FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
When Science Becomes Policy Without Oversight: Formal Investigatory Referral Exposes Decades of Unlawful Hair-Testing by NYPD and Psychemedics Corporation
New York, NY — November 1, 2025 — Civil-rights attorney Eric Sanders, Esq., of The Sanders Firm, P.C., announced today the filing of a Formal Investigatory Referral on behalf of Frankie F. Palaguachi, a tenured New York City Police Officer unlawfully terminated on the basis of an unapproved and scientifically invalid drug-testing method manufactured by Psychemedics Corporation, a Texas-based laboratory services company.
The referral—submitted to the New York City Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS), New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH), and the New York State Department of Health (DOH)—is also copied to the New York State Division of Human Rights (DHR), New York City Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), and the Office of the New York State Attorney General, Civil Rights Bureau.
It seeks a multi-agency investigation into what Sanders describes as “one of the most enduring and dangerous examples of pseudoscience institutionalized as public policy”—the New York City Police Department’s three-decade reliance on hair-based radioimmunoassay (RIAH) and enzyme-immunoassay (EIA) testing to screen and discipline police officers and applicants.
A Three-Decade Pattern of Misrepresentation, Regulatory Silence, and Institutional Reliance
Contemporaneous reporting confirms that the New York City Police Department adopted Psychemedics Corporation’s hair-based drug-testing program during the administration of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, marking one of the earliest examples of a public agency operationalizing unvalidated forensic science as official policy.
As reported in NYPD Confidential on March 11, 1996, the Department “recently completed its routine end-of-probation drug testing for 2,000 cops hired in 1994,” noting that “the reason for the increase [in positive tests]” was “the department’s new, more-sensitive hair test.” This contemporaneous account provides documentary proof that, by early 1996, the NYPD had already integrated Psychemedics’ radioimmunoassay of hair (RIAH) methodology into its employment screening and disciplinary processes.
From approximately 1996 to 2012, the Department relied on RIAH testing as its primary hair-based drug detection tool. Beginning in 2012, the NYPD transitioned to Psychemedics’ enzyme immunoassay (EIA) platform—marketed under FDA 510(k) K111929—a device cleared solely for use on serum, plasma, saliva, and urine, not hair. Despite this, Psychemedics promoted its methods as “FDA-cleared for hair,” and the Department adopted them wholesale without independent validation or regulatory verification.
This sequence of events demonstrates that the NYPD institutionalized Psychemedics’ unapproved technology decades before any regulatory framework existed for hair testing, and well beyond the scope of FDA’s clearance under 21 C.F.R. § 862.3870, which explicitly limits immunoassay devices to fluid matrices. By transforming a vendor’s unverified marketing claim into a standing employment practice, the Department effectively enshrined corporate misrepresentation as civil-service procedure.
“No immunoassay device has ever been cleared or approved by the FDA for use on hair matrices under 21 C.F.R. § 862.3870,” Eric Sanders emphasized. “Yet Psychemedics repeatedly claimed its tests were ‘FDA-cleared for hair’—and the NYPD built a disciplinary system around that falsehood.”
Corporate Marketing Posing as Science
At the center of this matter lies a sustained act of corporate misrepresentation that blurred the line between scientific legitimacy and commercial promotion. For nearly three decades, Psychemedics Corporation publicly and repeatedly claimed that its proprietary hair-testing technology was “FDA-cleared” and “forensically proven.”
That claim was false. The company’s 2019 statement to BioSpace—issued after the Boston Police Department v. Massachusetts Civil Service Commission ruling—boldly asserted that “Psychemedics’ Hair Test… has been awarded Food and Drug Administration (FDA) 510(k) clearance.” In reality, no such clearance exists for hair testing under the applicable device classification.
The FDA’s own regulation, 21 C.F.R. § 862.3870, defines an immunoassay device as one “intended for use in the qualitative or quantitative determination of drugs and their metabolites in serum, plasma, saliva, or urine.” Hair is not included—nor has it ever been.
By promoting its device for an unapproved specimen type, Psychemedics engaged in off-label marketing and misbranding in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 331, rendering its devices both adulterated and misbranded within the meaning of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA).
Yet the company’s marketing proved remarkably effective. Beginning in 1996, the New York City Police Department adopted Psychemedics’ radioimmunoassay of hair (RIAH) method as part of its drug-screening program. From 2012 onward, the Department transitioned to the company’s enzyme immunoassay (EIA) platform marketed under 510(k) K111929, again misrepresented as “FDA-cleared for hair.”
This adoption occurred decades before any regulatory framework existed for hair testing and well beyond the scope of FDA’s actual clearance, which applies only to fluid matrices. By converting Psychemedics’ marketing claim into an administrative standard, the NYPD institutionalized a private deception as public policy.
For decades, this misrepresentation was left unchecked by federal regulators. The FDA’s failure to issue corrective guidance or enforcement action allowed the false narrative of “FDA-approved hair testing” to metastasize across public-sector employment systems.
“That silence wasn’t neutrality—it was complicity,” Sanders said. “Every day the FDA failed to act, it strengthened the illusion of legitimacy—and deepened the damage to those whose careers and reputations depended on the truth.”
Regulatory Silence Meets Administrative Misuse
The HARMS Citizen Petition, filed by Harmed Americans for Reform in Medical-Device Safety on October 16, 2025, established the scientific and regulatory foundation of this controversy. It meticulously documents how Psychemedics Corporation manipulated the FDA’s 510(k) clearance process to create the illusion of equivalency where none existed—obtaining clearance for immunoassay devices designed exclusively for serum, plasma, saliva, and urine, and then repurposing those devices for hair testing without approval.
By leveraging that false equivalency, Psychemedics successfully marketed its unapproved hair-based methods to law-enforcement agencies nationwide, including the New York City Police Department (NYPD). The company’s misbranding—coupled with the FDA’s regulatory silence—enabled a long-term public deception in which “FDA-cleared for hair” became an assumed truth across municipal procurement and disciplinary systems.
The Palaguachi Citizen Petition, filed through counsel on October 24, 2025, directly connects that federal regulatory failure to human harm. It demonstrates how the NYPD operationalized these same unapproved methodologies in employment and disciplinary contexts—culminating in the unlawful termination of Palaguachi, a tenured officer with an unblemished record, following a purported “positive” enzyme immunoassay (EIA) hair test.
Together, the HARMS and Palaguachi petitions expose a continuum of institutional negligence:
Corporate misrepresentation, through deliberate misuse of the 510(k) process and false claims of clearance;
Regulatory inaction, through the FDA’s persistent failure to clarify the scope of authorized specimen matrices under 21 C.F.R. § 862.3870; and
Administrative misuse, through municipal reliance on an unvalidated scientific method as the basis for employment enforcement.
This convergence represents not merely administrative oversight, but a systemic failure of scientific governance—where off-label corporate innovation metastasized into public policy through bureaucratic inertia.
“Together, the HARMS and Palaguachi petitions form a complete record of institutional negligence,” Sanders explained. “HARMS exposes the regulatory breakdown; Palaguachi proves the human harm.”
For decades, that regulatory silence was translated into procedural authority, allowing unapproved technology to infiltrate civil-service testing and disciplinary systems under the guise of legitimacy. What began as unauthorized marketing became municipal law enforcement practice—transforming scientific uncertainty into administrative certainty and erasing the line between compliance and complicity.
Violations of Federal Employment Law and Civil Rights
According to the referral, the NYPD’s reliance on Psychemedics’ methods violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures (UGESP), 29 C.F.R. Part 1607.
UGESP, adopted in 1978, codifies the Supreme Court’s rulings in Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424 (1971), and Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, 422 U.S. 405 (1975):
employers bear a non-delegable duty to ensure that any testing or selection device is job-related, scientifically valid, and consistent with business necessity.
The NYPD failed every element of that standard.
No validation studies were conducted.
No evidence of job-relatedness was presented.
No less-discriminatory alternatives were considered.
“These methods were never scientifically reliable,” Sanders said. “Under the law, that makes them discriminatory per se.”
The referral further asserts violations of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which require that any fitness-for-duty examination be grounded in reliable, job-related science.
State and Local Law Violations
At the state level, Psychemedics’ conduct implicates New York Public Health Law §§ 570–580 and 10 N.Y.C.R.R. Part 58, which mandate that laboratories performing forensic or employment testing hold valid permits through the Clinical Laboratory Evaluation Program (CLEP).
“There is no record that Psychemedics’ hair-testing methods ever received CLEP approval,” Sanders noted. “That means every NYPD test using these methods occurred outside lawful state oversight.”
The referral also cites violations of Executive Law § 296 and Civil Rights Law § 40-c, which prohibit discriminatory employment practices and guarantee equal protection under state law.
Even apart from racial or disability bias, the illegality stems from the City’s use of unvalidated, arbitrary methods to decide employment outcomes.
At the municipal level, the New York City Human Rights Law (Admin. Code § 8-101 et seq.) prohibits any employment practice that produces disparate impact or lacks job-related validity.
The City’s continued use of Psychemedics’ methods—long after judicial and scientific warnings—constitutes deliberate indifference under Monell v. Department of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658 (1978), reaffirmed in Chislett v. New York City Department of Education (2d Cir. 2025).
The referral additionally invokes the New York City False Claims Act (Admin. Code § 7-801 et seq.), alleging that Psychemedics’ misrepresentation of its products as “FDA-cleared for hair” induced fraudulent contractual payments from the City of New York.
Negligence, Negligence Per Se, and the Duty of Care
Under New York common law, laboratories owe a duty of reasonable care to the individuals whose samples they test.
In Landon v. Kroll Laboratories, Inc., 22 N.Y.3d 1 (2013), the Court of Appeals held that a testing laboratory may be liable for negligence when its methods deviate from accepted scientific standards and cause foreseeable harm.
By marketing and administering unvalidated immunoassay methods for hair analysis, Psychemedics breached that duty.
The conduct constitutes negligence per se because it violates federal and state safety statutes intended to protect employees and applicants from false or unreliable testing results.
Evidentiary and Due-Process Consequences
From a scientific-legal standpoint, both RIAH and EIA methods fail every recognized standard of admissibility:
Frye v. United States, 293 F. 1013 (D.C. Cir. 1923) — requiring general acceptance in the relevant scientific community;
Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579 (1993) — requiring demonstrable reliability, peer review, known error rates, and acceptance;
Rule 7.01 of the New York Rules of Evidence – Opinion of Expert Witness — requiring expert testimony to rest on reliable scientific principles; and
UGESP, 29 C.F.R. Part 1607 — requiring empirical validation and demonstrable job-relatedness in employment testing.
“The NYPD’s reliance on results that fail every evidentiary and validation standard isn’t just scientifically indefensible—it’s legally void,” Sanders said. “No employee should lose a career on evidence that wouldn’t survive a single Frye or Daubert hearing.”
Requested Corrective Actions
The referral requests coordinated enforcement by city and state regulators, including:
Immediate Preclusion — Suspend and prohibit all radioimmunoassay (RIAH), enzyme-immunoassay (EIA), and derivative hair-testing methodologies in all municipal employment, disciplinary, and fitness-for-duty contexts. These methods lack FDA clearance, CLEP authorization, and UGESP validation, rendering their use unlawful and scientifically indefensible.
Reinstatement of Palaguachi — Restore him to his detective position with full back pay, seniority, and benefits retroactive to his March 2024 termination.
Regulatory Referral — Refer Psychemedics Corporation to the New York State Department of Health’s CLEP for investigation under Public Health Law §§ 570–580 and 10 N.Y.C.R.R. Part 58.
Fraud Review — Initiate civil and administrative proceedings under the NYC False Claims Act for fraudulent contract representations.
Future Oversight Controls — Require independent scientific validation and regulatory clearance for all future municipal testing contracts.
A Broader Reckoning with Institutional Science
Beyond the specific case, Sanders warns that the Psychemedics scandal illustrates a deeper structural failure — the erosion of scientific accountability inside government.
“This is what happens when bureaucracies confuse repetition with validation,” he said. “The longer a bad practice survives, the more legitimate it appears — and the harder it becomes to dislodge. But longevity can never substitute for scientific truth.”
The case, Sanders argues, is not just about employment law but about the rule of evidence itself — who decides what counts as science when government policy depends on it.
“When marketing masquerades as science,” he concluded, “it endangers careers, reputations, and civil rights. The law must not be the last to recognize when science goes wrong — it must be the first to correct it.”
About The Sanders Firm, P.C.
Founded by civil-rights attorney Eric Sanders, The Sanders Firm, P.C. is a New York-based law firm concentrating on civil-rights, employment, and police misconduct litigation. The firm has represented thousands of clients in complex legal matters involving racial discrimination, due-process violations, and systemic institutional misconduct.
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Read Exhibit 1: BioSpace Press Release – Psychemedics
Read Exhibit 2: EEOC Charge of Discrimination
Read Exhibit 3: HARMS Citizen Petition
Read Exhibit 4: Final Order of Dismissal