lab accreditation Archives

At the end of his reflection on FDA’s 2021 accomplishments in the food realm, Deputy Commissioner for Food Policy and Response Frank Yiannas stated that he believes collaboration will enable industry to “bend the curve of foodborne illnesses in this decade”. It would be a significant milestone, and in his latest FDA Voices blog, Yiannas reviewed a host of FDA achievements that bring his statement much closer to a reality:

Move to change agricultural water requirements in the FSMA Produce Safety Rule
Issuance of FSMA final lab accreditation rule
Release of Foodborne Outbreak Response Improvement Plan in an effort to expedite investigations
Report on agency investigation into the Fall 2020 E. coli O157:H7 outbreak involving leafy greens
Traceability challenge launched in an effort to provide scalable and cost-effective technologies for food operations, regardless of size. Twelve winners were selected
Coordinated effort with state partners via a domestic mutual alliance agreement with California, Florida, Utah and to reduce human foodborne illness outbreaks
Three-day summit held to discuss the safety of foods ordered online and directly delivered to customers
Establishing a “Closer to Zero” action plan to reduce the presence of dangerous, toxic metals in common foods consumed by babies and young children

FDA Acting Commissioner Janet Woodcock gives of full report on the agency’s work in the “FDA 2021 Year in Review: Working For You”.

Compare this year’s review with that of 2020, where Yiannas reflected on the agency’s Food Program achievements during the first year of the pandemic and the 10-year anniversary of FSMA.

At long last FDA has issued its final rule for Laboratory Accreditation for Analyses of Foods (LAAF). The FSMA rule establishes a lab accreditation program for testing food in certain situations and applies only to accredited bodies and food testing labs that opt to participate in the program; these ABs and labs must fulfill certain eligibility requirements.

“The establishment of the LAAF program will improve the FDA’s capacity to protect U.S. consumers from unsafe food by improving the accuracy and reliability of certain food testing through the uniformity of standards and enhanced oversight of participating laboratories,” CFSAN states in a news release.

According to CFSAN, the LAAF will apply to testing that is:

“to support removal of a food from an import alert through successful consecutive testing requirements;
to support admission of an imported food detained at the border because it is or appears to be in violation of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act;
required by existing FDA food safety regulations, when applied to address an identified or suspected food safety problem (i.e., certain tests of shell eggs, sprouts, and bottled drinking water);
required by a directed food laboratory order, a new procedure being implemented in this final rule that will allow the FDA to require use of a LAAF-accredited laboratory to address an identified or suspected food safety problem in certain, rare circumstances; and
conducted in connection with certain administrative processes such as testing submitted in connection with an appeal of an administrative detention order.”

The final rule will be published on the Federal Register on December 3.

Tag Archives: lab accreditation

Highlights of FDA’s 2021 Achievements in Food

FDA Publishes Long-Awaited Final Rule on Lab Accreditation

How We Use Cookies