New Hampshire Laboratory Flexible Funding Model for Food Safety (LFFM)(U19)

New Hampshire Public Health Laboratories - Project Summary/AbstractThe Food Safety Modernization Act Outlines a new approach to food safety that is risk-informedand preventive in focus. The New Hampshire Public Health laboratories (NH PHL) recognize thatsample testing can play a greater role in helping the FDA and regulatory partners preventcontaminated products from reaching consumers. In order to develop prevention-based systems,the NH PHL will collect data and other information to help identify and address food safetyhazards. Different types of sample analysis will be the focus of this project. Emergency responseand emerging issue testing will be conducted to identify intentional contamination of food withmicrobiological pathogens, chemical poisons/toxins and/or harmful radionuclides. This testing willbe conducted in response to outbreaks of foodborne illness to help identify the source of thecontaminant. The NH PHL will expand routine food and environmental surveillance testing toremove adulterated food from commerce and aide regulatory inspection programs in conductinginvestigations. The surveillance testing will include animal food product testing for microbialpathogens and for chemical contaminants with the goal to remove adulterated animal food fromcommerce and aide regulatory inspection programs in conducting investigations. Food and animalproduct microbial pathogens will be analyzed using emergent technology such as whole genomesequencing to understand evolving genomic diversity and enhance public national genomicdatabases. The NH PHL will build additional capability and expand national capacity in selectareas of microbiology, chemistry and radiochemistry including developing testing for cyclosporain food and environmental samples as well as allergen and radionuclide detection in human andanimal food. The NH PHL will produce large quantities of data and sample outputs which will drivea risk-based and prevention focused food safety system that the State of New Hampshire and theFDA can utilize for tracking and trending, early identification of emerging issues, and evaluationfor future areas of focus in support of an integrated food safety system.