New Hampshire FDA FERN Cooperative Agreement Program

The New Hampshire Public Health Laboratories (NHPHL) will provide the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Food Emergency Response Laboratory Network (FERN) responsive, unbiased, quality laboratory testing in the event of food outbreaks or other large scale food emergency events requiring surge capacity testing of implicated food samples. The NHPHL will participate as requested in national and international food surveillance exercises and assignments, in small-scale, short-term method development and method validation projects as directed by FERN National Program Office (NPO). The NHPHL objectives for the FDA FERN Cooperative agreement 5-year grant period is to continue to coordinate and integrate the NH food testing and surveillance program into the FERN integrated food safety system in the following two tracks: MICROBIOLOGY – Track 1 The NHPHL was awarded a cooperative agreement in 2005 with FSIS, and has participated in the FDA and USDA FERN cooperative agreements each subsequent year, to enhance lab testing capability of microbiological threat agents. The NHPHL has five full time staff in the food Safety unit, four full time staff in the molecular diagnostic unit, two full time staff in the clinical microbiology unit and two full time staff in the emergency response unit all available to participate in FERN activities as needed in emergencies. The NHPHL has the necessary procedures and methods, equipment, laboratory space and infrastructure to participate in FERN activities. The NHPHL will continue to analyze food samples and submit the data to eLEXNET and/or the FERN portal as appropriate. The NHPHL is actively working towards ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation and intends to apply for accreditation in the near future. CHEMISTRY – Track 2 NHPHL Chemistry unit is an active member of the Chemistry Cooperative Agreement Program (cCAP) with the FERN since 2005, and with FDA support, enhanced the capability and capacity to test contaminated products. The lab will continue to support and participate in all FERN related chemical food testing for targeted and non-targeted surveillance of regulated products. The objective for the 5 year FDA FERN Cooperative agreement is to continue such efforts to improve chemical food testing. The NHPHL has validated the necessary procedures and methods, and has the equipment, laboratory space and infrastructure to participate in FERN activities. NHPHL is requesting funding for three chemistry full time staff, chemical supplies and reagents, travel to training / conferences and service contracts to maintain FDA loaned equipment, which will all aid towards strengthening FERN by food testing for food safety and food defense.