Texas State Chemist Animal Feed Regulatory Program Standards Implementation and ISO17025 Accreditation Roadmap

This proposal contains a roadmap for the Office of the Texas State Chemist (OTSC) to achieve full implementation of the Animal Feed Regulatory Program Standards (AFRPS) in 5 years, expand the scope of ISO 17025 accreditation of the OTSC AAS laboratories, introduce an ISO 17025 quality system and accredit the Texas A&M AgriLife Research BSL3 laboratory used by OTSC to measure microbiological contamination of feed, and implement an ISO 17025 quality system in OTSC satellite laboratories that measure aflatoxin contamination in feed. The roadmap contains tasks patterned after the Shewhart Cycle (Plan-Do-Check-Act) to continuously improve the regulatory and laboratory functions of the Texas feed program. Key elements of the roadmap include development of an operations manual that incorporates AFRPS, formalizing methodology used to build a statistically derived risk-based plan-of-work, creating a regulatory information management system (RIMS) that facilitates FFCS management's ability to measure and improve AFRPS implementation, and conversion of the “Regulatory Science in Food Systems” online graduate program offered by Texas A&M University into basic and advanced investigator training. As an outcome of this project, the OTSC will better direct regulatory activities that reduce foodborne illness attributed to feed safety hazards and align more closely with the FDA regulatory program.