Prototype international quality assurance program

The international community presently lacks the ability to determine the quality and credibility of environmental measurements that is required to make sound decisions in matters related to international security, public health, and investment-related considerations. The ultimate goal of the work described in this article is to develop a credible information base including measurement capability for determination of environmental contamination and the potential for proliferation of material components of chemical or nuclear weapons. This study compared the accuracy obtained by six Russian and six U.S. laboratories for samples representative of classes of trace metals, dioxin-furans, and radioactive substances. The results obtained in this work indicate that current estimates for laboratory accuracy are likely overly optimistic. The weaknesses discovered by this prototype U.S. — Russia, study also exist within the broader international community of laboratories. Further work is proposed to address the urgent need for the international community to improve performance evaluations for analytical measurements.