Urine-Swapping Pushes Test Tampering to Record

More people are swapping urine samples in job-related drug tests, lab operator Quest Diagnostics has found.
Tampering to hide drug use, as measured by the number of substituted or invalid drug tests, rose more than six-fold in 2023 over 2022.
Post-accident positivity and positivity among office workers continues to rise.
Quest’s analysis of 9.8 million anonymized workforce drug tests found the rate was the highest the lab firm has seen in 30 years of reporting.
Most commonly found was marijuana, which was positive in 4.5% of urine drug tests, followed by amphetamines, which appeared in 1.5% of tests
Positivity in the general U.S. workforce showed a modest increase, while it declined for the federally mandated, safety-sensitive workforce, according to Quest.
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Cal/OSHA’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health has named Debra Lee as its new Chief.
The 30-year Cal/OSHA veteran was named Acting Chief earlier this year when Jeff Killip departed.
She rose through the ranks and became Deputy Chief for Field Enforcement. Before that, Lee was a regional and district manager during her long tenure at DOSH.
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Mississippi Commissioner of Agriculture and Commerce, Andy Gipson, said OSHA failed to consult with states on the proposed Walkaround rule, which he branded as “dubious,” in an op-ed Thursday.
Writing on the National Review website, Gipson said “Contrary to federal requirements, OSHA did not consult with states about possible alternatives to the proposed rule, at least as far as I can tell.”
He said that he pushed back against the Biden administration’s rule which “blatantly disregards the concerns of state officials like me who are trying to protect the safety of employees and the private-property rights of employers.”
OSHA’s new walkaround rule, gives union organizers, activists, plaintiffs’ attorneys, and even competitors access to workplaces under the guise of “assisting” OSHA inspectors during routine inspections, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said in a lawsuit filed last month challenging the rule.
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As 27 million people face scorching temperatures across the West this week, analysis of Nevada public records show indoor workplaces comprised the majority of OSHA heat complaints last year.
Some 392 heat-related complaints were made to the Nevada Occupational Safety and Health Administration in 2023, compared to 254 in 2022.
“Air conditioning” was mentioned more than 140 times and “A/C” was mentioned 27 times.
July 2023 saw the most complaints. According to the National Weather Service, it was the hottest July on record for the city, with an average temperature of 97.3°F.
Las Vegas’ KTNV Channel 13 filed a public records request to Nevada OSHA to find the source of local complaints.
The workplaces range from the food and beverage industry, to Harry Reid International Airport and the Las Vegas Strip, according to the report.
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