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The elemental goal of FARAD is the production of safe foods of animal origin through the prevention and mitigation of violative chemical (drug, pesticide, natural toxins, and environmental contaminant) residues in food animal products. It accomplishes this through its objectives which are to identify, extract, assemble, evaluate and distribute reviewed information about residue avoidance and mitigation to people involved in residue avoidance programs throughout the United States. The types of information available through FARAD include basic veterinary drug registration information, withdrawal times, use indications, as well as complex technical information about the pharmacokinetics and toxicokinetics of drugs and chemicals in food animals. FARAD was authorized by the Agricultural Research, Extension, and Education Reform Act of 1998 (AREERA) and reauthorized in the 2008 and 2013 Farm Bill legislation. We have never received funding at authorized Farm Bill levels.
The American public has a strongly-held expectation that food products, including those derived from of animal origin. Those expectations have developed in part because for the past 33 years, FARAD has provided advice that ensured that harmful drug and chemical residues did not occur. The very low levels of residues in the recent CVM/FDA milk survey supports this utility. For the supply of safe food to continue, residue avoidance expertise is required and FARAD is the only readily available source of that expertise. FARAD has become an integral adjuvant to regulatory programs and producer sponsored quality assurance programs. Without a FARAD to assist with extralabel withdrawal recommendations, such use could not safely take place in food animals, a fact acknowledged as early as 1999 by the NRC study on Use of Drugs in Food Animals where they write (pg.5): A national database called FARAD provides a valid and needed reference for practicing veterinarians with regard to the implementation and success of AMDUCA. Through FARAD, veterinarians can obtain information on specific veterinary and non-veterinary drugs for treating sick animals and recommend appropriate dosing and withdrawal times. As long as AMDUCA is in existence, FARAD is needed to estimate extended withdrawal intervals. ELDU is often necessitated because many approved animal antibiotics are no longer effective at label doses due to decrease in bacterial susceptibility. This requires conscientious veterinarians to go "off label" with a higher and more effective drug dose, necessitating determination of extended withdrawal time. FARAD is the ONLY program to provide this service. Similar issues occur when veterinarians, due to lack of drug availability, must use drugs approved in a major food animal species (e.g. cows, pigs) to treat disease in a minor species (goats, sheep). FARAD also provides rapid response and sound, scientifically-based residue avoidance advice in the face of accidental contamination emergencies.