1. Protecting and Promoting Your Health How this work supports FDA’s mission: TO PROMOTE HUMAN and ANIMAL HEALTH by collaborating with veterinary diagnostic laboratories in order to - provide scientific information - build laboratory capacity - train scientists TO INVESTIGATE POTENTIAL PROBLEMS with CVM regulated products - animal foods and animal drugs Vet-LRN MISSION Current Membership – 30 Vet-LRN Laboratories as of July 20 th, 2012. Map depicts geographic location of Vet-LRN laboratories based on FERN* Regions. Southeast Region Pacific Region Southwest Region Central Region Northeast Region Vet-LRN Laboratories – 1 st Tier Pending Vet-LRN Laboratories Vet-LRN Laboratories – 2 nd Tier *Food Emergency Response Network Guelph CVM’s Veterinary Laboratory Response Network Renate Reimschuessela, Sarah M. Nemsera, Andriy Tkachenkoa, Olgica Cerica, April Y. Hodgesb aUnited States Food and Drug Administration, Center for Veterinary Medicine, Office of Research, 8401 Muirkirk Rd, Laurel, MD 20708 USA bUnited States Food and Drug Administration, Center for Veterinary Medicine, Office of Surveillance and Compliance, 7519 Standish Place, Rockville, MD 20708 USA Diagnostic Response The Veterinary Laboratory Response Network (Vet-LRN) coordinates with the FDA CVM Imports Complaint Emergency Recall Team (ICERT) to evaluate potential adverse event cases involving CVM regulated products. In turn, Vet-LRN coordinates the resources and expertise of various veterinary diagnostic laboratories to further investigate select cases through diagnostic testing and analysis. To date Vet-LRN has worked on a total of 40 adverse events including : Chicken Jerky Treats Salmonella Infantis in Dog Food Guinea Pig Food Vet-LRN Meeting March 2011 – The first Vet-LRN organizing meeting was held to: Share CVM’s vision for the network Meet with representatives Invite input and collaboration Proficiency Testing Collaborating with the National Center for Food Safety and Technology Moffett Center, Vet-LRN offered 3 Proficency tests for FY12 Salmonella in dog fecal samples (2 PTs) Detection of Cooper in ruminant liver Cooperative Agreement Program: Evaluation of Salmonella in Symptomatic and Asymptomatic Pets Eleven Vet-LRN cooperative agreement laboratories are evaluating Salmonella prevalence in the cat and dog pet population across the country. Goals for the study include: Harmonize and validate methods Establish future surveillance needs Identify a baseline for comparative analysis ICLN Membership Vet-LRN recently became of member of the Integrated Consortium of Laboratory Networks (ICLN). This membership will help increase connectivity and collaboration with other laboratory networks accountable for providing timely, credible, and interpretable data in support of surveillance, early detection and consequence management of events requiring an integrated national laboratory response. How this work supports FDA’s mission: Contributes to overall food and drug safety as animal food and drug events may signal potential issues in the human food and drug system. Supports research to maintain animal food and drug safety by testing prevalence of salmonella in pets and seeking the rout cause of pet treat associated illness. Facilitates collaborations with other stakeholders and timely exchange of information that can be crucial for identifying a problem with FDA regulated products. This project was supported in part by an appointment to the Research Participation Program at the Center for Veterinary Medicine administered by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education through an interagency agreement between the U.S.DOE and the U.S.FDA.