Roar Forensics Publishes Full Apology and Retraction About Trimega's Hair Testing

LONDON, June 8, 2011 /PRNewswire/ --

- Roar Forensics Confirms High Accuracy Rate of Trimega's Hair Tests and That the Company has Appropriate Accreditation

Trimega Laboratories is pleased to announce that Forensics Limited (Roar Forensics) has made a full apology in relation to an article on its website and a recent email circular in which it suggested that hair alcohol testing by Trimega Laboratories was not reliable and that the company was not appropriately accredited. Roar Forensics has removed the article from its website, replaced it with a retraction, which it has also sent to all recipients of its original correspondence, and agreed not to make the same or similar statements about Trimega again.

Avi Lasarow, CEO of Trimega Laboratories, said: "We are pleased that Roar Forensics has made a full apology to us, recognised our accreditation and the very high levels of accuracy of our hair alcohol tests, and set the record straight on its website and directly to the recipients of its original inaccurate correspondence.

"We have always been a leader of the hair alcohol testing market. We were the first to commercialise the technological breakthrough of analysing human hair samples for alcohol, and it was no co-incidence that the Society of Hair Testing (SoHT) used our data set of 2,000 dual hair testing samples, the largest in the world, to confirm at its annual conference in March the high levels of accuracy of hair testing that Roar Forensics has now acknowledged."

The full text of Roar Forensics' retraction and apology is below:

"In an article on our website and in a recent email circular, we suggested that hair strand testing by Trimega Laboratories was not reliable. It has been pointed out to us, and we accept, that Trimega's testing conforms with all applicable standards and is fully accredited, or, in the case of their new laboratory, in the course of obtaining the relevant UKAS accreditation. We also accept that, rather than the 20% error rate referred to by us, Trimega's rate for false positives is less than 1% and for false negatives approximately 5.75%. We apologise to Trimega for any embarrassment or damage caused by our article."

About Trimega Laboratories (http://www.trimegalabs.co.uk)

Established in London in 2005, Trimega Laboratories is well recognised for being a leader in the development of innovative techniques for testing for substances of abuse. Its core business is laboratory-based analysis of hair samples that provide accurate historical records of alcohol or drugs dependency over a one to 12 month period. In the UK, Trimega's core clients include: family law specialists, law courts, and social services.

Trimega was the first to market with dual marker hair alcohol testing (FAEE and EtG). Dual hair testing provides very accurate results: at its annual conference in March 2011, the Society of Hair Testing (SoHT) confirmed that dual testing on hair for alcohol misuse provides accuracy rates of over 94% for false negatives and over 99% for false positives. The SoHT's consensus was based on analysis of Trimega's data set of approximately 2,000 dual hair testing samples, the largest of its kind in the world.

Other services offered by Trimega include: Roadside Drugalyzer Testing for law enforcement, Hair Steroid Testing for athletes, and Hair Benzodiazepines Testing.

Trimega won the title of Best Use of Technology in the 2008 Barclays-sponsored Startups Awards, and has been on the shortlist for the National Business Awards three years running. Trimega is also one of 25 companies to represent the UK in the 2011 European Business Awards.

Trimega conducts its hair alcohol analysis in laboratories in Germany which are accredited with international standard ISO 17025 by DAkkS, the German issuing authority, equivalent to UKAS in the UK. The technology for hair-alcohol testing originated in Germany.

The UK Ministry of Justice does not require hair testing laboratories to be accredited. However, Trimega's UK laboratory in Manchester, which carries out drug tests, operates to ISO 17025 standards, and has applied for ISO 17025 accreditation from UKAS. Trimega's Manchester laboratory already has IS0 9001:2008 certification from Lloyd's Register Group, itself accredited by UKAS, for the 'provision of clinical collecting, testing, analysis and interpretation services for substances of abuse'. In addition, the Manchester laboratory is the only UK laboratory in the industry to have ISO 14001 certification from QMS International, the environmental management system standard for internal quality management. Trimega is an Investor in People.

Trimega was responsible for the creation of a Hair Strand Scientific Advisory Board. Its purpose is to analyse the fast growing database of information created from the 10,000 hair alcohol tests and 7,000 hair drug tests carried out on UK samples each year, of which Trimega is responsible for around 40 per cent. The findings of the Board are shared with the Society of Hair Testing which will assist it in future decisions, particularly those relating to the setting of universal standards/guidelines.