AboutDr. Ravindra Bhaskar Ghooi Expertise I can provide information on drugs and medicines, their actions, uses, interactions and adverse effects. To avoid confusion, generic names of
medicines may please be provided. I am a pharmacologist, having worked
on animal and human pharmacology, and presently I am the Dean of Bilcare Research Academy, where we teach courses on clinical research. We dont work on saturdays and sundays, hence questions reachng me on these days will be replied on Monday, please bear with me.
Question Hello Dr. Ghooi
This is my problem, I took a random drug test on 04/24/09 through Quest Diagnostic. I was informed 2 days later that it was positive for cocaine. The problem I have is I certainly have never taken cocaine ever. I'm in the military reserves and I had just taken a random test with the military on 04/04/09 and I took my own exam on 04/04/09 and which both were negative and the cutoff for the Government is 150ng instead of 300ng. I can't figure out for the life of me how they can say that I tested positive. Quest stated that they did a gc/ms test but something is just not right they did not give me the drug concentrations. I suffer from severe cluster headaches for the past 28 years and high blood pressure and I also suffered a mild stroke in 2007 in which I was told that I had some minor heart damage and I know for a fact the use of cocaine could trigger a terrible headache or put me in a stroke situation. I take benicar hct 40/12.5 and viagra I only use 100% oxygen for my headaches and sometimes I take excedrin migraine or goody's with a energy drink for the taurine. I just don't understand this because I refused to take any narcotics from my headache doctors which is why I still have Davacet, Percocet, Hydracodone, Vicodin, etc. and I still have full bottles that have not been used. If I wanted to do drugs I have plenty perscription drugs I could have been taking. I'm sure with the way my headaches are if I wanted to do cocaine I would have had my Neurologist give me a perscription for it if I didn't have the heart issues. I'm a police officer and this is just detrimental to my well being because I know this is terrible mistake somewhere in the process I just don't know where. If you have any insight I certainly appreciate because we have a zero tolerace policy so i'm sure I will be terminated soon for something I did not do.
Answer Hi Dana,
This is the xperience of thousands of americans every year. Your government has brought in aspecial clause by which ordinary citizens can be tested for drugs and based on the rsults their life is affected. This is really a violation of the basic rights of an indiviudal and HIPAA protected individuals against such violations. But they made change in HIPAA which allowed testing as a tool to establish drug free working places.
Now your case is one in which you and thedrug testing lab are saying two different things. The only way is to challenge the drug test lab and ask them to validate their test. This could be done through a lawyer or through the FDA division called Medwatch. I am not sure how much it will help but I think you should make an effort. I am aware that there is a bunch of lawyers on Long Island who are taking up these cases as a mass action suit, may be you should contact them. I as an outsider can do little other than giving this advice to you.
Ravi Ghooi
