Old Joe,
This is a bit of speculation on my part but I believe the samples a run by technicians who may have little chemistry background. They are hired to perform all of the manual work such as filling the beakers with acid solution, placing the solution on a magnetic stirring plate, running the analysis and recording the numbers. A senior member of the team would then review the work before it’s sent to the customer. The following quote from the news release certainly points to a mix of skilled and unskilled employees.
“The choice of certified reference material is now made by a senior laboratory staff member on a sample-batch basis”. To use a lab expansion as an excuse for this error just won’t cut it for me. This is a world class organization and they should know better. What I would like to know is how much importance they originally place on processing the samples from NOT. Looking back at what took place it certainly doesn’t look good. Thanks to Richard and his lawyer friends I do believe we will get more attention on future assays.
rosehill
