Alaska Environmental Health Laboratory Acquiring Iso/iec 17025:2005 Accreditation

Project SummaryThe State of Alaska Environmental Health Lab (EHL) provides support to the regulatoryoversight of manufactured food establishments, retail food establishments, public facilities, andshellfish shippers, producers, and processors throughout Alaska in its goal to protect publichealth and environment. In July 2008, Alaska enrolled in the Manufactured Food RegulatoryProgram Standards (MFRPS), recognized critical elements in creating a national, fullyintegrated food safety system that are intended to enhance food safety by establishing auniform basis for measuring and improving the performance of manufactured food regulatoryprograms in the United States. Part of this movement was to standardize the quality systemscriteria to ISO 17025 for food testing so that is meaningful during surveillance for diseaseprevention as well as timely utilization across-jurisdictions in an foodborne outbreak.Conformance with these standards assists both federal and state programs in better directingtheir regulatory activities at reducing foodborne illness hazards in manufactured food plants.Additionally, by conforming to the standards, the state offers FDA the foundation for pursuingregulatory action based on findings of state-conducted inspections, tests and other regulatoryactivities. Consequently, the safety and security of the United States food supply will improve.Alaska has assessed its program and has developed a comprehensive strategic plan tocontinuously improve program areas that do not meet a particular standard with the intention ofachieving full ISO 17025 certification by year five of this proposed cooperative agreement.Under this proposed cooperative agreement, Alaska's objectives are to develop, implement, andmaintain program policies and procedures, provide training so that all staff is aware of thepolicies and procedures, and verify that the policies and procedures are being followed by usingproficiency tests, internal audits and external audits as a measure. The purpose of this project isto improve service to FDA and to our food analysis clients, and to become better stewards ofState resources through ISO/IEC 17025:2005 accreditation.