cited this article:


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G. Chang and B. M. Astrachan
The Emergency Department Surveillance of Alcohol Intoxication After Motor Vehicle Accidents
JAMA, November 4, 1988; 260(17): 2533 - 2536.
[Abstract] [PDF]


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Copyright © 1974 by the American Association for Clinical Chemistry.