Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
The Food Animal Residue Avoidance Databank (FARAD) is a collaborative university based food safety program that is coordinated and delivered by veterinary faculty and staff at several US colleges of veterinary medicine. Throughout its 40-year existence, FARAD has continued to evolve to meet the ever-changing demands of providing accurate, timely and reliable service to both the veterinary profession and food animal industry stakeholders. At present, the program is managed through a very close collaboration of personnel at the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of California-Davis (UCD) and the Colleges of Veterinary Medicine at University of Florida (UF), North Carolina State University (NCSU), and Virginia-Maryland (VM), as well as at Kansas State University-Olathe (KSUO).
Animal Health Component
100%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
100%
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
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.
Project Methods
In order to carry out its mission, the FARAD team collates, analyzes and interprets the most up-to-date information and uses that unique data repository to provide accurate and timely expert advice to assist veterinarians who are faced with situations that could cause unsafe chemical residues in human food products. In addition, FARAD maintains and provides an array of complete information resources for veterinarians, extension specialists, farmers, regulatory personnel and others who are the stewards of our nation's expansive commercial food animal industries and the growing number of small backyard livestock operations. Beyond those primary functions, FARAD has a secondary impact on the food consuming public and contributes significantly to human public health and consumer confidence by providing food animal specialists with the most up-to-date and comprehensive scientific information available today. Throughout four decades of delivering this program, FARAD has continued to develop increased sophistication with respect to (1) acquisition and cataloging of pharmacokinetic data and comprehensive information resources, (2) adapting efficient mechanisms for information delivery and outreach to target audiences, and (3) utilizing complex quantitative tools and models for accurately estimating safe withdrawal intervals for a wide array of drugs and chemicals in nearly all species of domestic food animals.FARAD performs a broad array of programmatic functions, but key among these are the collection, evaluation, analysis, interpretation and dissemination of information related to the depletion of drugs and other chemicals in edible products derived from food-producing animal species. The underlying activities that support these functions are carried out through multilayered and complementary approaches that are coordinated by the FARAD centers located at UCD, NCSU, UF, KSUO and VM. At UCD, FARAD personnel search the peer-reviewed scientific literature plus numerous other information resources for data pertaining to the depletion or elimination from food-producing animals of all classes of small molecule entities. Relevant information is extracted, modeled, and entered into a computer-based archival databank that is readily searchable for customized information retrieval. Because there are many factors that can influence how rapidly an animal eliminates a chemical residue, information about diet, age, gender, breed and disease status are taken into consideration.