http://www.forensicmag.com/articles/2013/09/hair-analysis-forensic-toxicology
The
article “Hair Analysis in Forensic Toxicology” by Dr. Lata Gautman and Prof.
Michael D. Cole is about the effectiveness of hair analysis in forensic
toxicology. Unlike urinalysis and blood work, hair analysis provides the tester
with an in-depth description of the subject’s drug history. Hair analysis can
also be used to administer DNA tests and trace poisons, even in corpses. The authors
explain that hair analysis has these incredible results because of segmental
analysis, which allows each single part of the hair to be analyzed
individually. Hair grows slowly, usually 1 cm a month, meaning the tips of hair
strands could be from months or even years ago, allowing the detection of drug
use even after long periods of time. The authors point out that drug
concentration could be degraded due to cosmetic treatment, but not fully
eliminated. This is because hair is unique and no active metabolic function or
excretion occurs in it, which is beneficial in forensic investigation. The
authors explain the scientific details very well in a clear and simple way that
a person unfamiliar with forensic terms would understand. The author also
provides interesting cases in which hair analysis was used. One case included
the exhumation of a women assumed dead by heroin abuse after post-mortem blood
and urine analysis. Hair analysis was performed and it was discovered that her
drug concentrations were actually much lower at the time of her death than the
months before, thus refuting the previous assumption. Hair analysis is used not
only in criminal investigation, but also in workplace drug evaluation and in
drug abstinence monitoring. The author points out that it is not a perfect
system. There are ways in which hair analysis can be unreliable, such as
determining the difference between exposure and ingestion of narcotics, therefore
the authors suggest taking many factors into account.
Although
the article is very well written, some things can be improved upon, such as the
length of the article, as it is fairly short in my opinion. Also, I would like
to see more explanation about what exactly is passive exposure to drugs
compared to ingestion. The authors only mention this difference, and I am
unsure of what they exactly mean, especially in a scientific sense of passive
drug exposure.
The
article was fascinating to me. I never thought that a simple hair could reveal
this much. I was surprised to discover that hair could show drug history from
as long as 11 years ago on a dead body and how segmental analysis can show a
different concentration of drugs on the length of the hair, corresponding to a
certain time of drug use.
MLA Citation:
Gautman, Lata, Dr., and Michael D. Cole, Prof.
"Forensic Magazine." Forensic Magazine, 3 Sept. 2013. Web. 6 Sept.
2013.
<http://www.forensicmag.com/articles/2013/09/hair-analysis-forensic-toxicology>.
20 comments:
Krissy Marrinan
September 12th 2013
Comments for current Events
Forensics
For the hair analysis article, I thought that Matt did a really good job. I liked how a basic overview was presented and he compared the hair analysis to other work. I also thought that he incorporated the information about the hair analysis in way that didn’t make it like a list and it was very smooth to read. By including the real case into his report Matt added to his review and made it a lot better. Another thing that I really thought was interesting was how all these results are so remarkable because hair grows individually, that’s something I never would have thought. Overall, I thought Matt did a good job making hair analysis interesting, but I thought some of the information wasn’t needed, like when he said hair analysis can help describe someone’s drug history and then went on to that it can help with drug detection. I thought that wasn’t necessary because he already stated that. But I did think that piece of information was necessary maybe if he found way to incorporate it into the same idea as the drug idea before. I also didn’t like how most of the first paragraph was just introducing what Hair analysts do, I would liked to see the case in the first paragraph to show a real example. One thing that I learned from this review is that hair can lock in trace elements of poison, so it can later be analyzed. Finally, though I liked the review overall, there were some parts that I thought need to be improved on. I felt there were some pieces of information out of place, which really brought down the review.
Overall, I think that the entire commentary was very well presented. He stayed very organized and on task of defining the article, which made it easy to read. Additionally in his report, he included the effectiveness of hair analysis in forensic toxicology, which I though was very interesting. I learned that unlike urinalysis and blood work, hair analysis can provide evidence of the subject’s drug history. I also thought that the review was very informative of the article. For example, that hair analysis can be used to administer DNA tests and trace poisons, even in corpses. Finally, I think he did a good job in stating his resources and facts. For example, by including the case which included the exhumation of a woman assumed dead by heroin abuse after post-mortem blood and urine analysis. After, the hair analysis was performed, it was discovered that her drug concentrations were actually much lower at the time of her death than the months before, thus refuting the previous assumption. I think the review could have been even better if Matt included cases in which hair analysis could be unreliable. Additionally, I think that he should've gave a greater description as to why he chose this particular article. However, overall, I think that the article he chose was very fascinating because I never knew a hair could reveal so much drug history and analysis; for example, I never knew that it could show a different concentration of drugs on a single strand of hair.
Overall, I think that the entire commentary was very well presented. He stayed very organized and on task of defining the article, which made it easy to read. Additionally in his report, he included the effectiveness of hair analysis in forensic toxicology, which I though was very interesting. I learned that unlike urinalysis and blood work, hair analysis can provide evidence of the subject’s drug history. I also thought that the review was very informative of the article. For example, that hair analysis can be used to administer DNA tests and trace poisons, even in corpses. Finally, I think he did a good job in stating his resources and facts. For example, by including the case which included the exhumation of a woman assumed dead by heroin abuse after post-mortem blood and urine analysis. After, the hair analysis was performed, it was discovered that her drug concentrations were actually much lower at the time of her death than the months before, thus refuting the previous assumption. I think the review could have been even better if Matt included cases in which hair analysis could be unreliable. Additionally, I think that he should've gave a greater description as to why he chose this particular article. However, overall, I think that the article he chose was very fascinating because I never knew a hair could reveal so much drug history and analysis; for example, I never knew that it could show a different concentration of drugs on a single strand of hair.
Overall, I think that the entire commentary was very well presented. He stayed very organized and on task of defining the article, which made it easy to read. Additionally in his report, he included the effectiveness of hair analysis in forensic toxicology, which I though was very interesting. I learned that unlike urinalysis and blood work, hair analysis can provide evidence of the subject’s drug history. I also thought that the review was very informative of the article. For example, that hair analysis can be used to administer DNA tests and trace poisons, even in corpses. Finally, I think he did a good job in stating his resources and facts. For example, by including the case which included the exhumation of a woman assumed dead by heroin abuse after post-mortem blood and urine analysis. After, the hair analysis was performed, it was discovered that her drug concentrations were actually much lower at the time of her death than the months before, thus refuting the previous assumption. I think the review could have been even better if Matt included cases in which hair analysis could be unreliable. Additionally, I think that he should've gave a greater description as to why he chose this particular article. However, overall, I think that the article he chose was very fascinating because I never knew a hair could reveal so much drug history and analysis; for example, I never knew that it could show a different concentration of drugs on a single strand of hair.
My peer Matt read the article “Hair Analysis in Forensic Toxicology” by Dr. Lata Gautman and Prof. Michael D. Cole and wrote a a current event summary about it. There were three things that really stood out to be interesting. The first one is how your hair grows slowly, usually 1 cm a month, meaning that the tips of your hair strands could be from a while ago, allowing the detection of drug use even after long periods of time. The second thing was that drug concentration could be degraded due to cosmetic treatment, but not fully eliminated. The third fascinating fact I found while reading this was that in a case hair analysis is performed and it was discovered that her drug concentrations were actually much lower at the time of her death than the months before, thus refuting the previous assumption. The two things that Matt could have fixed when he wrote this current event was that he could have he could have gone further into what he liked about the article, and he could have explained more into depth about what was confusing for him to understand. The thing that really caught my eye was how your hair is really much better that a urine sample. Overall, Matt did an amazing job writing this current event.
My peer Matt read the article “Hair Analysis in Forensic Toxicology” by Dr. Lata Gautman and Prof. Michael D. Cole and wrote a a current event summary about it. There were three things that really stood out to be interesting. The first one is how your hair grows slowly, usually 1 cm a month, meaning that the tips of your hair strands could be from a while ago, allowing the detection of drug use even after long periods of time. The second thing was that drug concentration could be degraded due to cosmetic treatment, but not fully eliminated. The third fascinating fact I found while reading this was that in a case hair analysis is performed and it was discovered that her drug concentrations were actually much lower at the time of her death than the months before, thus refuting the previous assumption. The two things that Matt could have fixed when he wrote this current event was that he could have he could have gone further into what he liked about the article, and he could have explained more into depth about what was confusing for him to understand. The thing that really caught my eye was how your hair is really much better that a urine sample. Overall, Matt did an amazing job writing this current event.
‘Hair Analysis in Forensic Toxicology” was summarized well by Matt; it was clear to me that he knew the article well therefore he was able to get to the point. It was good to see that Matt included his own opinion of the article, he suggests that the article should have included passive exposure to drugs compared to ingestion. I like the fact that matt included information and construction of hair so that the reviewed was easier to follow. To improve this review I think that he should have included more information about the cases of hair analysis, to give more evidence for the readers (the man that was hospitalized for cocaine intoxication).
I didn’t know that you can find drug history as long as 11 years ago, by observing hair; I though this was very interesting.
Matt, you did a really structured and thorough summary on this article. I think you did a great job because you took a complicated scientific process and turned it into something that was clear and easy to understand. After reading your current events report, I felt like I had read the article too because your summary was so thorough. In addition, you were able to present the complicated information in a way that made it seem almost simple. Another thing that I thought was good about your summary of the article was that you mentioned one of the labs that had been done on hair analysis. This made me interested in what you had read and also helped me to understand the process more thoroughly. I think it’s really cool that scientists can determine whether or not someone used drugs at the time of their death or not based on looking at their hairs. I think another good aspect of your summary was the critique, I was going to say that your summary had not had enough about exposure to drugs versus ingestion of them, until I learned that the article had not covered much of this either. I also learned a lot from your summary. I had no idea that your hair could tell you anything about a person besides their DNA. I didn’t know that your hair kept a kind of record book of your drug abuse and that you could even look at hairs long after death to discover their drug abuse issues. I think you could probably work on putting a little bit more information into your summary, I felt like it was very short and that I could have used a little more summary on how exactly the hair can be studied and in what way scientists can discover the drugs that someone had used. Other than that, just make sure you check over your article for grammar mistakes, but overall, great job!
Matt, you did a great job presenting and summarizing this article. You simplified everything and made it easy for those who wouldn’t know many of those terms off the top of their head understand them. I especially like how you added the case of the woman who after two tests, post-mortem blood and urine analysis, was assumed dead by heroin abuse. Although when hair analysis was performed it gave a different answer to what the other two tests stated. That goes to show that hair gives much more acuriate information then post-mortem blood and urine analysis do. Adding this case helped the reader understand in what case/scenario this would be used. I also appreciated how you inserted a critique into your summary. Had you not I would have wished that you gave more specific examples or definitions of how this can be unreliable. I would have liked to read about the pros and cons of hair analysis. For this would have made the article more enjoyable to read. I had no clue just how much one can know about a person’s drug history through their hair. I was so amazed to read that looking at hair could show drug history from 11 years ago. That is a long time and you would assume all traces would be long gone. One thing I would recommend watching for is to make sure the whole summary flows. What I mean by that is to make sure the information is put in a way that makes all of it make sense. I also would have enjoyed hearing about some other cases of hair analysis. That would have made the summary even better. All in all, you did a great job!
Matt, you did a great job presenting and summarizing this article. You simplified everything and made it easy for those who wouldn’t know many of those terms off the top of their head understand them. I especially like how you added the case of the woman who after two tests, post-mortem blood and urine analysis, was assumed dead by heroin abuse. Although when hair analysis was performed it gave a different answer to what the other two tests stated. That goes to show that hair gives much more acuriate information then post-mortem blood and urine analysis do. Adding this case helped the reader understand in what case/scenario this would be used. I also appreciated how you inserted a critique into your summary. Had you not I would have wished that you gave more specific examples or definitions of how this can be unreliable. I would have liked to read about the pros and cons of hair analysis. For this would have made the article more enjoyable to read. I had no clue just how much one can know about a person’s drug history through their hair. I was so amazed to read that looking at hair could show drug history from 11 years ago. That is a long time and you would assume all traces would be long gone. One thing I would recommend watching for is to make sure the whole summary flows. What I mean by that is to make sure the information is put in a way that makes all of it make sense. I also would have enjoyed hearing about some other cases of hair analysis. That would have made the summary even better. All in all, you did a great job!
Patrick Bisconti 9/15/13 Forensic Science Current event review
On the article “ Hair Analysis in Forensic Toxicology” written by Dr. Lata Gautman. I thought that matt did a good job summarizing it. He really got the key message of the article out there along with some important detail. Especially about the hair, and all the detail he gave about how it could be used to discover the suspect’s recent drug history. Matt sounded like he knew what he was talking about, which makes the article better. A lot of great vocabulary and explanations really enriched the summary and made it better. For example I thought matt did a great job on giving detail about the case about the women who was assumed dead by heroin. Giving this detail backs him up and makes the article stronger. I thought Matt did a great job on this article but, I thought he could improve in a few places. For example, I thought he could have gave a little more detail about the case relating to hair investigation and maybe mention how they did the testing on the hair. I also thought Matt could have talked more about the drugs that could be found in the hair and the process it takes the scientist to find these drugs. I learned a lot from reading theses articles. I never knew that you could find out a persons drug history by looking at their hair. Never knew that traces of drugs could stay in your hair for seven years. That really impressed me. Overall I thought this was a great article and that matt did a good job.
After reading Matt’s article review I was very impressed. I thought he did a solid job at taking a somewhat complex concept and making it easily understandable. For example, when he explained “hair grows slowly, usually 1 cm a month, meaning the tips of hair strands could be from months or even years ago, allowing the detection of drug use even after long periods of time” I found it easy to understand. He was also extremely well detailed in his explanation of the article. I liked how he first explained how hair can be used in criminal science, then talked about how it also has importance in the real world with drug evaluation in the workplace. This extra detail makes it even more easily readable for the reader. Lastly, I thought that he did a good job at giving both points of the argument. Towards the end of the article he explained how hair analysis can be unreliable in determining the difference in ingestion and exposure of narcotics. This is important because the reader needs to know if there are flaws with the science.
Although he did many things well in writing his review, there are still a few things that he could have done better. For one, I thought he could have gone into more detail about the women’s case and how hair analysis helped her. I thought the women’s story was a strong point to have in your summary, but because of the fact that it was a little short and choppy, it ended up hurting the summary. I also thought that you could have talked more about it’s real life importance. I liked that you explained that it can help with office drug tests, but I would have liked to learn more about it’s real-life uses.
After reading the article I was very surprised in hearing that drugs can stay in your hair for years! I would have never believed my ears if it didn’t come from an article.
After reading the review done by Matt Drygulski about hair analysis, I was overly impressed at how well he explained the use of it in a forensic toxicology lab. Matt did not just list a bunch of facts, but also gave clarification for what the author said by adding the minute explanations. This helps the person reading the review understand what is going on. I also enjoyed Matt's constructive criticism. I think it is good to have the pros and cons. If there are just positive aspects said about the article, the review may seem bias. I feel like Matt could have changed the last paragraph. It is repetitive. Including these details in the first paragraph would have been worked better in my opinion. Matt could have also added some background info about the doctor and make that a first paragraph. This would leave the article component for the second paragraph and the negative comments for the last paragraph. I am noticing there is also some repetition with words which could leave the reader bummed out. If Matt used some synonyms, it would not be so tedious to read. Matt did a good job writing this review by teaching me something I never knew before. Before reading this article, I did not know that you can find out if a person has been on drugs by examining hair. For up to 11 years after said substance use as a matter of fact. Matt did a good job writing this review by teaching me something I never knew before.
Matt’s review was well set up and clear. After introducing the article, he explained that hair analysis is better than urinalysis and blood work when determining a person’s drug history. Next, he weaved in outside information by adding hair can also be used in DNA tests, which strengthens the overall article’s argument that hair analysis is beneficial. After a clear explanation of segmental analysis, Matt mentioned an example of a case the author used to demonstrate when hair analysis is used. The example was used was solid, but he could have analyzed it a little more and talked about why hair analysis is so important. Grammatically, it was a little awkward that he switched to saying “I” in the last two paragraphs, but I do agree that the article was a bit short. Instead of just asking why passive exposure to drugs is different from ingestion, he could have also looked them up and explained them. The conclusion was relatively strong, but perhaps he could have asked a question about the implications of hair analysis.
I was not previously educated how forensic scientists measure drug levels in the body, so I took it for granted that they had new technology and effective methods, but after reading this article I realized how primitive forensic science is compared to the amazing futuristic technology people think scientists have.
Matt made this article a lot more clear to read and understand he explained that hair analysis is better then urinalysis and blood work when determining a person drug history. He also stated that hair analysis can also be used to administer DNA tests and trace poisons, even in corpes, something I never knew before reading this article. Later matt does a great job in in the review, in that hair analysis is not only used in criminal investigation, but also in a workplace drug evaluation and in drug abstinence monitoring, which i thought was very interesting. Even though Matt did a good job I thought he could have gone into more detail on the women’s cases and maybe how hair analysis helped her throughout her case. I also thought he could of gone into more depth on how the author said the process was not a perfect system, he mentioned it at the very end and it didn’t really have much meaning in contrast to the giant paragraph. One thing that caught me eye in reading this article was I knew that certain drugs can be traceable in your hair. But I never knew how long or to what magnitude. When it said it could be found in your hair 7 years after I was flabbergasted, who would of thought. Overall i thought matt did some solid work in this review.
Matt, all together I thought this article was summarized well. You organized your summary well and did not deviate too much from the article’s content. You made this summary very clear, allowing the reader to know the main content of the article without actually reading it. I also liked how your own opinion was given on the contents of the article, giving the summary a voice. You could have included more information on how a hair analysis actually takes place and what can be gained from one. How evidence of drug use and the process that is used could have been discussed more. I had absolutely no idea that evidence of drug usage stayed in a person’s body for so long, and that evidence can be recovered simply from a person’s hair.
Jesse Whang
In matt's Hair article analysis, i thought it was interesting. Within his analysis i thought he did a good job overall, explaining things making the it understandable. I also thought that he did a job making the article seem very interesting and made me want to read the article itself and learn more about it. Although the article was short, i believe Matt could have done a little outside research to improve his points and arguments. Also an improvement could be to show more examples of the hair case. After reading this article i found it interesting that with hair you can find out the drugs that has been used, and with the length you can also find the time.
For this article I think Matt did a very good job of being able to summarize the article but still point out many interesting facts. He explained in detail what hair can do for a forensic scientist like being able to trace some ones DNA or past drug abuse. Matt also incorporated the real case from the article which made his summery a lot more interesting and educational. I did however think that Matt could have talked about the other cases in the article, like the case about the woman. I also would of liked if he said what branch of Forensic Science uses hair, and how often they do. I did like how informative this article was and I am very shocked that hair can tell so much about a corpse even from 11 years ago.
for the hair analysis article I thought that matt did a very well done job. I liked how to start there was a brief overview and then it smoothly transitioned into a caparison of the hair analysis to other things. I enjoyed that matt included details of a real case in his piece because it made it more relatable, thus making it more enjoyable. I also enjoyed matt's review of the article because it was unexpected and added a nice personal touch to his piece. Although overall I enjoyed the piece I did find some wordy and some spots repetitive for example when the drug history was being discussed it went on way longer then needed and unessicery details were included. Along with that some points had no clear direction and were all over the place. One thing I was impressed that surprised when learning from the review is that from one hair focal drug use dating back eleven years can be detected.
catie Sullivan
comment for current event
forensics
For the hair analysis article I thought that matt did a very well done job. I liked how to start there was a brief overview and then it smoothly transitioned into a caparison of the hair analysis to other things. I enjoyed that matt included details of a real case in his piece because it made it more relatable, thus making it more enjoyable. I also enjoyed matt's review of the article because it was unexpected and added a nice personal touch to his piece. Although overall I enjoyed the piece I did find some wordy and some spots repetitive for example when the drug history was being discussed it went on way longer then needed and unessicery details were included. Along with that some points had no clear direction and were all over the place. One thing I was impressed that surprised when learning from the review is that from one hair focal drug use dating back eleven years can be detected.
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