Adjudicate ethanol as antemortem ingestion versus postmortem production

Decomposition and submersion let microbes ferment glucose into ethanol, mimicking antemortem drinking. The standard discriminators (Kugelberg & Jones 2007): higher alcohols (n-propanol, n-butanol, isobutanol) are fermentation by-products, so their presence points to postmortem production; and a specific liver metabolite (ethyl glucuronide, EtG) is produced only by living metabolism, so its presence points to antemortem intake. This returns a flag from those signals; for a quantified likelihood ratio, feed EtG to morie_tox_antemortem_lr.

Usage

morie_tox_ethanol_congeners(
  ethanol,
  n_propanol = 0,
  n_butanol = 0,
  etg = NA_real_,
  congener_threshold = 0
)

Arguments

ethanol: Measured ethanol concentration (>= 0).
n_propanol, n_butanol: Higher-alcohol concentrations (>= 0); non-zero indicates microbial fermentation. Default 0.
etg: Ethyl glucuronide concentration (>= 0); non-zero indicates antemortem intake. Default NA (not measured).
congener_threshold: Higher-alcohol level above which fermentation is flagged. Default 0.

Value

A list with the verdict ("antemortem", "postmortem_production", or "indeterminate") and an interpretation string.

Examples

morie_tox_ethanol_congeners(ethanol = 1.2, n_propanol = 0.08)$verdict
#> [1] "postmortem_production"
morie_tox_ethanol_congeners(ethanol = 1.2, etg = 3.5)$verdict
#> [1] "antemortem"