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Food Safety and Inspection
Service United States Department of Agriculture Washington, D.C. 20250-3700 |
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Food Safety and Inspection
Service United States Department of Agriculture Washington, D.C. 20250-3700 |
The Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) has four laboratories. Three laboratories, the Eastern, Midwestern, and Western labs, conduct regulatory testing on samples of meat, poultry, and egg products. The Microbial Outbreaks and Special Projects Branch (MOSPB) laboratory performs analyses related to foodborne illness outbreaks and conducts special projects for the agency. The four laboratories are staffed by approximately 200 employees, including microbiologists, chemists, and veterinary pathologists.
FSIS has three regulatory laboratories, the Eastern laboratory in Athens, Ga., opened in 1974, the Midwestern laboratory in St. Louis, Mo., opened in 1978, and the Western laboratory in Alameda, Calif., opened in 1972.
The three regulatory field laboratories perform microbiological and chemical testing of samples. The labs perform food chemistry, pathology, antibiotic, and pesticide testing, although the same types of tests are not conducted at each lab. In FY 2001, the three regulatory laboratories conducted 737,139 analyses on 159,401 meat, poultry, and egg product samples.
The MOSPB laboratory, located in Athens, Ga., opened in 1996. The primary responsibility of MOSPB is to analyze products that have been implicated in foodborne illness investigations. This often involves genetic characterization, or genetic “fingerprinting,” of bacterial pathogens. These analyses are used in foodborne illness investigations by FSIS, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), state health departments, and other public health agencies.
MOSPB also conducts special projects to evaluate new equipment and testing methods that may be implemented in the FSIS field laboratories.
All four of FSIS’ laboratories are now accredited under ISO Standard 17025. ISO Standard 17025 accreditation is recognized as the highest international standard for food testing laboratories.
The Laboratory Electronic Application for Results Notification (LEARN) program provides FSIS personnel, establishments, and state officials with reports on the status of meat, poultry, and egg product test samples. LEARN is an automated process that tracks each sample as it is received, analyzed, and results are reported. LEARN went online in September 2001, giving all FSIS employees access to LEARN through an agency intranet site.
The FSIS server allows field inspectors and agency staff to check on the status of individual samples or view circuit, district, and management summaries of results. Establishment and state officials will not have access to the intranet site, but they may receive email reports on the status of individual samples.
The Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) is a database that will provide complete tracking of a sample from the time it is received at the laboratory until the results are completed. LIMS will maintain sample tracking that is required under ISO Standard 17025 accreditation.
The program has been under development since 1995 and, when completed, it will be implemented in all FSIS laboratories. Data will be entered into LIMS by lab technicians or captured directly from laboratory instruments.
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For More Information
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For Further Information Contact:
FSIS Congressional and Public Affairs Staff
Phone: (202) 720-3897
Fax: (202) 720-5704