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On The Road & Reaching Out:
Forensic Toxicology Steps Beyond the Lab  MADISON , Wis. - The Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene's Forensic Toxicology program stands as one of our State's leaders in alcohol and drug testing.
Sharing the WSLH's Toxicology section with the Clinical Metals Toxicology program, the Forensic Toxicology staff has no shortage of busy days in the laboratory. This team of analysts conducts approximately 95% of the state's blood testing for alcohol in Operating While Intoxicated (OWI) offenses, in addition to testing for a wide-range of drugs. But the effort of WSLH staff also takes them away from the lab and out on the road to help educate and support the work of forensic toxicology around our state. In The Laboratory In 2003, there were an estimated 38,000 Operating While Intoxicated (OWI) arrests in Wisconsin. Of those, the WSLH received a blood sample and performed an alcohol test on 22,000. That's approximately 60 percent of the cases. Throw in nearly 1,500 cases requiring drug testing - illicit, prescription and over-the-counter, anything that can affect the ability to drive - and one could assume the laboratory staff doesn't see the sun too much. In 2004, the number of blood alcohol and drug tests done by the program continued to climb. "We really have a lot more blood-alcohol cases than breath in the state, which is unique in the country," said Laura Liddicoat, the WSLH's Forensic Toxicology Program Supervisor. "We are the state that has the highest blood workload." Working with both coroners on death investigations and law enforcement officers for impaired-driving cases, there are 18 analysts to share the alcohol-testing workload. Twelve of those 18 also handle the drug testing, which comprises a majority of the work effort due to the comprehensive nature of the testing. But the work of the Forensic Toxicology staff does not end when the drugs are detected. "Part of the day-to-day process is the testing of received samples," Liddicoat said. "And then every week, we have several people that go to trials all around the State. It can be anytime of the day, even in the evenings sometimes." Traveling to the State's county seats and municipalities, the Forensic Toxicology chemists cover Wisconsin to testify about the results and how alcohol and drugs can affect a person and their ability to operate a vehicle. "All of that testing results in 300 court appearances a year for the staff," said Patrick Harding, the WSLH's Toxicology Section Supervisor. "That's 5,000 subpoenas and travel of over 60,000 miles." Outreach And Education Beyond The Laboratory For Harding, Liddicoat and their staff, however, education and outreach have become critical components of the Forensic Toxicology program's ongoing growth. On the University of Wisconsin campus, the WSLH partners with the UW Law School's Resource Center for Impaired Driving to present at biannual programs for attorneys, law enforcement officials and other traffic safety professionals. The staff is also actively involved with instruction for Drug Recognition Expert training programs. DREs are officers that are specially trained to perform field evaluations of suspected drugged drivers to identify the type of drug that has been used. Further outreach is provided to Wisconsin coroners and medical examiners, the UW School of Pharmacy, the National Institute on Drug Abuse's week-long summer program for teachers at UW-Madison and ROSITA2, an international drug research project. Additionally, Harding is a member of the Robert F. Borkenstein Course on Alcohol and Traffic Safety at the University of Indiana and has participated in the "Lethal Weapon: Homicide DUI" course by the National District Attorney's Association for the past five years. "Outreach is an important goal and strategy for the State Lab's Toxicology program," Harding said. "It makes it much easier to have and provide the same information to a room full of people that need it than to do it each individual time. And it makes our job and their job a lot easier to be able to do that. "The testing and scientific principles of alcohol and drug impairment are such that these trials are complicated. They are traffic cases, but the prosecutors have to deal with scientific testimony and expert witnesses which they don't have to do in a regular speeding case or anything like that. The cases become more complicated. They are heavily contested because the penalties are so high for a conviction and it's an offense that knows no socioeconomic boundaries." Forensic Toxicology staff also became involved in public policy development this past year. Liddicoat joined WSLH Director Dr. Ron Laessig in providing scientific testimony at Wisconsin Legislative hearings on the "Baby Luke Law" (Assembly Bill 458), that makes driving with any detectable amount of a Schedule One controlled substance in one's blood an offense. This work has helped the Forensic Toxicology program further increase its visibility statewide and created the need for further outreach activities by the program. Both Harding and Liddicoat credit their staff for helping advance the program to its current level and for working on future projects, such as more published research on drugged driving. "We have a great staff," Harding said. "We have to recruit for somewhat intangible qualities." "Our toxicologists have to be able to go out and explain to non-scientific jurors and judges some really complicated and highly technical procedures," Liddicoat added. "We actually recruit for that. "We have some questions in our interviews where we put them on the spot and say 'explain this to us as if we are a jury, we're sitting on a jury and you need to let us know what you did.' And that's very difficult, especially for scientists to do that. It's not always mutually compatible to be able to speak about what you do and do it well. So we have a great staff." Written By: Jessica D. Burda, WSLH Communications Specialist Date: January 11, 2005 Related Stories: Return To WSLH News & Events
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