Federal Advisory Board Recommends Hair Testing for Truck Driver Drug Screenings
After two years of study, a federal drug advisory board has issued a recommendation that hair specimens be approved as an alternative for federal workplace drug-testing programs.
In a 9-0 unanimous secret ballot on Aug. 7, and without public comment, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s Drug Testing Advisory Board agreed to forward a recommendation to SAMHSA Administrator Pamela Hyde that the agency “pursue” the hair-testing alternative.
If Hyde agrees, the recommendation would then be forwarded to the Department of Health and Human Services, which could issue a slate of proposed hair-testing guidelines.
The Department of Transportation could ultimately adopt all or part of the HHS hair-testing standard for truck drivers and other “safety-sensitive” federal workers.
By forwarding the recommendation, the advisory board eliminated any potential concerns “regarding the scientific methodology and forensic defensibility of hair testing.”
While some motor carriers already collect hair specimens for testing of would-be employees, under current federal government regulations, urinalysis is the only acceptable testing method for the pre¬employment and random drug testing that carriers must conduct on drivers.
HHS, has proposed also allowing oral swab testing as an option.
The SAMHSA advisory board has been studying hair testing for the past two years, including combing the results of more than 1,200 peer reviewed papers on the subject published in professional journals, said Janine Cook, SAMHSA’s designated federal official to the board.
Before that, in 2004, HHS issued proposed guidelines that would have allowed hair testing, but pulled back the proposal by 2008 after public comments and issues raised by federal agencies during the internal review of the proposed change identified significant scientific, legal and public-policy concerns.
In an audio briefing to the board on June 12, Patrice Kelly, acting director of the DOT’S Office of Drug and Alcohol Policy and Compliance, said her agency views drug testing as a “serious safety issue.”
Since issuing a public request for information in May, SAMHSA has received 295 comments from 35 commenters, with the vast majority generally supporting hair testing, Sean Belouin, commander of the U.S. Public Health Service, told the board.
The only public commenter at the board’s Aug. 7 meeting was Andrea Wohleber, an official with the AFL-CIO’s Transportation Trades Department.
Wohleber told the board that her organization opposes hair testing and noted that a bill allowing hair testing has been introduced in Congress and could be passed “before you all here finish your work.”
