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ISO 17025 Accreditation of U.S. National Guard Weapons of Mass Destruction—Civil Support Team Mobile Laboratories
Poster Presentation
Prepared by M. Isbell
Signature Science, LLC, 8329 N. Mopac Expressway, Austin, Texas, 78759
Contact Information: misbell@signaturescience.com; 512-533-2020
ABSTRACT
In the United States, responsibility for managing the consequences of the release of a Weapon of Mass Destruction (WMD) involving chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or high-yield explosive (CBRNE) falls to the civil emergency management structure. In 1999, the U.S. Congress established dedicated response teams within the National Guard to aid civil authorities in the event of a domestic terrorist event involving WMD. Currently, there are 57 full-time National Guard WMD-Civil Support Team (WMD-CST) units, with one in every state and U.S. Territory (and two in New York, California, and Florida). These quick-response units are designed and trained to support the response to a CBRNE event by identifying agents and other substances, advising on response measures, and assisting with requests for additional military support.
Each WMD-CST unit consists of 22 highly-trained, full-time National Guardsmen operating under federally approved CBRNE response doctrine. In addition to other specialized response capabilities, each team has a fully autonomous mobile analytical laboratory designed for field identification of chemical and biological agents, as well as toxic industrial chemicals/toxic industrial materials (TICs/TIMs) and radionuclides.
In an effort to standardize analytical practices and procedures across the CST community and bolster the technical credibility and defensibility of analytical data generated by the CST laboratories, the National Guard began an initiative in 2007 to achieve ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation for all of the CST mobile laboratories. To support this effort, Signature Science developed and assisted with the implementation of an over-arching quality management system to meet the requirements of the ISO 17025 standard in the context of the CSTs’ unique mission and capabilities. Today, 24 of the 57 teams, plus the National Guard Bureau CST Program Office have achieved ISO 17025 accreditation.
This poster provides information about the unique approach and challenges associated with this accreditation effort. For example, development of the quality program required addressing the complexity of a joint state and federal military command structure along with uniquely military procurement, training, and methods development efforts. In addition, the quality management system needed to take into account the CST mission of qualitative identification of threat agents for purposes of response action, as opposed to a more traditional environmental paradigm of quantitative analysis in support of regulatory decision making. The system that has been developed and implemented meets ISO/IEC 17025 requirements as well as the needs of the CST mission, where quantitation is of little importance, while false positive and false negative errors potentially have life and death consequences. Finally, a comprehensive proficiency testing program has been established that fully covers a wide range of analytical methods involving identification of biological pathogens, select toxins, chemical warfare agent-related chemicals, TICs/TIMs, and explosives, in environmental matrices, on various collection media, and in samples of powders, liquids, soils, sludges, and vegetation, and for microscopical characterization of unknown samples.
(Related Session: Laboratory Accreditation)
Poster Presentation
Prepared by M. Isbell
Signature Science, LLC, 8329 N. Mopac Expressway, Austin, Texas, 78759
Contact Information: misbell@signaturescience.com; 512-533-2020
ABSTRACT
In the United States, responsibility for managing the consequences of the release of a Weapon of Mass Destruction (WMD) involving chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or high-yield explosive (CBRNE) falls to the civil emergency management structure. In 1999, the U.S. Congress established dedicated response teams within the National Guard to aid civil authorities in the event of a domestic terrorist event involving WMD. Currently, there are 57 full-time National Guard WMD-Civil Support Team (WMD-CST) units, with one in every state and U.S. Territory (and two in New York, California, and Florida). These quick-response units are designed and trained to support the response to a CBRNE event by identifying agents and other substances, advising on response measures, and assisting with requests for additional military support.
Each WMD-CST unit consists of 22 highly-trained, full-time National Guardsmen operating under federally approved CBRNE response doctrine. In addition to other specialized response capabilities, each team has a fully autonomous mobile analytical laboratory designed for field identification of chemical and biological agents, as well as toxic industrial chemicals/toxic industrial materials (TICs/TIMs) and radionuclides.
In an effort to standardize analytical practices and procedures across the CST community and bolster the technical credibility and defensibility of analytical data generated by the CST laboratories, the National Guard began an initiative in 2007 to achieve ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation for all of the CST mobile laboratories. To support this effort, Signature Science developed and assisted with the implementation of an over-arching quality management system to meet the requirements of the ISO 17025 standard in the context of the CSTs’ unique mission and capabilities. Today, 24 of the 57 teams, plus the National Guard Bureau CST Program Office have achieved ISO 17025 accreditation.
This poster provides information about the unique approach and challenges associated with this accreditation effort. For example, development of the quality program required addressing the complexity of a joint state and federal military command structure along with uniquely military procurement, training, and methods development efforts. In addition, the quality management system needed to take into account the CST mission of qualitative identification of threat agents for purposes of response action, as opposed to a more traditional environmental paradigm of quantitative analysis in support of regulatory decision making. The system that has been developed and implemented meets ISO/IEC 17025 requirements as well as the needs of the CST mission, where quantitation is of little importance, while false positive and false negative errors potentially have life and death consequences. Finally, a comprehensive proficiency testing program has been established that fully covers a wide range of analytical methods involving identification of biological pathogens, select toxins, chemical warfare agent-related chemicals, TICs/TIMs, and explosives, in environmental matrices, on various collection media, and in samples of powders, liquids, soils, sludges, and vegetation, and for microscopical characterization of unknown samples.
(Related Session: Laboratory Accreditation)