Building An Integrated Laboratory System to Advance The Safety of Food and Animal

Project Summary/AbstractThis proposal is submitted collaboratively by the Association of Public Health Laboratories(APHL), the Association of Food and Drug Officials (AFDO), and the Association of AmericanFeed Control Officials (AAFCO). The purpose of the collaboration is to further the goals ofthe Food Safety Modernization Act by facilitating long-term improvements to the nationalfood and animal feed safety system. The overall goal is to strengthen and integrate acommunity of food and feed testing laboratories for the advancement of public health. The threeAssociations are uniquely qualified to perform this work because their mission is to representand support the multi-disciplinary laboratories that perform food and animal feed testing insupport of regulatory programs, surveillance efforts, and outbreak investigations. Specificobjectives of the work include: management of support programs to facilitate ISO/IEC17025:2005 accreditation of member laboratories; establishment of equivalency between federal,state, and local food and feed testing laboratories; reaching national consensus on the acceptanceand better sharing of analytical data; identification of a national framework for a unifiedlaboratory response to food or animal feed safety emergencies; improvements in communicationamong federal, state, and local testing laboratories and with their associated regulatory andpublic health programs; providing a proficiency testing program for feed laboratories; andstrengthening partnerships with clinical laboratories to improve the sharing of samples andinformation. Achieving these objectives will require extensive collaboration and coordination ofthe three Associations, with federal partners, and with a wide range of stakeholders. The methodsto be employed to reach these objectives include identification of model programs and processes;pilot testing of new approaches; organization of national and regional forums and focus groups;development of working groups, resource repositories, and Subject Matter Expert registries;delivery of formal training sessions and other adult learning opportunities (in collaboration withthe International Food Protection Training Institute); and utilization of the existing committeeinfrastructure of each Association. Measurement of success will be against stated metrics, writtenand refined in consultation with the funding agency.