If you ship liquid diagnostic specimens by air, are you sure that you are complying with the regulations? Hospitals, labs, clinics, etc. ship thousands of specimens every day and all manner of primary receptacles are used. There are some packages currently on the market that the manufacturers claim are compliant with IATA Packing Instruction 650. This regulation dictates, in part, that either the primary or secondary container used in a shipment must pass a 95 kPa pressure differential test. Unfortunately, many of these shipping systems offer a secondary container that does not meet these requirements. As a consequence, your primary container must pass to make the shipment legal.

Take a look at your shipping system. If in doubt, ask the manufacturer if their vials pass the required test. If all your primaries have been tested and certified, fear not. If they are not designed to withstand this test, and the secondary container you use does not qualify, your shipments do not comply with the regulations.

With large operations, it is virtually impossible to standardize all primary containers to be legal under PI 650. A far easier, cost effective, and legal approach would be to seek out a packaging system with a secondary container that meets or exceeds the prescribed pressure test criteria.

A leaking package could result in a very high fine or civil liabilities with no upper limit.

Regulations are written with the main purpose of safety. Abiding by them should be your "primary" concern.

A better solution is to use a shipping system that uses a pressure tested secondary container such as the STP-210 or the STP-250.