There is little doubt that forensic toxicology services have greatly benefited over the past years from the wealth of police shows on the television. But a crime is rarely solved in 60 minutes, it takes dedicated professionals to piece together the evidence. They use a wide range of bodily fluids to conduct their tests.
The toxicology aspect of the profession uses pharmacology and chemistry to ascertain a cause of death and can cover whether someone has drugs or alcohol in their system when they died. The toxicology service has no interest in whether someone has broken the law, as their remit is to interpret the data that they gather. They usually conduct their examination depending on how wide or narrow the scope of the investigation is.
The data that is gathered can usually give a clear picture as to what substances are in a person's system and can also tell the examiner what likely effect these would have on the body. What makes the role a challenge is that chemicals are ingested into the body and often transform into something completely different from the original substance. Heroin, for instance metabolizes into morphine but can also be broken down and diluted into trace amounts.
There are many ways of testing for substances and one such method is the use of urine. Urine has the advantage of usually being uninfected and more or less free of diseases, whereas blood can have HIV or hepatitis B. Urine may also hold substances longer as when in the bladder it is harder for them to disperse.
Blood can also be used to establish the presence of toxins and narcotics. Around 10ml is usually a sufficient quantity for forensics to screen for the most popular toxic substances. Normally, the blood is used because it can provide more of an immediate indication as to what the subject was taking near the time of the test. That is often why blood alcohol levels are used to convict people who choose to drive under the influence.
Because some toxins may not linger in the blood long enough, the taking of hair samples can be very helpful when testing, especially for slow-acting toxins like poison. The strands of hair can provide a time-line of poisoning and can even tell a forensics examiner how long a person was being poisoned for as well as an estimation of the doses.
It is not unknown for examiners to use other bodily fluids to ascertain the level of toxins in a person's body. Things such as gastric contents, which may give an indication of which pills or liquids were swallowed. Normally, however, these are the sorts of samples that are collected during an autopsy and not on a living human.
Forensic toxicology services test for a wide variety of substances using a wide variety of bodily fluids. Their remit is to ascertain the truth behind what caused a person's death or to give an accurate data interpretation for the police in the case of drunk drivers and other persons that may have broken the law under the influence of narcotics.
The toxicology aspect of the profession uses pharmacology and chemistry to ascertain a cause of death and can cover whether someone has drugs or alcohol in their system when they died. The toxicology service has no interest in whether someone has broken the law, as their remit is to interpret the data that they gather. They usually conduct their examination depending on how wide or narrow the scope of the investigation is.
The data that is gathered can usually give a clear picture as to what substances are in a person's system and can also tell the examiner what likely effect these would have on the body. What makes the role a challenge is that chemicals are ingested into the body and often transform into something completely different from the original substance. Heroin, for instance metabolizes into morphine but can also be broken down and diluted into trace amounts.
There are many ways of testing for substances and one such method is the use of urine. Urine has the advantage of usually being uninfected and more or less free of diseases, whereas blood can have HIV or hepatitis B. Urine may also hold substances longer as when in the bladder it is harder for them to disperse.
Blood can also be used to establish the presence of toxins and narcotics. Around 10ml is usually a sufficient quantity for forensics to screen for the most popular toxic substances. Normally, the blood is used because it can provide more of an immediate indication as to what the subject was taking near the time of the test. That is often why blood alcohol levels are used to convict people who choose to drive under the influence.
Because some toxins may not linger in the blood long enough, the taking of hair samples can be very helpful when testing, especially for slow-acting toxins like poison. The strands of hair can provide a time-line of poisoning and can even tell a forensics examiner how long a person was being poisoned for as well as an estimation of the doses.
It is not unknown for examiners to use other bodily fluids to ascertain the level of toxins in a person's body. Things such as gastric contents, which may give an indication of which pills or liquids were swallowed. Normally, however, these are the sorts of samples that are collected during an autopsy and not on a living human.
Forensic toxicology services test for a wide variety of substances using a wide variety of bodily fluids. Their remit is to ascertain the truth behind what caused a person's death or to give an accurate data interpretation for the police in the case of drunk drivers and other persons that may have broken the law under the influence of narcotics.
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