THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, June 22, 1995 TAG: 9506220458
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KERRY DEROCHI, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 77 lines
Two employees responsible for processing thousands of Navy drug tests have been told they will lose their jobs in connection with a tampering scandal that has threatened the validity of the military's drug screening program.
The employees - both civilian technicians at the Navy Drug Screening Laboratory in Norfolk - were informed June 15 they would be dismissed from government service, a Navy spokesman said Wednesday.
Notice of the pending firings follows the release of a Navy report accusing the workers of altering data and violating key scientific standards while processing urine specimens.
The report, prepared by a private toxicologist in California, cited multiple irregularities at the laboratory, resulting in ``forensically insupportable'' test results.
``These . . . individuals have jeopardized the credibility of the Norfolk Navy Drug Screening Laboratory, the Navy drug screening program, the military drug deterrent effort and the civilian drug-free workplace initiative,'' wrote the consultant, Marilyn A. Huestis, in an executive summary of the report.
The report confirmed an earlier in-house review of the laboratory practices that suggested data were altered from October 1993 to May 1994 in order to mask problems with quality control.
The in-house review, completed in July 1994, identified two employees believed to be responsible for using a computer editing program to alter the data. The employees were removed from their jobs in the screening division to receive ethics training. They were later returned to their posts.
The Navy has declined to identify the two employees. Both have denied involvement. They have 21 days in which to respond to the dismissal letters.
The laboratory, located at the Norfolk Naval Air Station, is scheduled to close this summer. The urine specimens are being forwarded to a similar facility at the Jacksonville Naval Air Station in Florida.
Controversy surrounding the lab's practices surfaced in January 1995 when defense attorneys representing sailors who were accused of using drugs learned of the improprieties and began requesting that convictions be overturned and cases reheard. They questioned how the Navy could proceed with cases against sailors while knowing that employees had violated scientific safeguards.
The scandal prompted Navy Surgeon General Vice Adm. Donald F. Hagen to ask for a second, independent review of the laboratory, which screens more than 300,000 urine samples a year.
The latest report, completed by Huestis on May 25, cited 189 instances where individual test results were modified by lab employees. Of those, 20 were changed from positive to negative.
In two cases, the results were changed from negative to positive, but the discrepancy was caught in the follow-up testing required for any urine specimen that tests positive for drug use.
The report questioned the validity of 50 positive results that were part of a batch that contained altered data. Though each positive was later confirmed in the subsequent testing, the changes rendered the entire test results invalid.
Of those tests, 23 were from Navy and Marine Corps service members and five were from civilians working for the Department of Veterans Affairs. The remaining 22 were test samples.
Huestis questioned the Navy's decision to keep the lab problems from the individual service members and the lawyers handling the drug cases.
``I feel that the 23 positive service members' defense counsel should have been notified of the irregularities in testing,'' Huestis wrote.
``I highly recommend that these steps be taken now and that all parties that have a right or responsibility to know of the data alteration incidents in the laboratory be informed as soon as possible.''
It is unclear what action, if any, will be taken in the affected cases. A Navy spokesman said Wednesday that the matter is under review. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
TAMARA VONINSKI/Staff file
The Navy Drug Screening lab at Norfolk Naval Base, which has been
closed down, received its last urine samples on April 28.
by CNB