Browse the latest forensic toxicology articles or search the collection.
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Does Warmer Storage Always Produce More Microbial Ethanol? A Three-Species Experiment
A controlled culture study found different responses to 25°C and 37°C across three bacteria. Temperature alone did not supply a universal ethanol-production rule.
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Why a 38% Ethanol Model-Match Rate Does Not Measure Postmortem Production Frequency
Matching measured ethanol in 35 of 93 selected autopsy samples was a model-performance result, not proof that 38% of deaths involved postmortem ethanol formation.
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Endogenous Ethanol Is Not the Same as Postmortem Fermentation: Evidence From Germfree Rats
A ten-rat experiment detected micromolar ethanol without intestinal microbes. It helps distinguish possible origins, but cannot correct a human postmortem alcohol result.
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Can Clonazepam Metabolites Establish Clonazafone Exposure After Death?
A case study found candidate clonazafone metabolites in three comparison urines with declared clonazepam use. Metabolite identification did not make them specific prodrug markers.
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Clonazafone After Death: Why Blood, Urine and Muscle Gave Different Findings
One fatal mixed-intoxication case detected clonazafone in urine, thigh muscle and gastric contents while blood and vitreous were negative. Method and matrix limits matter.
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Clozapine in Autopsy Casework: Why a 45% Attribution Rate Is Not a Patient’s Risk of Death
Twenty of 44 selected clozapine autopsies had an attributed drug contribution. The denominator, causal categories and overlapping concentrations limit what that percentage means.
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Postmortem Quetiapine in Brain Tissue: What a Brain–Blood Ratio Near Three Can Tell Us
A Copenhagen autopsy study provides useful quetiapine brain reference data, but its median ratio cannot reconstruct an individual’s blood concentration or establish poisoning.
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Did Methamphetamine Selectively Improve Emotional Memory? Why the Null Interaction Matters
A 60-person oral methamphetamine experiment illustrates why significant emotional-picture results, a neutral-picture null finding, and a null interaction must be interpreted separately.
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Can 4′-Hydroxy Nitazene Identify the Parent Drug in a Postmortem Specimen?
A shared nitazene metabolite can broaden detection while limiting parent-drug attribution. A forensic casework study illustrates the distinction across blood, urine and bile.
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Nitazene Storage Stability: Why Frozen Blood Was Not Automatically the Best-Tested Condition
A fortified-blood experiment found analyte-specific storage behavior, inconsistent frozen results and a problematic metabolite. Those findings do not establish a universal storage rule.
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Unconfirmed Drug Findings Can Change How a Postmortem Surveillance Count Is Read
An Ontario fentanyl series distinguished repeated or orthogonal confirmation from single-analysis findings. Detection counts should retain that distinction and the study’s selection criteria.
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What a “Greater Than” Fentanyl Result Means in a Postmortem Report
In a 4,395-case Ontario series, many high fentanyl results were reported as bounds. A result above the calibration range is not an exact concentration or a fatal threshold.
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Methamphetamine in Nine Blood Sites After a Six-to-Seven-Day Postmortem Interval
One autopsy found methamphetamine concentrations of 268–911 ng/mL across nine blood sites. The pattern raised a possible loss mechanism without establishing an antemortem correction.
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What Did a 32.1% Severe-Mental-Illness Estimate Mean Among People Reporting Methamphetamine and Opioid Use?
A historical survey used a predictive mental-health model and specific drug-use definitions. Its adjusted group estimate cannot establish methamphetamine-induced psychosis or causation in an individual.
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Did Methamphetamine Use Double Among People Reporting LSD Use? Interpreting a Historical Survey Trend
A 2020 analysis found a large relative increase within a defined LSD-reporting subgroup. The survey did not establish simultaneous use, individual progression or a causal drug interaction.
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Why Body Temperature Can Confound a Methamphetamine Neuroprotection Experiment
A historical mechanistic review explains why reduced dopamine-system injury after an experimental drug may reflect altered temperature as well as the proposed molecular target.
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Why an Ethanol Storage-Loss Equation Cannot Correct an Individual Postmortem Result
A 159-specimen study found significant average ethanol loss but warned against using its regression to predict an individual loss. Its samples came from living drivers, not autopsies.
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Can a Drug-Positive Larva Identify Which Remains It Fed On?
A five-rabbit field experiment raised a provenance problem when larvae carried compounds absent from the carcass where they were collected. Detection did not establish a human dose or a unique feeding history.
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Heavier Fly Larvae Did Not Mean a Faster Development Cycle in a Benzodiazepine Experiment
Clonazepam and flunitrazepam affected Calliphora vicina weight, while overall development time remained similar. The endpoints have different implications for estimating time since death.
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A Postmortem Metabolite Peak Is Not a Metabolite Concentration
MDMB-CHMICA metabolite profiling showed different signals across matrices. Relative peak intensities supported target selection, not concentration ratios or an exposure clock.