Food Animal Residue Avoidance Depletion Program (FARAD) 2023-2025

The core mission of FARAD is to protect the American public by promoting the production of safe, animal-derived human food products (milk, eggs, meat, honey, etc.) that are devoid of violative or potentially unsafe chemical residues, including drugs, pesticides, environmental contaminants, natural toxins and other harmful substances. The overarching objective of the collaborating universities is to promote the continued development and foster delivery of the FARAD program. To that end, UCD, NCSU, UF, KSUO and VM will continue to employ the latest technologies to make changes in FARAD that will improve its usefulness and utility as a decision support system. The six primary focal points will continue to be (1) extraction and validation of data for incorporation into the system and support for FARAD's approved drug databases for publication in electronic format (VetGRAM) for internet-based delivery, including extraction of relevant data from foreign drug compendia and gFARAD partners, (2) operation of the Regional Access Centers (RAC's) at NCSU, VM and UCD for provision of residue avoidance information, with access through the toll-free hotline and e-mail, (3) data acquisition, data entry, pharmacokinetic analysis, maintenance, and distribution of the FARAD files, (4) preparation of FARAD Digests for publication in the Journal of the AVMA, newsletters and FARAD fact sheets/species information web-based pages (5) education of veterinarians on drug residue avoidance and (6) continued development and validation of methods to allow extrapolative techniques to be used in providing information and advice in situations where no direct data currently exists, which is typically required for nearly all environmental contaminant exposures.