Hair Follicle Testing
A hair follicle test is an easy, highly accurate way of diagnosing nutritional deficits.
It is also a highly accurate method of testing for drugs over periods of about 90 days.
It is not the hair follicle, however, that is being tested, but rather the hair itself.
Hair analysis is exactly what it sounds like: a small sample of hair is tested to assess a person's health or drug use history.
Because hair is metabolically active tissue, each hair is a timeline in a sense.
Hair makeup depends on influences like genetics, the environment, hormones, and even transient factors like sweat.
When a substance is ingested, substances called metabolites are produced, as the body breaks down and processes the drug.
A metabolite is a compound that is created from chemical changes to a drug within the body.
Blood carrying these metabolites circulates, eventually enters and nourishes the hair follicle, and the metabolites are then incorporated into the hair strand the follicle produces.
The most common use for a hair follicle test is as a drug test.
Because a strand of hair may be several years old in the case of someone with very long hair, there can be great variations over these strands of hair.
Therefore to standardise hair analysis, the hair analyzed is hair that's 3 to 5 centimeters long measured from the follicle rather than the end.
This length of hair collected from the scalp represents approximately 90 days of toxicological history in people with an average rate of hair growth.
Medical experts say that hair analysis is much more accurate than urine and blood tests, but it is still quite controversial and other medical experts question its accuracy.
Lack of accuracy can result from the absence of standardized laboratory procedures, as well as environmental factors, use of hair products, hair's rate of growth, and the area from which hair is taken.
Some ethnic groups have challenged the accuracy of hair tests because they believe their hair type makes them more vulnerable to "false positives" and could prevent them from being hired based on it.
Hair testing is used, sometimes secretly, by parents worried about their child's possible use of drugs.
Hairs collected from a pillow can be collected and sent to a laboratory for testing.
The advantage of hair testing over other types of drug testing is that a hair follicle test can detect drug use for up to 90 days after the drug has been used.
This is because trace amounts of drug chemicals become trapped inside the structure of the hair as it grows out.
One reason parents give for using secret hair follicle drug tests on their children is that a child can be tested without their knowledge, and this gives a parent back-up information before accusing their child of using drugs.
Drug tests from hair samples can detect every major type of drug including cocaine, ecstasy, PCP, methamphetamines, marijuana, and opiates.
Employee drug test programs are beginning to incorporate hair follicle tests into their pre-hire screenings because of accuracy and the ease of collecting hair.
Hair testing is more expensive than urine testing, however it's up to 10 times more accurate than standard urine tests.
Many individuals are more amenable to providing a hair sample than a sample of saliva or urine.
Usually only a few strands are necessary.
Major corporations and law enforcement agencies are increasingly turning to hair follicle tests as drug screens because of its efficiency and reputation for accuracy.
The technology involves use of a radioimmunoassay followed by mass spectrometry.
In the United States, hair testing labs are regulated by the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments of 1988 or the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) rather than the Food and Drug Administration.
In the U.
S.
, current law allows private sector workplaces that are non-unionized to require applicants and/or employees to take drug tests.
Most of these private workplaces follow the SAMHSA testing guidelines as a legal backstop.
In unionized workforces, testing programs must be negotiated and even when it is required by federal regulations, some aspects of the policy's implementation must be part of the collective bargaining procedure.
Private workplaces have the right to reject an applicant who does not submit to drug testing regardless of whether it's a hair follicle test, a urine test, or a blood test.
The testing of hair for relatively long-term drug use is an accurate and legal method for drug testing.
It is rapidly becoming the "gold standard" in the array of drug testing methodologies.
It is also a highly accurate method of testing for drugs over periods of about 90 days.
It is not the hair follicle, however, that is being tested, but rather the hair itself.
Hair analysis is exactly what it sounds like: a small sample of hair is tested to assess a person's health or drug use history.
Because hair is metabolically active tissue, each hair is a timeline in a sense.
Hair makeup depends on influences like genetics, the environment, hormones, and even transient factors like sweat.
When a substance is ingested, substances called metabolites are produced, as the body breaks down and processes the drug.
A metabolite is a compound that is created from chemical changes to a drug within the body.
Blood carrying these metabolites circulates, eventually enters and nourishes the hair follicle, and the metabolites are then incorporated into the hair strand the follicle produces.
The most common use for a hair follicle test is as a drug test.
Because a strand of hair may be several years old in the case of someone with very long hair, there can be great variations over these strands of hair.
Therefore to standardise hair analysis, the hair analyzed is hair that's 3 to 5 centimeters long measured from the follicle rather than the end.
This length of hair collected from the scalp represents approximately 90 days of toxicological history in people with an average rate of hair growth.
Medical experts say that hair analysis is much more accurate than urine and blood tests, but it is still quite controversial and other medical experts question its accuracy.
Lack of accuracy can result from the absence of standardized laboratory procedures, as well as environmental factors, use of hair products, hair's rate of growth, and the area from which hair is taken.
Some ethnic groups have challenged the accuracy of hair tests because they believe their hair type makes them more vulnerable to "false positives" and could prevent them from being hired based on it.
Hair testing is used, sometimes secretly, by parents worried about their child's possible use of drugs.
Hairs collected from a pillow can be collected and sent to a laboratory for testing.
The advantage of hair testing over other types of drug testing is that a hair follicle test can detect drug use for up to 90 days after the drug has been used.
This is because trace amounts of drug chemicals become trapped inside the structure of the hair as it grows out.
One reason parents give for using secret hair follicle drug tests on their children is that a child can be tested without their knowledge, and this gives a parent back-up information before accusing their child of using drugs.
Drug tests from hair samples can detect every major type of drug including cocaine, ecstasy, PCP, methamphetamines, marijuana, and opiates.
Employee drug test programs are beginning to incorporate hair follicle tests into their pre-hire screenings because of accuracy and the ease of collecting hair.
Hair testing is more expensive than urine testing, however it's up to 10 times more accurate than standard urine tests.
Many individuals are more amenable to providing a hair sample than a sample of saliva or urine.
Usually only a few strands are necessary.
Major corporations and law enforcement agencies are increasingly turning to hair follicle tests as drug screens because of its efficiency and reputation for accuracy.
The technology involves use of a radioimmunoassay followed by mass spectrometry.
In the United States, hair testing labs are regulated by the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments of 1988 or the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) rather than the Food and Drug Administration.
In the U.
S.
, current law allows private sector workplaces that are non-unionized to require applicants and/or employees to take drug tests.
Most of these private workplaces follow the SAMHSA testing guidelines as a legal backstop.
In unionized workforces, testing programs must be negotiated and even when it is required by federal regulations, some aspects of the policy's implementation must be part of the collective bargaining procedure.
Private workplaces have the right to reject an applicant who does not submit to drug testing regardless of whether it's a hair follicle test, a urine test, or a blood test.
The testing of hair for relatively long-term drug use is an accurate and legal method for drug testing.
It is rapidly becoming the "gold standard" in the array of drug testing methodologies.
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