Bulletin: Motherisk tainted hair testing debacle echoes in Nova Scotia with a lawyer's call for hair samples used as evidence of drug and alcohol abuse in dozens of open child protection cases in Nova Scotia to be re-examined, because the Toronto lab that tested the samples is under review for using questionable methods.

Hair samples used as evidence of drug and alcohol abuse in dozens of open child protection cases in Nova Scotia should be re-examined, a lawyer says, because the Toronto lab that tested the samples is under review for using questionable methods. The Hospital for Sick Children's Motherisk laboratory, a Toronto-based drug testing lab, was shut down in April following an investigation by the Toronto Star. Ontario's attorney general has ordered a wide-ranging review looking into the reliability of the lab's methods for hair strand drug and alcohol testing. The Ontario review includes hair test results, used as evidence in child protection and criminal proceedings in the province, between 2005 and 2015. Children's aid societies in Ontario have been told not to use results provided by the lab. The Nova Scotia government has not issued a similar directive in the province, where there are 49 open child protection cases that are using the lab tests as evidence. "It's a very serious issue to take a child away from its family, and it's permanent," said Kymberly Franklin, a Halifax-based lawyer. "If they're going to rely on test results, then I think they need to be as certain as they can before they rely on those test results."
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/motherisk-hair-drug-tests-should-be-reviewed-in-nova-scotia-says-lawyer-1.3095573?cmp=rss