Medical examiner seeks $1M state grant to expand toxicology testing for novel drugs

The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner asked the Budget & Finance Committee Jan. 17 to retroactively accept and expand a roughly $1 million grant from the California Department of Public Health to support forensic toxicology work, including the addition of grant-funded toxicologist and analyst positions for the period 12/01/2023 through 06/30/2028.

Dr. Luke Bridal, chief forensic toxicologist, said the laboratory has seen a dramatic increase in accidental overdoses and that a retrospective analysis of 2022 decedents found dozens of detections of novel synthetic opioids and xylazine, including 45 fluoro-fentanyl cases. He described an aim to validate an automated, scalable testing workflow able to screen for hundreds or thousands of novel psychoactive substances on routine cases while maintaining turnaround times and providing timely aggregated data to public-health partners.

Sophie Hayward of the Office of the City Administrator presented technical amendments to reclassify the grant-funded positions in the annual salary ordinance and align language with the grant period; supervisors adopted the amendments (3-0). Because amendments were substantive, Chair Chan moved to continue the ordinance one week to Jan. 24 for final committee action; that continuance passed (3-0).

Supervisors asked whether services would be provided on-site; Dr. Bridal said the testing is performed through the department's partnership with Alternative Family Services and other laboratory arrangements rather than in the hearing room. There were no public speakers on the item.

The committee's votes forwarded the measure with amendments and set a continuation for final consideration.