Toxicology is the study of toxins as they relate to legal or criminal investigations, and toxicologists are chemists who examine bodily fluids and tissue samples to determine what toxic substances they may contain and what physiological effects they may have had on the person or animal that ingested them.
The toxicology test report may be cited in trials
Toxicologists work in crime labs that are often – but not always — associated with municipal police departments. They don’t usually attend crime scenes but instead take a report from the officers who were at the scene before beginning a forensic examination of the evidence.
After the analysis is done, they submit a report, explaining in great detail how they arrived at their conclusions. Their report may be cited in trials, and they may be called upon to defend their conclusions with forensic witness testimony.
In most cases, toxicologists are not police officers but civilians, working closely with other crime scene investigators as part of a team. Toxicologists should not be confused with forensic pathologists who must be medical doctors.
Toxicology laboratory act as a state-of-the-art facility
Ideally, a toxicology laboratory should be a state-of-the-art facility with the very latest equipment and supplies, as well as strict protocols for determining results. In practice, this may not be the case, especially in these days of government budgetary shortfalls.
Forensic laboratories have two main areas of expertise. Forensic biology involves ScientiaDX toxicology screening of victims and suspects through the analysis of biological substances such as DNA, hair, and bodily fluids. Forensic biology can also involve the analysis of dead animals, as with several famous cases involving racehorses that had been poisoned.
In some cases, it is the lack of a particular chemical that provides the key to the crime: In a death related to a heroin overdose, for example, you would not expect to find heroin: the drug is immediately metabolized into a different substance.
Forensic chemistry, on the other hand, is the forensic examination of non-biological substances found at a crime scene such as paint, cosmetics, and even soil. It’s a more expansive field than forensic biology, simply because there are more substances to analyze.