[Code of Federal Regulations] [Title 49, Volume 1] [Revised as of October 1, 2005] From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access [CITE: 49CFR40.103] [Page 655-656] TITLE 49--TRANSPORTATION Subtitle A--Office of the Secretary of Transportation PART 40_PROCEDURES FOR TRANSPORTATION WORKPLACE DRUG AND ALCOHOL TESTING PROGRAMS--Table of Contents Subpart F_Drug Testing Laboratories Sec. 40.103 What are the requirements for submitting blind specimens to a laboratory? (a) As an employer or C/TPA with an aggregate of 2000 or more DOT- covered employees, you must send blind specimens to laboratories you use. If you have an aggregate of fewer than 2000 DOT-covered employees, you are not required to provide blind specimens. (b) To each laboratory to which you send at least 100 specimens in a year, you must transmit a number of blind specimens equivalent to one percent of the specimens you send to that laboratory, up to a maximum of 50 blind specimens in each quarter (i.e., January-March, April-June, July-September, October-December). As a C/TPA, you must apply this percentage to the total number of DOT-covered employees' specimens you send to the laboratory. Your blind specimen submissions must be evenly spread throughout the year. The following examples illustrate how this requirement works: Example 1 to Paragraph (b). You send 2500 specimens to Lab X in Year 1. In this case, you would send 25 blind specimens to Lab X in Year 1. To meet the even distribution requirement, you would send 6 in each of three quarters and 7 in the other. Example 2 to Paragraph (b). You send 2000 specimens to Lab X and 1000 specimens to Lab Y in Year 1. In this case, you would send 20 blind specimens to Lab X and 10 to Lab Y in Year 1. The even distribution requirement would apply in a similar way to that described in Example 1. Example 3 to Paragraph (b). Same as Example 2, except that you also send 20 specimens to Lab Z. In this case, you would send blind specimens to Labs X and Y as in Example 2. You would not have to send any blind specimens to Lab Z, because you sent fewer than 100 specimens to Lab Z. Example 4 to Paragraph (b). You are a C/TPA sending 2000 specimens to Lab X in Year 1. These 2000 specimens represent 200 small employers who have an average of 10 covered employees each. In this case you--not the individual employers--send 20 blind specimens to Lab X in Year 1, again ensuring even distribution. The individual employers you represent are not required to provide any blind specimens on their own. Example 5 to Paragraph (b). You are a large C/TPA that sends 40,000 specimens to Lab Y in Year 1. One percent of that figure is 400. However, the 50 blind specimen per quarter ``cap'' means that you need send only 50 blind specimens per quarter, rather than the 100 per quarter you would have to send to meet the one percent rate. Your annual total would be 200, rather than 400, blind specimens. (c) Approximately 75 percent of the specimens you submit must be blank (i.e., containing no drugs, nor adulterated or substituted). Approximately 15 percent must be positive for one or more of the five drugs involved in DOT tests, and approximately 10 percent must either be adulterated with a substance cited in HHS guidance or substituted (i.e., having specific gravity and creatinine meeting the criteria of Sec. 40.93(b)). (1) The blind specimens that you submit that contain drugs, that are adulterated with a substance cited in HHS guidance, or that are substituted must be validated as to their contents by the supplier using initial and confirmatory tests. (2) The supplier must provide information regarding the shelf life of the blind specimens. (3) If the blind specimen is drug positive, the concentration of drug it contains must be between 1.5 and 2 times the initial drug test cutoff concentration. (4) If the blind specimen is adulterated with nitrite, the concentration of nitrite it contains must be between 1.5 and 2 times the initial validity test cutoff concentration. (5) If the blind specimen is adulterated by altering pH, the pH must be less than or equal to 2, or greater than or equal to 12. (6) If the blind specimen is substituted, the creatinine must be less than or equal to 2, and the specific gravity must be 1.000. (d) You must ensure that each blind specimen is indistinguishable to the laboratory from a normal specimen. (1) You must submit blind specimens to the laboratory using the same channels (e.g., via a regular collection site) through which employees' specimens are sent to the laboratory. (2) You must ensure that the collector uses a CCF, places fictional initials on the specimen bottle label/seal, indicates for the MRO on Copy 2 that the specimen is a blind specimen, and [[Page 656]] discards Copies 4 and 5 (employer and employee copies). (3) You must ensure that all blind specimens include split specimens.