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It really comes down to one point: In order for there to be even a smidgen of a chance that 37 out of 40 bodies tested false-positive, there would have to be at least an 80% chance that a single body would test false-positive. You can do the math yourself, or if you like, you can continue to pretend that you don't understand what I'm talking about, but either way there's simply no way around that fact. So, is there an 80% chance that a diphenylamine test would result in a false postive? Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find any hard numbers, but I think circumstantial evidence might be able to help us out a bit.

First of all, it's highly doubtful that the test would have survived for well over two decades, in a period when smoking was widespread, if the error rate was that high, if it even would have made it out of the testing phase at all. I also doubt that it would still be used in a country as modern and developed as Italy, where again, smoking is nearly universal, if the chances of a false positive were that high.

The only further anecdote I've found was from an (alleged) incident in Kosovo on July 19, 1998. Serbian forces, so the allegation went, swept into a the town of Rahovec and surrounding areas wreaking havoc on the local population. "In the suburb Bellacerke/Bela Crkva all houses were destroyed. Survivors told a correspondent from the Neue Zuercher Zeitung about a paraffin test which the men were subjected to, that was done to establish the existence of traces of gunpowder in order to find out who had fired a gun and who not. The Serbs threatened one group that men with a positive test would be shot on the spot; all test results were negative." Source (see page 18).

All test results were negative. Pretty amazing for an 80% false-positive rate, I'd say. So, either the story told by the Albanian witnesses was just a little bit... refined for consumption - which would cast doubt on other tales from Albanian "witnesses" - or, the incident provides good evidence that the capacity for false-positives from diphenylamine testing doesn't quite reach the 80% mark.

I've been away from FR for a few weeks now and am trying to catch up on recent developments. Let me just quickly thank you, inquest, for the hearty chuckles you've given me by the verbal spanking you've just dished out to Hoplite.

Don't know if you've followed the Balkans threads much, but many of us have had runs in with him and endured his smear campaign, laced with his smug little smart a$$ put downs.

You've haven't let him get away with it, and basically you've beaten the little troll at his own game. Hats off to you.

I haven't been able to find any hard numbers

Really? I provided them to you in the last post.

What's your major malfunction?

Diphenylamine tests, on a group of 17 individuals, gave true results 47% of the time and false results 53% of the time, and have been recognized (how many times am I going to have to repeat this, Inquest?) as being nonspecific and scientifically useless.

The paraffin test is used for psychological reasons - i.e., to fool individuals not familiar with it's limitations, as Milosevic's minions are doing to you, the willing, hell, eager even, dupe.

The sad thing, inquest, is not that you cannot prove your point, but that you lack the simple logical skills that anyone interested in intellectual pursuits is required to cultivate. This particular point was decided a couple of days ago when diphenylamine was shown to be non-specific, i.e., shows positive results for things other than gunpowder.

Yours is now an exercise in folly.