Every scientific laboratory requires accreditation.   The Michigan State Police, the laboratory that performs testing of blood, urine, fibers and DNA in all varieties of criminal cases, should be fully accredited, right?  When a person’s liberty is on the line, the laboratory doing the testing is fully accredited, right?  The answer to the question is so elementary that it hardly seems worth asking but … in Michigan, it is worth asking.  A legacy accreditation is an accreditation whereby the laboratory, due to being in existence prior to the passage of the accreditation requiements and standards, receives a “grandfathered” accreditation.   They haven’t passed the newest standards but because they were in existence in the past, they may still be accredited.  This legacy accreditation lasts only for so long.  When it expires, the laboratory must neither pass certification as a fully accredited laboratory, lose its accreditation or apply for an extension.  MSP?  They have a legacy accreditation and worse, their legacy extension just expired.   Rumors and people in the know reveal that the ASCLAD-LAB granted a 3^rd extension to the MSP.  Rather than getting full accreditation, the MSP-Lansing Lab is surviving on a legacy extension AGAIN.   

What do you think of that? 

This is the link:

http://www.ascld-lab.org/labstatus/accreditedlabs.html#mi