California Association of Toxicologists Newsletter

The Orange County Crime Laboratory is

hosting the Nov 5th and 6th meeting at

the Disneyland Paradise Pier in Anaheim.

The title of the meeting is “Under the In-

fluence of Drug(s), Says Who?” covering

topics regarding common DUID de-

fenses, “Z drugs” and more! Visit

www.cal-tox.org for the detailed agenda.

The Disneyland Paradise Pier Hotel is located at 1717 Disneyland

Dr, Anaheim 92802. The CAT room rate is $137/night. The re-

sort fee is $12/day which includes self parking and internet. Self

parking is free to attendees, valet is $17/day. Deadline for CAT

room rates is October 14th!

See page 2 of this newsletter for details regarding registration

prices, reserving rooms at the discounted CAT rate and discount

park tickets!

California Association of Toxicologists Newsletter

Volume 40:2 Summer 2010 2010-11 Board of Directors

PRESIDENT

Michelle Sandberg

PAST PRESIDENT

John Hughes

VICE PRESIDENT

Nadina Giorgi

SECRETARY/MEMBERSHIP

Trevor Gillis

SECRETARY/PROCEEDINGS

Cathy Hamm

TREASURER

Dan Coleman

MEMBER-AT-LARGE NORTH

Edwin Smith

MEMBER-AT-LARGE SOUTH

Jaime Lintemoot

Inside this issue:

Registration Form Pg 2

CAT Grant Pg 4

BOD Mtg Pg 5

Business Mtg Pg 6

Officer’s Reports Pg 7-9, 16-18

Chair/Committee

Reports

Pg 10-15

CAT Survey/

Results

Pg 19-21

CAT Survey

Program

Pg 22

Please mail the completed registration form to the CAT Of-

fice along with a check payable to “CAT”. Sorry, no purchase

orders or credit cards are accepted at this time. If you need

a W-9 form, please contact our treasurer Dan Coleman at

[email protected]

To register you must:

Send in your fees along with the registration form

Send appropriate fees depending on member status

Registrants will receive an email confirming successful regis-

tration. If you do not receive an email within two weeks of

submitting your registration, please contact the CAT Office

with questions.

Absolutely NO REFUNDS will be issued. If you are not up to

date on your dues, please contact the CAT Office regarding

payment.

Registration Procedure

Next CAT Meeting: Disneyland!

Hotel Accommodations: The meeting will be held at the Disneyland Paradise Pier Hotel

in Anaheim at 1717 Disneyland Dr. Anaheim 92802. The CAT room rate is $137/night.

The resort fee is $12/day which includes self parking and internet.

Self-parking is free to attendees, valet is $17/day.

Discounted park tickets are available until Nov. 1, 2010 at

http://www.disneyconventionear.com/GPCK10B

Reserve rooms online at https://resweb.passkey.com/go/GPCK10B

The deadline for CAT room rates is October 14, 2010.

*Registration cost includes lunch and dinner on Friday and lunch on Saturday.

P A G E 2

Friday, November 5, 2010

Registration (must be postmarked by October 15th)

( ) $70 Pre-registration for CAT Members ($110 after October 15th)

( ) $35 Pre-registration for CAT Emeritus/Student Members ($75 after October 15th)

( ) $100 Pre-registration for Non Members ($140 after October 15th)

Saturday, November 6, 2010

Registration (must be postmarked by October 15th)

( ) $70 Pre-registration for CAT Members ($110 after October 15th)

( ) $35 Pre-registration for CAT Emeritus/Student Members ($75 after October 15th)

( ) $100 Pre-registration for Non Members ($140 after October 15th)

**No Refunds after October 15th** Mail Completed Registration Form to:

Kristina Takeshita 1800 Paseo Rancho Castilla

Los Angeles, CA 90032

______________________________ ______________________________ Name Mailing Address ______________________________ ______________________________ Email City/State/Zip ______________________________ ______________________________ Phone Professional/Business Affiliation My Total Registration Cost is $_______ w/check #__________ made out to “CAT”

California Association of Toxicologists Under the Influence of Drug’s, Says Who?

November 5-6, 2010 in Anaheim

http://www.disneyconventionear.com/GPCK10B

https://resweb.passkey.com/go/GPCK10B

P A G E 3

C A L I F O R N I A A S S O C I A T I O N O F T O X I C O L O G I S T S N E W S L E T T E R

CAT received over $6500 in vendor support

for our May meeting in Sacramento!

As a highlight, UTAK sponsored

a very entertaining evening with a comedy night social.

For the vendor game, ThermoFisher donated a fantastic prize:

a bottle of tequila in the shape of a revolver.

Immunalysis generously sponsored the vendor game providing

attendants a sleep-inspired game titled "Counting Sheep".

Attendants were encouraged to go to each vendor and roll dice that represented how many sheep they had. The person with the lowest

amount of sheep won a prize! Immunalysis also donated several prizes for the vendor game, and sponsored Friday's lunch.

Last but not least, Shimadzu sponsored

our delicious Saturday morning break.

Thank you to all our vendors who contributed

to the success of this meeting!

P A G E 4

CAT Research Assistant Grant

Committees and Chairs AACC ACCENT Credits Kenton Wong (510)266-8132

Bylaws and Records, Review

and Revision

Sarah Kerrigan (713)868-2440

Drugs and Driving Janet Seaquist (805)662-6804 Jennifer Valdez (480)312-5276

Emeritus Elect Vacant

Forensic Alcohol Advisory Halle Weingarten (408)274-0696 Paul Sedgwick (714)834-6351

Future Meetings/Short Courses Nikolas Lemos (415)553-1694

Legislative Liaison Ed Smith (916)366-3113

Lending Library Cathy Hamm (858)694-2909

Membership Nadina Giorgi (916)227-3620

New Drugs Dan Anderson (323)343-0660

Quality Assurance Jaime Lintemoot (323)343-0672

Research Grant Rob Fitzgerald (858)552-8585, ext 7761

Toxicology Literature Review Vacant

Vendor Liaison Melissa Kramer (323) 415-8877

Hotel Locator Janice Strum

The California Association of Toxicologists has made available $2,500 for a Re-

search Assistant Grant. This grant is intended to fund research projects in the

area of clinical and forensic toxicology. In addition, up to $500 is available for

travel expenses to recipients of the grant who will be expected to present their

findings at a future CAT meeting. For further information, contact the Chair of

CAT Research Grant by fax, mail or email at the address below.

Robert L. Fitzgerald, Ph.D.

VAMC-113

3350 La Jolla Village Drive

San Diego, California 92161

Phone: (959) 552-8585, ext. 7761

Fax: (858) 642-6304

Email: [email protected]


Board of Director’s Meeting

P A G E 5

The CAT Board of Director’s meet-ing was called to order on May 14, 2010 at 5:35 pm by President Mi-chelle Sandberg.

The meeting was attended by Presi-dent Michelle Sandberg, Treasurer Dan Coleman, Proceedings Secretary Catherine Hamm, Member-ship Secretary Trevor Gillis, Member-at-Large North Edwin Smith, Member-at-Large South and QA/QC Chair Jaime Lintemoot, Vendor Liaison Melissa Kramer, and CAT Assistant Kristina Take-shita. The attendees constituted the quorum needed to conduct new business.

The minutes from the previous board meeting were presented for approval. With no corrections sug-gested, the minutes were approved as presented.

President Michelle Sandberg thanked Melissa Kramer for a great job as Vendor Liaison at this meeting. Melissa reported that there was $6,500 in vendor support at this meeting and that the vendors seemed happy with attendance and arrangements. Michelle passed out a proposed draft of Meeting Guidelines for CAT and asked for feedback. The next meeting will be in Anaheim and hosted by Dani Mata and Jennifer Harmon of the Orange County Crime Lab.

Michelle presented the proposal from Capitola De-signs for the updating and management of the CAT website. Ed Smith offered to review the proposal for website services and make relevant recommen-dations. In the meantime, the CAT board of direc-tors voted to accept Capitola’s proposal and move forward with the website updates.

Membership Secretary Trevor Gillis presented the applicants for membership. There were no con-cerns or discussion regarding any of the applicants, and they will be presented at the business meeting tomorrow.

Proceedings Secretary and Lending Library Chair Cathy Hamm reported that the obsolete material contained in the lending library was boxed up and sent to GreenDisk for disposal. We have a certifi-cate that all the materials, mainly videotapes, were

securely destroyed. The remaining items will trans-ferred to the CAT office at the November 2010 meeting.

Treasurer Dan Coleman gave a synopsis of the fi-nancial status of the CAT. Please see his detailed reports in the Newsletter. He also expects his meeting to break even financially.

QA/QC Chair Jaime Lintemoot recommended sending out fewer CAT Surveys each year. The board voted to change the policies and procedures to require a minimum of two CAT surveys per year to coincide with the reduced number of meetings per year.

MAL North Edwin Smith is attempting to put to-gether a list of forensic science programs in central and northern California. Please forward any sug-gestions to him.

MAL South Jaime Lintemoot had several sugges-tions for promoting the organization, including up-dating website information with past winners of re-search grants and their presentations, adding links to relevant toxicology sites (like RTI) to the website, update the vendor section with current vendor sponsors, resume CAT polo shirt sales (Melissa offered to take care of this at meetings), put the membership roster on the website in the members-only section, consider starting a Yahoo group for the organization, and trying to publish relevant arti-cles of interest in the newsletter. She also sug-gested emailing the CAT Newsletter in PDF format to the membership. There was discussion of re-duced membership dues for those members that would forego a paper newsletter. The board voted to set membership fees as follows: $65/year to in-clude printed copy of the newsletter, and $60/year for electronic copy.

CAT Assistant Kristina Takeshita plans to publish the next issue of the Newsletter in August, 2010.

The meeting was adjourned at 7:15 pm.


Business Meeting

P A G E 6

The CAT business meeting was called to order on May 15, 2010 at 11:55 am by President

Michelle Sandberg.

Michelle announced the online and electronic version of the newsletter. She re-ported that the CAT board has approved a pro-posal from Capitola Design for a content man-agement feature on the website along with online meeting registration and dues payments. She also announced the upcoming meetings. The next meeting is hosted by Orange County Crime Lab at Disneyland Resort on November 14-15, 2010. The following hosts have been tentatively lined up:

May 2011 Redwood Toxicology

(Northern California)

Nov 2011 LAPD Crime Lab

May 2012 Northern California

(host needed)

Nov 2012 LA County Sheriff Crime Lab

She thanked Sacramento meeting host Dan Coleman for his work and congratulated him on a successful meeting.

Membership Secretary Trevor Gillis presented three applicants for membership. There was no discussion of the applicants and they were ap-proved by vote of the membership.

Treasurer Dan Coleman presented the Treas-urer’s report. He reported that the organization is generally cost-neutral, income and expenses about the same. He expected this meeting to break even. He also reported that CAT was fined $260 by the IRS for late filing.

Proceedings Secretary Cathy Hamm made an announcement regarding the CAT lending library. Obsolete and outdated items have been securely destroyed and remaining items of historical sig-nificance will be transferred to the CAT Office at the November 2010 meeting.

MAL North Edwin Smith solicited contact infor-mation regarding forensic science or toxicology education and training programs in California. He is attempting to put together a list for the web-site. Please forward any suggestions to him.

MAL South Jaime Lintemoot suggested changes for the website and newsletter that are outlined in her report in this newsletter.

Forensic Alcohol Advisory committee chair Halle Weingarten reported that the Forensic Alcohol Review Committee (FARC) continues to meet and report on their recommendations. Watch for the final recommended version online at http://www.cdph.ca.gov/services/boards/farc/Pages/default.aspx . They are soliciting public comment with regard to the proposed changes.

Quality Assurance Chair Jaime Lintemoot shared that the results of the latest QA/QC sur-vey sample will be published in the newsletter. She is soliciting host laboratories to prepare and send out future survey samples. CAT plans to go to two survey samples per year.

Vendor Liaison Melissa Kramer of LAPD thanked all the vendors for their attendance and support, and reported $6,500 in vendor sponsor-ship.

Member Nik Lemos promoted the upcoming SOFT meeting in San Francisco in Fall 2011.

The meeting was adjourned to lunch at 12:20


http://www.cdph.ca.gov/services/boards/farc/Pages/default.aspx



Officer’s Reports

P A G E 7


President-Michelle Sandberg

Future meeting hosts and site selections:

In order to be as resourceful as possible, we are trying to get the best hotel rates possible by se-curing contracts for more than one meeting at a time.

Nov. 5-6, 2010 – Host, Jennifer Harmon of

Orange County Sheriff Coroner Disney

Paradise Pier Hotel, CAT rate $137/night +

$12 resort fee

May 5-6, 2011 – Host, Suman Rana of

Redwood Toxicology Napa Valley Embassy

Suites, CAT rate of $145/night includes

breakfast!

Nov. 4-5, 2011 – Host, LAPD Toxicology

Section Hilton Glendale – CAT rate of $139/

night + CAT parking rate of $8

May 2012—We need a host!

Nov. 2-3, 2012 – Host, LASD Toxicology

Section Hilton Glendale - CAT rate of $139/

night + CAT parking rate of $8

Website update – This is probably our biggest undertaking for 2011. CAT is on the path to finally getting our website user friendly from the “back” end! The CAT Board has voted to move forward with a content man-agement system which should be up and running within the next three months. If the project moves as expected, online reg-istration should be available for the No-vember 2010 meeting. Please notify me of any content update requests you have

Next slate of officers – It’s time to think about who we have to fill the next slate of offi-cers for CAT Board. Cathy Hamm is look-

ing to step down, and is hoping to find an interested member who can job shadow her for the remainder of her term.

Committee chairs – Some chairs would like to have an additional committee member so that they are not a “party of one”. Edwin Smith has agreed to join the website com-mittee and Tim Appel has agreed to assist Dan Anderson on the New Drugs Commit-tee. If any member has an interest in one of our committees, please step forward!

Northern and Southern Rep’s – It often seems there is little delegated for this Board posi-tion to do aside from updating be member-ship on available training. We have some association needs that are vacant where these Board members may be able to help. One that came to mind was to as-sist bringing new membership to the meet-ings by networking with local colleges, fo-rensic programs, hospitals and private laboratories for flier distribution. Addition-ally, Jaime will be helping us with identify-ing old material on our website and Edwin in bringing new technology to our forms.

Meeting Host Guidelines – Have been up-dated and are currently being reviewed by other Board members. It will be a work in progress, and they will be updated as needed and from suggestions of recent past meeting hosts.

Hosting ABFT – Suggested by our N. and S. representatives – Is CAT interested in hosting an exam or assisting with one? Nicholas Lemos is looking for help with hosting one in August 2011.

Officer Reports (continued)

P A G E 8


CAT Documents – They are in need of being updated. Trevor Gillis will assist in identi-fying materials for update.

Immediate Past President-John Hughes

(not attending)

CAT solicited a proposal with cost from our cur-rent website support firm, Capitola Designs in the Santa Cruz area, for a complete update of the CAT website for the following purposes:

The ability for CAT itself (CAT office or desig-nated website member help) to make routine updates of content, e.g. meeting information, registration forms. The current design of the website by our previous developer is suffi-ciently non-standard and undocumented, that we have to rely on Capitola for most updates.

Create a Content Management System (CMS), a simple user interface to facilitate self-made updates without the need for CAT to purchase and maintain expensive web de-sign software

Make the website supportable and updatable by any competent web designer using indus-try-standard tools and practices

Make the website compatible with the planned Membership system, which will in-clude membership info updating, online meet-ing registration/payment and dues payment

The submitted cost from Capitola was $7000, with a 4-8 week elapsed timeline for the work.

A teleconference with Webex was held on April 29, 2010 with President Michelle Sandberg, VP Meetings Nadina Giorgi, CAT office assistant Kristina Takeshita, and myself to discuss the pro-posal and prepare website recommendations for a Board vote to move forward on the website up-date. The following are those recommendations:

CAT should proceed with the Capitola pro-posal and project. We have had good experi-ences with them thus far, and they are lo-cated near several CAT board members for ease of working with them. We see no need to look for other bids from other website de-signers, which would prolong the project.

We should include in the website update the long-proposed online Membership system. SOFT/AAFS website designer Paul Lubbers has already prepared a prototype member-ship system using SOFT code (allowed by our sister organizations for our cost savings) which has been tested last year by the CAT office. Although the current meeting registra-tion system is working well for the office with only two meetings/year, the Committee’s opinion is that the convenience of online pay-ment will be welcomed by most of our mem-bership, and that CAT should have a profes-sionally-functioning website comparable to those of SOFT, AAFS, and ASMS for these functions.

CAT’s finances are currently in good shape, partially due to break-even or profitable meet-ings, and reduced expenses for the Newslet-ter. We had originally budgeted $10,000 just for the Membership system, which will be much less expensive than originally forecast. So even a small cost overrun beyond the $10k will be easily tolerated by the CAT budget, to accomplish both the badly-needed website update and the membership system.

Officer Reports (continued)

P A G E 9


In closing the meeting, we extended great thanks to Michelle for her tedious management of web-site updates until we got Capitola routinely doing them for us.

As I will not be able to attend the May Board meeting, my vote for the Website update (both design/CMS and Membership system) is Aye.

Vice President-Nadina Giorgi I continue to work with John and Michelle in re-gards to Capitola overhauling the website. Once the website has been re-worked, I hope to be able to take over more of the responsibility of up-dating the new site. On-line registration and membership renewal would be ideal to have on the website, but for now the main focus should be for CAT to be able to easily do our own up-dates to the site.

Secretary of Proceedings-Cathy Hamm

For various reasons, I have not been able to ob-tain the presentations from the meetings to be posted on the website. Main reason cited is that the host isn’t sure if it is OK with the author. I as-sured everyone that only PDF files will be posted. Also, there was a meeting that was also a SOFT workshop and the host did not want to turn over that material. I don’t mind asking, and transfer-ring the files onto a memory stick, but I am not going to hound the hosts. I have sent several follow-up emails with no success. Maybe the host guidelines need to be changed, or some other procedure put in place. I would like to dis-cuss this.

Secretary of Membership– Trevor Gillis

Applicant’s for Associate Membership

Erin Crabtrey

QA Manager/Toxicologist

Bio-Tox Laboratories

Riverside, CA

Timothy Fassetto

Forensic Chemist II

Henderson PD Crime Lab

Henderson, NV

Alejandro Corona

Forensic Toxicologist

Forensic Analytical Sciences, Inc.

Hayward, CA

Treasurer-Dan Coleman

See report on pages 16-18.

Member-at-Large North-Ed Smith

Nothing to Report at this time.

Member-at-Large South-Jaime Lintemoot

Nothing to Report at this time.

Chair Reports

P A G E 1 0


Lending Library-Cathy Hamm

The lending library has been dismantled and the archives (three banker’s boxes) will to be trans-ferred to the CAT Office. We need to update the website to remove the information about the lending library

Forensic Alcohol Advisory Committee – Paul

Sedgwick and Halle Weingarten

The Forensic Alcohol Review Committee (FARC) has had several meetings during which they have continued to work on revisions to Title 17. The minutes of meetings as well as current proposed versions of the regulations can be found on the Health Department’s web site: www.cdph.ca.gov/services/boards/farc/Pages/default.aspx.

Under California law, adoption or modification of regulations requires various levels of approval and public comments will be considered. All inter-ested individuals should examine the proposals and provide feedback.

Toxicology Literature Review – Rodger Foltz

No information was provided

New Drugs Committee – Dan Anderson

Have to first admit that as the New Drugs com-mittee chair, I have been negligent with up keep-ing the new drugs section for CAT. Although I fulfill the same job duties for SOFT and obtain information about new drugs and their analytical characteristics, I have to ask for permission from the authors, who previously submitted to SOFT/ToxTalk, for their approval to include their docu-mentation on the CAT website.

Action:

The drugs will have to be reconciled from what is already on the CAT website with those that were published in ToxTalk in the last few years.

Permission will be obtained from those authors in order to make the document available on the CAT website.

Drug documents (word or pdf) will be forwarded to the appropriate person for uploading onto CAT website.

AACC Continuing Education Committee -

Kenton S. Wong

All smooth sailing; No Report

http://www.cdph.ca.gov/services/boards/farc/Pages/default.aspx.

http://www.cdph.ca.gov/services/boards/farc/Pages/default.aspx.

Chair Reports (continued)

P A G E 1 1


Legislative Liaison – Edwin Smith

The following California bills may be of interest to CAT members. For complete information, please visit the bill information website at http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/bilinfo.html.

Assembly Bill 748: Places MDMA in

Sched ule II (status: active)

Assembly Bill 390: Marijuana Control,

Regulation, and Education Act

(status: inactive)

Assembly Bill 2254: Marijuana Control,

Regulation, and Education Act

(status: active)

Senate Bill 1449: Marijuana possession (status: active)

Senate Bill 16: Marijuana taxation

(status: active)

Senate Bill 17: Cannabis Licensing Act

(status: active)

Senate Bill 53: Medical Marijuana Licensing Act (status: inactive)

Senate Bill 62: Marijuana taxation

(status: inactive)

Senate Joint Resolution #14: Medical

marijuana (status: active)

Vendor Liaison – Melissa Kramer

$6500 revenue generated for the May 2010 meeting. This includes 10 companies exhibiting and the following:

Utak – Comedy Club

Perkin Elmer – Prizes

Shimadzu – Sat. AM Continental Breakfast

Immunalysis – Sat. Lunch

Future Meetings and Short Courses – Nikolas

Lemos

48th Annual Meeting of The International Asso-ciation of Forensic Toxicologists

August 29 - September 2, 2010, Bonn, Germany

http://tiaft2010.gtfch.org

38th Annual Workshop and Symposium of the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors

September 10 – 16, 2010, Baltimore, MD

http://www.ascld.org/content/2010-symposium

Course on Advanced HPLC Method Develop-ment

September 13 - 29, 2010, Live on the WWW

www.lcresources.com/training/tramd.html

Course on HPLC Basics, Equipment, and Trou-bleshooting

September 14 – 30, 2010, Live on the WWW

www.lcresources.com/training/trbeqts.html

http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/bilinfo.html

http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/bilinfo.html

http://tiaft2010.gtfch.org/

http://www.ascld.org/content/2010-symposium

http://www.lcresources.com/training/tramd.html

http://www.lcresources.com/training/trbeqts.html


P A G E 1 2


Annual Meeting of the National Association of Medical Examiners

October 1 – 6, 2010, Cleveland, OH

http://thename.org

Seminar of the California Association of Criminal-ists

October 3 – 7, 2010, Oakland, CA

http://www.cacnews.org/events/seminar/seminarcurrent.shtml

Course on Interpretation of Mass Spectra

October 4 – November 17, 2010, Live on the WWW

www.lcresources.com/training/trims.html

2010 Meeting of the Society of Forensic Toxi-cologists

October 18 ‐ 22, 2010, Richmond, VA

www.soft-tox.org

Course on Advanced HPLC Method Develop-ment

November 1-2, 2010, Foster City, CA

www.lcresources.com/training/tramd.html

Course on HPLC Basics, Equipment, and Trou-bleshooting

November 3 – 5, 2010, Foster City, CA

www.lcresources.com/training/trbeqts.html

Course on Interpretation of Mass Spectra

November 8 – 10, 2010, Foster City, CA

www.lcresources.com/training/trims.html

Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Fo-rensic Sciences

February 21 ‐ 26, 2011, Chicago, IL

www.aafs.org/default.asp?sec-tion_id=meetings&page_id=aafs_annual_meeting

50th Annual Meeting of the Society of Toxicology & ToxExpoTM

March 6 – 10, 2011, Washington, DC

http://www.toxicology.org/ai/meet/am.asp

Spring 2011 National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society

March 27 - 31, 2011, Anaheim, CA

http://www.acs.org

Seminar of the California Association of Criminal-ists

May 16 – 20, 2011, Los Angeles, CA

http://www.cacnews.org/events/seminar/seminars.shtml

http://thename.org/



http://www.lcresources.com/training/trims.html

http://www.soft-tox.org/

http://www.lcresources.com/training/tramd.html

http://www.lcresources.com/training/trbeqts.html

http://www.lcresources.com/training/trims.html

http://www.aafs.org/default.asp?section_id=meetings&page_id=aafs_annual_meeting




http://www.toxicology.org/ai/meet/am.asp

http://www.acs.org/




P A G E 1 3


Bylaws & Records, Review & Revision – Sarah

Kerrigan

There has been no activity to report

Research Grant Committee – Robert Fitzgerald

There have been no new application for the Re-search Grant. There is $2500 available for a toxi-cology research project. Anyone interested should check out the research grant page of the CAT web-site (www.cal-tox.org).

Website Committee - Michelle Sandberg and

Tim Appel

Michelle

The most up to date information is reflected in John Hughes report regarding our meeting with Capitola

Michelle continues to be the liaison between CAT and Capitola for getting information posted

John Hughes is serving as the liaison between CAT and Capitola in regards to major website changes

Nadina is involved with reviewing what John supplies us from Capitola

I would like to see if we can interest Tim in as-sisting with other committees that are in greater need than the website committee!

Tim

I have nothing to report

Quality Assurance – Jaime Lintemoot

Participation:

There are currently 33 Laboratories participating in the CAT Survey Program.

14 Laboratories are from California

2 Laboratories are from Canada

The remaining 17 Laboratories are from other States.

Past Surveys:

Fall 2009: Jaime Lintemoot – Los Angeles, CA

Los Angeles County Department of Coroner Specimen – Urine

Drugs:

920 ng/mL Butalbital

1200 ng/mL Dextromethorphan

800 ng/mL Doxylamine

160 ng/mL Tizanidine

75 ng/mL Oxycodone

450 ng/mL Venlafaxine

Current Surveys:

Spring 2010: John Musselman – Phoenix, AZ-Phoenix Police Department Crime Laboratory

In Progress

Future Survey Hosts:

Summer 2010: Paul Delaney – Willow Grove, PA NMS Labs

Fall 2010: William Dunn – Newark, NJ Regional Medical Examiner’s Office

Winter 2010 and On: Looking for Volunteers!!

http://www.cal-tox.org/


P A G E 1 4


Drugs and Driving-Janet Seaquist and Jenni-

fer Valdez

Janet: No information provided

Jennifer:

The theme of this meeting is determining differ-ences between non-drugged driving issues and drugged driving issues. To wit, I am attaching the links to several articles that are available in full for free on the web.

For an overall view on what drives your driving, go to http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/traffic/tpintro.html#domains and read the comprehensive theory of driving behavior – how it develops, is implemented, and circumvented in some drivers. What makes you a good driver?

Sleep issues:

To look at the sleep-apnea crowd, check out An-nals of Internal Medicine at www.annals.org for a link to Ann Intern Med. 2009;151:447-455. Ef-fects of Alochol and Sleep Restriction on Simula-tor Performance in Untreated Patients with Ob-structive Sleep Apnea, Vakulin, et al. Prepare to be amazed as it is scientifically proven that peo-ple with their eyes closed are more likely to crash than the control group. Crash risk increased 7 times versus the control group.

A new term to haunt you in court – “microsleeping”! Great, now we can add another thing to the list of reasons your client is not guilty of DUI drugs. Look in to it for free at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2808128/ find out how not sleeping at night is corrected for during the day.

One can also increase the risk of accidents by

not getting enough oxygen to the brain. I know – go figure. A small study shows that patients with COPD have approximately twice the accident rate in simulators as healthy individuals. No rela-tion to severity of disease and accident risk could be made. Check it out at http://www.jpp.krakow.pl/journal/archive/1208_s6/pdf/539_1208_s6_article.pdf Why do we sleep anyway? No one really knows, but a new study has shown that, like COPD, not getting enough sleep causes less oxygen to get to frontal lobes the next day, impacting cognitive ability. Look for these results in Insufficient sleep impairs driving performance and cognitive function. Miyata S, Noda A, Ozaki N, Hara Y, Minoshima M, Iwa-moto K, Takahashi M, Iidaka T, Koike Y. Neuro-sci Lett. 2010 Jan 22;469(2):229-33. Epub 2009 Dec 6.

Distractions:

What’s the difference between your iPod and your cell phone? Not much, evidently. Details in Driving error and anxiety related to iPod mp3 player use in a simulated driving experience. Harvey AR, Carden RL. Percept Mot Skills. 2009 Aug;109(1):159-67.

http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/traffic/tpintro.html#domains

http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/traffic/tpintro.html#domains

http://www.annals.org/

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2808128/



http://www.jpp.krakow.pl/journal/archive/1208_s6/pdf/539_1208_s6_article.pdf




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Is your mouth connected to your eye? Probably not, but they evidently route through the same area of the brain such that speaking impairs sus-tained visual attention to task whereas listening does not. Books on CD – good. Talking – Bad. See the full text article for free at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2684625/?tool=pubmed

Turn about is fair play. If you are paying atten-tion to your driving, it turns out that talking ability suffers. Read about it in Driving impairs talking. Becic E, Dell GS, Bock K, Garnsey SM, Kubose T, Kramer AF. Psychon Bull Rev. 2010 Feb;17(1):15-21.

Drugs:

Zolpidem and sleep-driving – fact or fiction? 18F-FDG-PET fails to prove or disprove that a pa-tient drove in her sleep due to zolpidem. She did, apparently, have a sandwich. Zolpidem-Induced Sleepwalking, Sleep Related Eating Dis-order, and Sleep-Driving: Fluorine-18-Flourodeoxyglucose Positron Emission Tomogra-phy Analysis, and a Literature Review of Other Unexpected Clinical Effects of Zolpidem . Romy Hoque, M.D. and Andrew L. Chesson, Jr., M.D. J Clin Sleep Med. 2009 October 15; 5(5): 471–476. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2762721/?tool=pubmed

Apples to apples? Check out the review of the effects of alcohol and marijuana on driving at The effect of cannabis compared with alcohol on driv-ing. Sewell RA, Poling J, Sofuoglu M. Am J Ad-dict. 2009 May-Jun;18(3):185-93. Review.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2722956/?tool=pubmed

And everybody’s favorite: alcohol. For a map to exactly which areas of the brain are microsleep-ing after alcohol, check out Effects of alcohol on performance on a distraction task during simu-lated driving. Allen AJ, Meda SA, Skudlarski P, Calhoun VD, Astur R, Ruopp KC, Pearlson GD. Alcohol Clin Exp Res. 2009 Apr;33(4):617-25. Epub 2009 Jan 15. available at

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2753192/?tool=pubmed and

Alcohol dose effects on brain circuits during simulated driving: an fMRI study.

Meda SA, Calhoun VD, Astur RS, Turner BM, Ruopp K, Pearlson GD. Hum Brain Mapp. 2009 Apr;30(4):1257-70. at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2751645/?tool=pubmed





Treasurer Report

P A G E 1 6


California Association of Toxicologists Financial Report

2nd Fiscal Quarter 2009/2010 9/1/2009 through 11/30/2009

Income Sept-09 Oct-09 Nov-09 Total

Donation $20.00 $20.00

Dues $(7.42) $1,090.00 $1,082.58

Income/Interest $50.50 $52.22 $50.58 $153.30

Nov 09 Mtg walk up $2,360.00 $2,360.00

Nov 09 Mtg pre-reg $7,175.00 $7,175.00

Nov 09 Vendor $7,500.00 $7,500.00

Total Income $43.08 $52.22 $18,195.58 $18,290.88

Expenses Sept-09 Oct-09 Nov-09 Total

CAT Assistant $1,500.00 $1,500.00

Nov 2009 Meeting $180.00 $11,880.34 $12,060.34

Proceedings $1,930.81 $1,930.81

Web Site $14.95 $14.95

Total Expenses $180.00 $1,930.81 $13,395.29 $15,506.10

Inc Less Expenses $(136.92) $(1,878.59) $4,800.29 $2,784.78

Treasurer Report (continued)

P A G E 1 7


California Association of Toxicologists Financial Report

3rd Fiscal Quarter 2009/2010 12/1/2009 through 2/28/2010

Income Dec-09 Jan-10 Feb-10 Total

Dues $460.00 $460.00

Income/Interest $52.31 $52.35 $47.32 $151.98

Total Income $52.31 $512.35 $47.32 $611.98

Expenses Dec-09 Jan-10 Feb-10 Total

CAT Assistant $1,000.00 $1,000.00

Continuing Educ. $240.00 $240.00

May 2010 Mtg $195.00 $195.00

Miscellaneous $109.62 $109.62

Nov 2009 Mtg $243.09 $328.80 $571.89

Proceedings $179.80 $179.80

Student Grant $2,307.78 $2,307.78

Taxes

State Filing $10.00 $10.00

Total Taxes $10.00 $10.00

Web Site $29.90 $1,214.95 $1,244.85

Total Expenses $1,562.41 $1,553.75 $2,742.78 $5,858.94

Inc Less Expenses $(1,510.10) $(1,041.40) $(2,695.46) $(5,246.96)

Treasurer Report (continued)

P A G E 1 8


November 2009 Meeting

Financial Summary

Income

Meeting Registration (pre-paid) $7,175.00

Meeting Registration (walk-up) $2,360.00

Vendor Support $8,500.00

Total Income $18,035.00

Expenses

Hotel Costs $11,274.87

Friday Social Event

Vendor Incentive Games

AACC Activity Fee $180.00

Board Meeting

Speaker Gifts

Meeting Supplies $243.09

Speaker Travel 934.27

Total Expenses $12,632.23

Income less Expenses $5,402.77

P A G E 1 9

CAT Survey


Host Contact Information:

Host: John Musselman

Address: Phoenix Police Dept Crime Lab

621 W. Washington St.

Phoenix, AZ

Email: [email protected]

Phone: (602) 262-6197

Fax: (602) 495-0169

Sample Preparation:

Expired donor blood (400 mL) from United Blood

Services was fortified with the drugs on the re-

sults page. The target concentration for each are

listed. Two exceptions: I added what was left of

Topiramate from a 10mg powder (approx 1/2),

and the mirtazepine source was a pill.

Results:

See results page for quantitative statistics.

28 Participants

50% Identified all 11 drugs

71% 10 drugs

78% 9 drugs

85% 7 or more drugs

Case History:

A 49 year old female drove through a private

property gate. Officers reported she was disori-

ented and confused. A Drug Recognition Evalua-

tor (DRE) was called to assess the driver. A

Drug Influence Evaluation (attached) was submit-

ted with the sample of blood.

Discussion:

The Phoenix Crime Laboratory tests primarily

Blood and Urine collected in DUI cases.

This survey sample was based on a DUID case

where we received 3ml of blood. The DRE

evaluation was the actual one submitted with the

sample. The blood screened positive for Benzo-

diazepines and Carisoprodol (EIA). Any case

where a DRE calls CNS depressant, we perform

additional GC/MS screening because the likeli-

hood of finding more drugs is good.

More drugs, more ammunition. The purpose of

the survey was to share in the enjoyment of find-

ing numerous prescription drugs in a single case.

Thank you for participating and returning the re-

sults in such a short timeline. Overall, the results

are very encouraging and the average drug con-

centrations were very close to the target concen-

trations. See attached Excel spreadsheet.

P A G E 2 0

CAT Survey Results


Lab # Chlordi-

azepoxide

Nordiazepam Alprazolam Carisoprodol Meprobamate Topiramate Doxylamine

Target 0.04 0.073 0.068 5.2 13.4 ~12 0.13

1 + <.010 0.06 4.5 15 + +

2 +

3 + +

4 + 5.4 13 13 0.12

5 0.04 11.2 15.6

6 0.024 0.07 0.069 4.8 12 10 0.15

7 0.064 0.067 7.1 15.1 + 0.111

8 + 0.1 + 5 13.4 +

9 + + 0.062 5.25 12.9 + +

10 + 0.061 0.053 4.8 13 12 0.12

11 0.06 0.09 <5 10 0.13

12 (r3) + <0.10 0.068 <10 13 16 0.15

13 0.038 0.067 0.067 9.1 24 0.13

14 + + + + + +

15(r2) 0.03 0.07 0.07 5 12 14 0.15

16 0.1 0.06 0.04 6.3 16.3 + 0.11

17 3.2 9.8

19 + + +

20 0.025 0.082 0.081 + + + 0.12

23(r1) + + 0.08 5.2 13 + 0.13

24 <0.05 <0.05 0.1 5.4 14 0.14

26 <0.05 0.08 0.08 <5 14.7 + 0.13

27 + + + + + + +

28 0.03 0.06 0.07 4.6 11.6 11.6 +

30 0.066 0.072 5.3 12.8 + 0.138

31 + 0.146 0.06 5.1 15.6 0.2

32 0.023 0.057 0.059 4.7 12 19 0.12

33 0.029 0.053 0.067 + + 19.5 0.087

Ave 0.037 0.073 0.068 5.7 13.8 14.4 0.132

Sd 0.026 0.023 0.015 1.8 2.9 3.5 0.024

Count 18 23 24 28 26 21 22

% 64 82 86 100 93 75 79

P A G E 2 1

CAT Survey Results


Lab # Mirtazepine Sertraline Tramadol Zolpidem Comments All Drugs

found

Target Qual 0.32 0.39 0.13

1 + 0.21 0.46 0.14 Yes

2 + Benzo + 2

3 2

4 0.43 0.43 0.44 0.13 9

5 0.26 0.23 0.6 0.086 Benztropine 0.027? 7

6 0.4 0.37 0.47 0.12 Yes

7 0.373 0.285 0.375 + 10

8 + + 8

9 0.54 + 0.42 + Yes

10 0.33 + 0.39 0.108 Yes

11 0.44 0.31 0.51 0.13 9

12 (r3) 0.45 0.32 0.44 0.1 Yes

13 0.44 0.32 0.44 0.122 10

14 + + + + 10

15(r2) 0.42 0.37 0.44 0.13 Yes

16 0.37 0.31 0.41 0.11 Yes

17 + + 0.23 5

19 + Benzo + 4

20 + + + 0.13 Yes

23(r1) 0.39 0.37 0.43 0.12 Yes

24 0.48 0.25 0.4 0.14 10

26 0.41 0.3 0.45 0.15 Yes

27 + + + + Yes

28 0.46 + 0.44 0.12 Yes

30 0.382 0.416 0.401 0.145 10

31 0.56 0.43 0.65 0.12 10

32 0.38 0.4 0.37 0.17 Yes

33 0.332 0.4 0.4 + Yes

Ave 0.413 0.337 0.436 0.126

Sd 0.071 0.069 0.083 0.019

Count 25 26 24 24 14

% 89 93 86 86 28

P A G E 2 2

CAT Survey Program The Program:

The CAT Survey Program is a unique inter-laboratory exchange system in which host laboratories prepare survey samples for partici-pating laboratories to analyze. The program is similar ot a proficiency program, however; it may be util-ized to introduce new drugs and/or drug trends. The CAT Survey Pro-gram has been in existence for over ten years and is continually growing. It’s success is based on the strong involvement of laborato-ries across the nation and the many volunteers who help put the surveys together. If you have CAT Survey Program or if you have any questions, please contact the CAT Quality Assurance Chair, Jaime Lintemoot.

Why join?

Challenge your Laboratory’s existing analytical methods

Learn how other Laboratories approach drug analysis

Discover new and/or rarely en-countered drugs

Keep current on drug trends across the Nation

Use the survey samples an as external quality control

Requirements

Your laboratory must be lo-cated in the United States or

Canada

One analyst from your labo-ratory must be a CAT Mem-

ber**

**CAT Membership information and the application are available online at www.cal-tox.org

Mail participation form to:

Jaime Lintemoot

Los Angeles County Dept of the Coroner 1104 N. Mission Rd

Los Angeles, CA 90033

323-343-0672 [email protected]


CAT Survey Program Participation Form

Name______________________________ Type of Laboratory:

Lab________________________________ □ Clinical

Address____________________________ □ Forensic

___________________________________

___________________________________ Type of Specimens Analyzed:

Phone______________________________ □ Blood □ Serum

Fax________________________________ □ Urine □ Saliva

Email_______________________________ □ Other_________________

□ My laboratory is interested in hosting a survey sample for the CAT Survey Program

P A G E 2 3


Future Meetings and Short Courses-

Nik Lemos

49th Annual Meeting of the Society of

P A G E 2 4


CAT Newsletter Editor: Kristina Takeshita

Suggestions/Comments? Please email Kristina at [email protected]

Only $20!

Send check payable to ―CAT‖ to the CAT Office.

Available in Men and Women’s sizes S-XL

Get yours today!

Polo

Shirts

Is your laboratory interested in hosting

an upcoming CAT Survey?

If so, contact our Quality Assuarance Chair,

Jaime Lintemoot at 323-343-0672

[email protected]

CAT Survey