Performing Department
Physiological Sciences VM-PHY
Non Technical Summary
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.
Animal Health Component
50%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
80%
Developmental
20%
Goals / Objectives
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.
Project Methods
The over-arching objective of the four collaborating universities is to continue the development and delivery of FARAD, and to utilize current technologies to make changes in FARAD which will improve its usefulness and utility as a decision support system. The five primary tasks include: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 delivery. This includes extraction of relevant data from foreign drug compendia and gFARAD partners.2. Operation of the Regional Access Centers (RAC's) at KSU, NCSU and UCD for provision of residue avoidance information, with access through the toll-free hotline and e-mail.3. 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, FARAD Fact Sheets when appropriate for rapid dissemination of information in an ongoing crisis, and other publications for distribution.5. Develop and validate methods to allow extrapolative techniques to be used in providing advice in situations where no direct data exists, the norm for mitigating environmental contaminant exposures.The breakdown of functions for the national program are as follows:Kansas State University (KSU) -Coordinate national program, develop pharmacokinetic modeling approaches and provide pharmacokinetic support to FARAD components, and on a rotating schedule with NCSU and UCD, provide responses to emergency queries from the FARAD Hotline.The University of California (UCD) - maintains the pharmacokinetic, bibliographic and call center databases and web-based access to the kinetic and bibliographic citation files. On a rotating basis with NCSU and KSU, UCD provides responses to drug and contaminant residue questions.The University of Florida (UF)- Collects and enters data for the US Approved Animal Drugs Database (US-AADD), maintains internet websites for FARAD, creates and supports platforms for mobile devices to access the Veterinarian's Guide to Residue Avoidance Management (VetGRAM) and other mobile-friendly applications, and distributes electronic alerts and updates via email, Twitter and other electronic formats.North Carolina State University (NCSU)- On a rotating schedule with UCD and KSU, provides responses to emergency telephone calls from the FARAD hotline.Collaboration between all institutions occurs on research projects that are necessary to validate the FARAD withdrawal interval estimates, and on the development of the global FARAD resource. Finally, we have started an informal collaboration with Iowa State University Diagnostic Laboratory to provide chemical assay services if needed (on a client pay basis) to field validate FARAD withdrawal time estimates.