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It has been my experience that CPS or whatever it is called in each locaility is far too quick to act in these situations which can and has caused babies to be improperly separated from their family at a very critical time. This has been due to the failure to have a PROPER confirmation performed. In my previous position my departments (Clinical and Forensic Toxicology) were responsible for analyzing urine collected from babies at several hospitals. We found a very high incidence of "positive" screens by EMIT and FPIA but a very low correlation when analysis by GC/MS was performed. As a result it became part of the protocol to not release results until the confirmation was performed. Several times I had battles with CPS since a quick screen had been performed in the hopsital and either the baby had already been removed from the mother's access or CPS wanted to remove access. While I do not have exact numbers I do know that over 95% of the samples that screened positive failed to confirm, even at the limit of detection of the assay (2.0 ng/mL).
The take away here is basically the same as the author's last paragraph except I would replace should with must. The final sentance should read "Our findings drive home the point that confirmation by more sophisticated methods such as mass spectrometry must be performed before moving ahead with interventions......"
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