Chemicals in Baby Shampoos Lead to False Marijuana Positives

This is very important for any new parents that use a particular brand of soap or shampoo for your baby.

These companies definitely need to find out what is causing these false test results that show up positive for THC. I can only imagine the embarrassment and the problems that parents might endure from the hospital over this innocent mistake, only to find out that the product that you trusted in got you into hot water.

Exposure to trace amounts of baby soaps and shampoos, commonly stocked in grocery stores and pharmacies across the county, are leading newborn babies to test positive for THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, a new study finds.

A hospital in North Carolina became concerned recently when a high number of its newborns tested positive for marijuana exposure. When researchers began looking into it, they found the culprit was chemicals found in baby soaps, including those manufactured by Johnson & Johnson, Aveeno and CVS brand products.

Dr. Catherine Hammett-Stabler, lead study author at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, said that at first researchers were unable to pinpoint what was causing the urine tests to come back positive for marijuana.

"We went up to the nursery, followed the nurses and the staff around to identify everything that was done, everything that was essentially touching those babies' skins, could possibly come into contact with the urine that we were subsequently testing," she told ABC News. "We were really surprised when we found it was the soaps were the culprit.

Mixtures of drug-free urine and various commercial products and materials that commonly contact newborns were used in the study, according to the abstract published by the National Center for Biotechnical Information.

The study ultimately found that certain chemicals found in these soaps and shampoos -- including polyquarternium-11 and cocamidopropyl betaine -- can trigger the positive THC results.

Products that led to the false positives included Johnson & Johnson's Bedtime Bath, CVS Night-time Baby Bath, Aveeno Baby Soothing Relief Creamy Wash and Aveeno Baby Wash & Shampoo.

The researchers said they believe that trace amounts of the chemicals -- 0.1 milliliters or less -- were coming from the soaps, washing off the babies' bodies, and finding their way into the urine samples used for the study.

What if you don't have a hospital that's as cautious. Can you imagine getting a visit from Social Services?

"[The researchers] do not want to be falsely accusing anybody. They want to correctly identify situations that need additional intervention or social services actions for the protection of the baby," Stabler told the magazine

"This has profound implications," Spangler said in an email to ABC News. "Think about being a mother who knows she has never been exposed to illicit drugs. How does she fight against the supposed 'objective' lab test?" Spangler cited mothers who had been arrested based on tests of their babies, but insisted that they had never smoked marijuana.

abcnews.go.com...


It makes me wonder.... have these products that's been around for years changed their ingredients or have the drug tests that's done on babies changed? Some thing is definitely off....

I feel for any one who may have been unjustly accused of any wrong doing when it was the soap/shampoo that was the culprit.

I wonder, is there a legal issue here that can be brought against any of these companies if parents feel the need to sue?

abcnews.go.com...

Bath Salts again.... but this time it's.... BABY BATH SALTS!!!

What depths of depravity will these fiends go to get people hooked onto this terrible substance, is shockingly clear now. They won't ease up until they make vampire babies out of the most innocent of humans... I'd be worried if I were a breast feeding mother about now, one fatal chomp is all it could take.

Sickening...

Oh well, time for a smoke and then some greasy fat roast chicken.. After my cup of coffee that is.

Another thought is this....

If it shows up positive for a baby, what about the Adults? The Mother or Father that gives them a bath.

Also, are there other products out on the market that we all use that may have ingredients in it that could affect drug test results?


Pretty scary when us, as consumers, can no longer trust companies to provide us with a safe and healthy product.

reply to post by snarky412


I use these products on people that I take care of. Is this being absorbed into the skin..sort of like contact poison??

Since Sept-2006..I have been drugged by someone 4 times and still have not found out by whom. I had one test ran on me that showed up- The Date Drug..Roofie..I think that is what you call it. I do not do any drugs!! I finally sent my blood work off to the FBI in DC..I never got a response.

Anyway, I will stop using the baby shampoo!

I am in NC

Originally posted by Apollo7
reply to post by snarky412

 

I use these products on people that I take care of. Is this being absorbed into the skin..sort of like contact poison??

Since Sept-2006..I have been drugged by someone 4 times and still have not found out by whom. I had one test ran on me that showed up- The Date Drug..Roofie..I think that is what you call it. I do not do any drugs!! I finally sent my blood work off to the FBI in DC..I never got a response.

Anyway, I will stop using the baby shampoo!

I am in NC

edit on 20-6-2012 by Apollo7 because: (no reason given)

they found the culprit was chemicals found in baby soaps, including those manufactured by Johnson & Johnson, Aveeno and CVS brand products.

Check what brand you use.....

Maybe try another kind. Pretty bad when we can no longer trust these companies....

reply to post by Apollo7


This is more specific:

Products that led to the false positives included Johnson & Johnson's Bedtime Bath, CVS Night-time Baby Bath, Aveeno Baby Soothing Relief Creamy Wash and Aveeno Baby Wash & Shampoo.

There's no telling what other products will cause the same affect, that's the problem.

This is disturbing, but not surprising.

These aren't the only products that have problematic ingredients. I always kind of thought it was weird that there is a warning about swallowing toothpaste,,, You are supposed to put it in your mouth, rub it into your gums and tongue but it is harmful if you swallow more than a pea sized amount???

Some deodorants have been thought to cause cancer as well. The products we use everyday are slowly killing us.

Thanks for this information though. My mom is using baby shampoo currently since her last cranioplasty (6 so far) and I am sure that she would not want to take the chance of using it again since she is due for another surgery next month. I appreciate you posting it.

read the back of a dove shampoo sometime, plenty of carcinogens.

most states require two tests when looking for evidence of drug use. one and another to confirm.

the problem is that more often than not, the field-test/dipstick is used followed by an immunoassay. both methodologies are inherently fallible.

GC/MS is far less fallible, but much more expensive to run and is most likely very rarely done.

This is not saying it contains THC, it says it is a false positive, so it does not contain THC. Whatever the chemical is though fools the test.

The study was published in Clinical Biochemistry.

Unexpected interference of baby wash products with a cannabinoid (THC) immunoassay

www.sciencedirect.com...

Another good read

www.rawstory.com...

Study: Chemicals in baby soaps can trigger marijuana-positive drug tests

They specifically highlighted the ingredients polyquaternium 11 and cocamidopropyl betaine as “showing strong reactivity” with chemicals in less expensive drug tests, producing the positive result for marijuana. Researchers added that less than 0.1 mililiters of these chemicals in a drug test sample could contaminate the results.

The chemicals are not in any way related to marijuana and both are used in hundreds of products like toothpaste, shampoo, makeup, hair dye and household cleaning agents. In other words, it would not be surprising to find trace amounts of these products in urine, saliva or hair follicles – putting a huge question mark on the validity of less expensive drug tests conducted by employers and law enforcement agencies around the nation.

Not to mention:

”

“The lesson from this study is two-fold,” Paul Armentano, deputy director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), explained to Raw Story in an email exchange. “One, immunoassay drug test results must always be confirmed. (FYI: Immunoassay tests for a chemical reaction, not the actual drug itself or its metabolite, which is why false positives on these tests are common.) And [two], standard drug tests provide society with very little useful information regarding whether someone actually used a particular substance, when they last used a particular substance, or whether they were impaired at the time they were tested. Only in an environment of criminal drug prohibition can people judged solely on the contents of their urine, rather than on their behavior and performance.”

www.rawstory.com...

I think we will find many more things that we use to clean with will show
up as a false positive for marijuana.