NCJ Number
218664
Date Published
April 2005
Length
11 pages
Annotation
Guidelines developed by the Scientific Working Group on Forensic Analysis of Chemical Terrorism are for laboratories engaged in the forensic analysis of chemical evidence associated with terrorist activities.
Abstract
The guidelines pertain primarily to a baseline framework for the validation of forensic analytical procedures. The guidelines describe validation practices that a laboratory should use in order to ensure that its analytical procedures produce data that are fit for the intended purpose. A documented validation process should define the scope of the analytical procedure, identify the performance characteristics of the analytical procedure that must be validated, and select and conduct experiments that determine the required performance characteristics. The validation results should be documented, reviewed, and maintained. Each of these aspects of the validation process are described in detail. One appendix identifies and describes analytical performance characteristics. These are accuracy, limit of detection, limit of quantitation, linearity or other calibration model, working range, and selectivity. Other appendixes discuss false positives and false negatives and summarize guidelines for validating an analytical procedure.