Use of filter paper for the collection and analysis of human whole blood specimens

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and its partners have been o perating the Newborn Screening Quality Assurance Program for > 20 y. The pr ogram helps participating laboratories to evaluate and improve the quality of their newborn-screening testing efforts by providing quality control dri ed blood spot materials and proficiency-testing materials for the external evaluation of screening programs. The Newborn Screening Quality Assurance P rogram provides an independent evaluation of filter papers approved by the Food and Drug Administration for the collection of blood for clinical tests . These activities have created a mechanism for the validation of the filte r paper blood collection device and the standardization of materials and me thods for the analysis of dried blood spots.