BUILDING CAPACITY FOR THE RAPID DETECTION OF LEAD IN BOVINE BLOOD AND MILK

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACTThe PADLS New Bolton Center Toxicology Laboratory proposes to investigate the ability to validate theuse of the LeadCare II blood lead analyzer for the rapid, accurate measurement of lead in bovine bloodby performing a comparison study utilizing inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS).The LeadCare II analyzer is a small benchtop instrument that uses anodic stripping voltammetry (ASV) toquantify the amount of lead present in a patient?s blood. With an analysis time of only three minutes,the LeadCare II can be utilized as a point of care system in veterinary medicine when herd exposures tolead are suspected. Other lead analysis methods, including ICP-MS, can have turnaround times of daysinstead of hours. While waiting for results, definite animal treatment may be delayed, prolonginganimal distress and suffering, and producers may be forced to hold or discard milk, resulting ineconomic hardship. As an example, to evaluate blood samples from a 30-head herd of cattle mightcurrently require as many as three full 8-hour workdays using ICP-MS, while the same samples could beresulted within 2 hours using the LeadCare II analyzer.The study will also evaluate the LeadCare II analyzer for its ability to detect lead in bovine milk. TheLeadCare II has the potential to rapidly decrease testing times when large numbers of animal blood andmilk samples need to be rapidly screened in the event of a known or suspected exposure to lead.We are confident in our ability to continue to support Vet-LIRN in this project due to our presentqualifications and experience and a proven history of successful Vet-LIRN collaborations through boththe infrastructure and method development grant programs.