European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - September 03, 1995, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 2 the stars and stripes sunday september 3,1995 at a glance a member of Greenpeace Japan por trays French president Jacques Chirac during an anti nuclear rally in Tokyo on saturday. The demonstration followed the seizure by the French Navy of two Greenpeace ves Sels near a South Pacific atoll where France plans to explode nuclear War Heads. See Story on Page 5. Bridge beating decried witnesses describe the night they watched helplessly As a woman was chased dragged from her car beaten on a Bridge and finally jumped to her death to escape her  pages Reynolds quits . Rep. Mel Reynolds convicted last week of having sex with a 16 year old girl three years ago announces his resignation on to v. Page7 a Rockin opener the Rock and Roli Hall of Fame and museum was inaugurated Fri Day in Cleveland.  Page forgery admitted a los Angeles police detectives admitted forgery on a witness. Statement has prompted prosecutors to drop murder charges against. Two defendants ". Page9 bombing trial Justice department officials want a new judge for the Oklahoma City bombing trial a newspaper reports. Page 10 2,4% pay raise Federal . Workers will get a 2.4 percent pay raise in january in a move by president Clinton to Circum vent the automatic 5.1 percent raise. Page 20 Index Abby Ann Landers. 18 classifieds. 26-30 commentary. .17 faces n places. 18 Horoscope. 27 letters. 16 Money matters 20 Mutual 21-25 sports. 31-40 weather 19 army from Page 1 within annal tical Batch m order to cons Pic the screening test would pass Quality control checks. This is a Clear violation of proce Dure. Thucie arc preliminary indications this was done before and by others the memo stated. Officials removed five years Worth of urinalysis testing records from the lab and Are examining the past three years Worth. The lab s commander it. Col. Edward Armitage said he launched an investigation july 24 into the work of at least four staff lab technicians after he discovered disc Repen cies in Laboratory printouts of test results. Both he and the army s senior criminal Law attorneys insisted that no tests incurs restly came up positive because of the Sloppy lab work although there were six or seven positive readings in the Batch where procedures were known to have been Vio lated. From a scientific Point of View what these people did was valid but from a Legal Point of View it want Armitage said. Army officials concede that the irregularities could threaten the credibility of army drug testing and could open individual test results to attack in court by soldiers who Dis Pute positive drug tests. Armitage said he expects the investigation to be finished in about 60 Days. Until those results Are in the four technicians three civilians and one member of the Mili tary have been de certified and put in . Armitage said technicians were not mis handling soldiers urine samples. Rather they were improperly handling the control samples that Are used to gauge the accuracy of the tests. Because the exact composition of open control samples is known in Advance the technicians can compare the actual test results with the known Sample to determine whether the equipment is work ing properly during the second phase of a three step computerized screening process the technicians apparently put the control samples in the wrong sequence within the testing Batch Armitage said. Thus the computer results showed Tan error in the test. Instead of starting Over however the technicians switched the samples to their right spots to get the Correct Reading i what the technicians should Haye done was dump the entire Batch each time the mistake occurred and Start Over since the first and second screen has to show the exact same results from the control Sam plus he  top army criminal attorney who spoke on condition of anonymity said that from a Legal Point of View it is important that the technicians follow the proc a tires to the let Ter. But either out of laziness or trying to cover up their mistake they just ran the v Batch again he said. When Vic go to court for a drug charge we want our evidence to be perfect or As nearly perfect at possible he said. But a defense attorney can hold this up to show that the lab in t perfect. And in Many cases just having a Little doubt is enough for acquittal. We think the confirmation test results will be enough to convict but it will be up to the courts to decide that. What we Don t want to see happen is for some Soldier to demand a court martial thinking he can beat the rap when he s been offered nonjudicial punishment Arti Cle 15  Armitage said his preliminary investigation indicates that the mistakes in proce Dure have occurred on other occasions. He said the problem was not identified by the lab s test certifying officer because that individual did not review the computer print outs As part of his review. Lab officials say they re baffled As to Why the technicians would either intentionally switch the control samples or cover up Acci dental switches. Lab executive officer Deborah Miller has been questioning the technicians involved. She said technicians Arent evaluate Don the army it. Col. Edward Armit arc the lab commander stands with n machine used to confirm positive urinalysis in drug testing. A ? i pc a ? army t drug testing process step second sure Ewing. Positive slim sea and control samples Are screened again using new test tubes and new samples taken from the Soldier s orig naj bottle. Negative samples Are discarded to Shiv Sample go /jofrenextstp., a 1 errors were detected in 1hsample-Corrtrol process of this sep. Collection soldiers urine samples Aire collected and sent to Foru Lead forensic topology lab Oraton in Maryland step 5 step 2 Labelling samples get individual bar codes that correspond with a Soldier social Security number and unit. Confirmation positive samples Are run through a High tech process called Gas chromatography mass Pedro scoop try  compounds Are broken Down to enable exact identification. Negative samples Are discarded positive samples go to the next step. / j step 3 step 6 confirmation to tested. Lab technicians Are v cd Todd fab brei Oft find aware of or of the control custody Las procedure an process including Chain of custody lab procedures and documentation to make sure Are wind to prevent deliberate  next i confirmation data is sent to a Soldier s a i commander. A Jwj a perfection of their batches so there s no apparent gain for them to have done  it did t make their work easier and sometimes it actually made More work for them she said. Miller said her interviews seem to show that technicians have developed a goal to have no errors or computer flags in their control samples which is an unattainable goal. Even if machines were running every thing and no humans were involved there would be times when  samples Spetar Jaeger would fail statistically so we Don t know if they did it for per Sonal satisfaction or if the , i m being compared to someone who s doing this so i m going to do it too " Armitage said that if his investigation re Veals that the acts were ongoing and actively covered up the three civilian employees probably will be fired. And since i m a commander he sad i will take the appropriate Ucma action against the Soldier