U.S. ISSUES NEW RULES ON DRUG-TEST ACCURACY

WASHINGTON, Dec. 15 - The Transportation Department unveiled rules intended
to encourage more accurate drug testing of airline workers and other
transportation employees and to ensure that workers have an opportunity to
challenge results.

BUT THE RULES - which cover 8.5 million transportation workers nationwide,
from truckers to pipeline operators - don't go as far as some union
officials would like in defining the procedures companies must follow in
administering drug tests. The rules are also likely to draw fire from
private drug-testing labs, whose trade group has slammed such proposals in
the past as an attempted "public blacklisting" of the industry.

In October, the Department of Health and Human Services said it was
launching inspections of all 65 federally certified drug-testing labs that
test transportation workers after a case involving a Delta Air Lines pilot
raised questions about how samples were validated at a lab in Kansas. The
airline initially fired the pilot and four flight attendants after LabOne
Inc. reported their urine samples had been "substituted." After the lab's
findings were questioned by pilots-union leaders, the airline offered to
reinstate the employees because of doubts about the results.

Transportation Department officials said the rules weren't related to the
irregularities cited at LabOne or the Department of Health and Human
Services inquiry. They said the rules are an attempt to tighten standards
in areas of the drug-testing industry that have been loosely regulated
until now.

One department official noted that many employers started out running their
own drug-testing programs in house. "Now, many outsource [drug testing] to
third-party providers, and the whole nature of the way the programs are
administered has changed," the official said. "There wasn't a whole lot
written about what these persons should be doing."