IRAC Annual Plan (FY2009)

The IRAC, which consists of federal agencies with food safety responsibilities and/or interest, was formed in response to the 1997 Food Safety Initiative (FSI). Currently membership includes 19 Federal agencies or sub-agencies. Each agency is represented by a technical and a policy council representative. The IRAC serves as an interagency collaborative network and accomplishes much of its goals through work groups. These work groups have goals and deliverables realized in forms of workshops and meetings. The IRAC has expanded its range of issues addressed from microbial risk assessment in food, to chemical risk assessment, including water and the environment, and to ideas related to nutrients, nanotechnology, susceptible subpopulations, genomics and proteomics.

The Interagency Risk Assessment Consortium (IRAC) will continue holding technical quarterly meetings, where the technical representatives of the member agencies exchange risk assessment and risk assessment-related research information. The semi annual Policy Council meetings will also continue.

1. Quarterly Meeting Presentations
   1. Continue presentations by agency representatives on current risk assessments and issues related to risk assessment.
   2. Invited presentations by other organizations, e.g., ILSI, academia, industry, consumer groups.
      
      
      
2. Work Group Projects

   The IRAC accomplishes much of its work through work groups formed to address specific topics or issues. It encourages work groups to have a definite beginning and endpoint and that if needed additional work is identified that the technical representative should submit a proposal for a new workgroup. The work group activities planned for FY09 are listed below.
   
   
   
   New Work Groups

• Nanotechnology Risk Assessment.
  
  A work group will be formed to meet and brainstorm on challenges and opportunities for the conduct and employment of Risk Assessment in the food safety nanotechnology area, ultimately develop a manuscript, ideally including a case study.
• Susceptible Populations.
  
  The objective of the work group would be to identify the current state of knowledge, available data sources, and the most important data gaps. The work group will focus on immuno-capability and dose response effect on risk assessment.
• Sampling Plans.
  
  The current data utility work group will no longer exist; a new work group will be formed to focus on sampling plans.
  
3. Workshops/Meetings/Mini symposia
   • Host or co-host at least two public meetings
     • The IRAC will co-sponsor the JIFSAN workshop on "Dietary Exposure Assessment Tools for Prioritizing Food Safety Concern" in November 18-19, 2008. This workshop is by invitation only.
     • Possibly co-host with SRA Biological Stressors specialty group: title to be determined.
     • Possibly co-host with IOM on a workshop to include characterizing the relative population susceptibilities: title to be determined.
     • Possibly host/co-host a symposium/workshop on the role of risk assessment in evaluating nanoparticle safety in food ingredients.
     • Possibly co-host a workshop with ILSI on Global thresholds.