Islamic Food and Nutrition Council of America

The Islamic Food and Nutrition Council of America (IFANCA) is a non-profit Islamic organization dedicated to promote halal food and the institution of halal.

IFANCA is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, in the USA, and maintains offices on the West Coast, USA, Toronto, Canada and Brussels, Belgium.

IFANCA certifies halal food production in over 20 countries around the globe.

IFANCA-certified halal products are sold in nearly every country of the world.

IFANCA certifies halal products in all food industries.

IFANCA provides halal certification and supervision services for meat & poultry slaughter.

IFANCA certifies halal cosmetics, packaging materials and chemicals. IFANCA has been recognized and endorsed by the following religious and governmental organizations:

• Appointed by the Malaysian Government to certify foods from North America, Europe, and Asia. IFANCA is the only organization from the USA to receive this honor.
• Islamic Committee Office of Thailand.
• Majelis Ulama Indonesia (M.U.I.).
• Majlis Ugama Islam Singapura (M.U.I.S.).
• Muslim World League, Saudi Arabia.
• Philippine Hallal Association.
• USDA International Programs.
• Accepted by all Muslim countries and halal importing regions as a reputable halal-certifying agency.
  

NSF International

NSF International, formerly National Sanitation Foundation, is a not-for-profit, non-governmental organization that develops standards and provides product certification and education in the field of public health and safety.

Serving manufacturers operating in 80 countries, NSF was founded in 1944 and has its headquarters in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Application and products

NSF International, often referred to as simply NSF, certifies materials and products for a multitude of applications. One important field of NSF's interest are materials and products that come into contact with drinking water systems components.

NSF Standards are generally accepted standards for a variety of public health related industries and subject areas. These include drinking water treatment and contact materials, food equipment manufacturing and composition, plumbing, refuse containers, and dishwashing equipment. More details can be found at http://www.nsf.org/business/about_NSF/

Standard Development

NSF Standards are developed, maintained, and revised by the committee ballot system, similar to that used by ANSI and ASTM. The committees consist of equal numbers of representatives of groups affected by the scope of the standard. For instance, for Standard 61, Drinking Water Systems Components - Health Effects, the committee is made of manufacturers of plumbing parts, material manufacturers (plastics, metals, etc), toxicologists, state regulatory officials, and the like. Any changes related to testing requirements are vetted through lab testing, and balloting ensures majority rule. sa

Facilities

NSF headquarters in Ann Arbor, Michigan, contains both administrative staff and significant technical labs. All testing for NSF standard compliance is conducted in-house. Lab capabilities include Trace Metals, Microbial, and Organic analysis. For plastics material, NSF has internal capability to injection mould plaques and IZOD bars for testing.

History

NSF International was founded as the National Sanitation Foundation in 1944, as a project of the University of Michigan's School of Public Health.

National Pharmaceutical Control Bureau (NPCB)

The National Pharmaceutical Control Bureau (NPCB) Malaysia, formerly known as the National Pharmaceutical Control Laboratory, was set up in October 1978 under the quality control activity of Pharmacy and Supply Programme. This institution was established to implement quality control on pharmaceutical products. The infrastructure and facilities were designed to meet the requirements for testing and quality control activities.

Beginning 1985, NPCB was given the task of ensuring the quality, efficacy and safety of pharmaceuticals through the registration and licensing scheme. This is achieved through evaluation of scientific data and laboratory tests on all products before they are marketed. A system to monitor products in the market was set-up. Information on drugs to medical profession and consumer was made available through a drug information service.

The NPCB also handles courses and provides training to personnel from the ASEAN countries, for example from Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Mongolia and Vietnam.

In 1996, NPCB was given an international recognition by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as a "WHO Collaborating Centre for Regulatory Control of Pharmaceuticals". This recognition is an acknowledgement from WHO for NPCB's contribution in the field of regulatory affairs.

The main activities of NPCB are:

1. To implement the drug and cosmetic registration scheme through evaluation of technical data, laboratory test, research and information from international bodies.
   To carry out analytical, pharmaceutical, microbiological, pharmacological and toxicological tests on drugs and cosmetic to ensure quality, efficacy and safety of the products.
   To enforce a quality control scheme on drugs in the market through random sampling and test.
2. To enforce a licensing scheme for manufacturer, importer, wholesaler including licensing scheme for clinical trial.
   To encourage and assist local manufacturer to upgrade the manufacturing standards to levels equivalent to the requirements of Good Manufacturing Practice as recommended by WHO.
3. To manage adverse drug reaction monitoring programme and participate in the WHO Adverse Drug Reaction Monitoring Programme.
   To manage the product recall scheme for the pharmaceutical products which are found to be substandard or dangerous to the consumer.
   To manage the collection and dissemination of drug information in line with the role as a national drug information centre.
4. To carry out research on methodology for the purpose of evaluating quality, efficacy and safety of drug and cosmetic.
5. To establish a reference standard system for local use and neighbouring countries through a scheme of co-operation among ASEAN countries.
6. To carry out training for pharmacist, professional and semi professional who are placed in this institution from time to time under local training scheme or international co-operation scheme.

The FDA is an agency within the United States Department of Health and Human Services responsible for protecting and promoting the nation's public health. The FDA is headquartered in Rockville, MD with 223 field offices[2] supported by 13 laboratories located throughout the United States, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico. In recent years the agency began undertaking a large-scale effort to consolidate its DC-metro area operations from its main headquarters in Rockville and several fragmented office buildings in the vicinity to the former site of the Naval Ordnance Laboratory in the White Oak area of Silver Spring, MD. The first building, a Life Sciences Laboratory, was dedicated and opened with 104 employees on the campus in December 2003. The project is slated to be completed by 2013.

The agency is organized into the following major subdivisions, each focused on a major area of regulatory responsibility:

1. The Office of the Commissioner (OC)
2. The Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER)
3. The Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER)
4. The Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN)
5. The Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH)
6. The Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM)
7. The National Center for Toxicological Research (NCTR)
8. The Office of Regulatory Affairs (ORA)
9. The Office of Criminal Investigations (OCI)
   

While all of the Centers are located around the Washington, D.C., area as part of the Headquarters divisions, ORA and OCI are primarily field offices, with their workforce spread across the country. ORA is considered the "eyes and ears" of the agency, conducting the vast majority of the field work the Agency. Consumer Safety Officers, more commonly called Investigators, are the individuals who inspect production and warehousing facilities, investigate complaints, illnesses, or outbreaks, and review documentation in the case of medical devices, drugs, biological products, and other items where it may be difficult to conduct a physical examination or take a physical sample of the product. The Office of Regulatory Affairs is divided into five regions, which are further divided into 13 districts. Districts are based roughly on the geographic divisions of the Judicial System. Each district comprises a main district office, and a number of Resident Posts, which are FDA offices located away from the district office to serve a particular geographic area. ORA also includes the Agency's network of laboratories, which analyze any physical samples taken. Though samples are usually food-related, some laboratories are equipped to analyze drugs, cosmetics, and radiation-emitting devices.

OCI was established in 2002 to help relieve ORA of the burden of pursuing and proving criminal cases. Unlike ORA Investigators, OCI Special Agents are armed, and are not focused on the technical aspects of whether a regulated product meets the standards under the law. Rather, OCI agents pursue and develop cases where criminal actions have occurred, such as fraudulent claims, or knowingly and willfully shipping known adulterated goods in interstate commerce. In many cases, OCI will pursue cases where Title 18 (18 USC XXXX) violations have occurred (e.g. conspiracy, false statements, wire fraud, mail fraud), in addition to prohibited acts as defined in Chapter III of the FD&C Act (21 USC XXX). OCI Special Agents often come from other criminal investigations backgrounds, and work closely with the FBI, US Assistant Attorney Generals, and even Interpol. OCI will receive cases from a variety of sources, including ORA, local agencies, and the FBI, and will work with ORA investigators to help develop the technical and science-based aspects of a case. OCI is a much smaller branch, comprising of about 200 agents nationwide.

The FDA frequently works in conjunction with other Federal agencies including the Department of Agriculture, Drug Enforcement Administration, Customs and Border Protection, and Consumer Product Safety Commission. Often local and state government agencies also work in cooperation with the FDA to provide regulatory inspections and enforcement action.

'World Health Organization'(WHO)

World Health Organization: An agency of the United Nations established in 1948 to further international cooperation in improving health conditions. Although the World Health Organization inherited specific tasks relating to epidemic control, quarantine measures, and drug standardization from the Health Organization of the League of Nations (that was set up in 1923) and from the International Office of Public Health at Paris (established in 1909), the World Health Organization was given a broad mandate under its constitution to promote the attainment of "the highest possible level of health" by all people. WHO defines health positively as "a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity."

The World Health Organization is abbreviated and commonly referred to as WHO. (In French, another official language at the UN, it is OMS which stands for Organisation Mondiale de la Sante.)

WHO has administrative headquarters in Geneva. It operates through three principal organs: the World Health Assembly, which meets annually as the general policy-making body; an Executive Board of health specialists elected for three-year terms by the assembly; and a Secretariat, which has regional offices and field staff throughout the world. The organization is financed primarily from annual contributions made by member governments on the basis of relative ability to pay. In addition, after 1951, WHO was allocated substantial resources from the expanded technical-assistance program of the UN.

The work of WHO may be divided into three categories:

1. Health Information: WHO provides a central clearinghouse and research 3services. It established a codified set of international sanitary regulations, for example, designed to standardize quarantine measures without interfering unnecessarily with trade and air travel across national boundaries. The central WHO Secretariat also keeps member countries informed of the latest developments in the use of vaccines, cancer research, nutritional discoveries, control of drug addiction, and health hazards of nuclear radiation.


2. Disease Control: WHO sponsors measures for the control of epidemic and endemic disease by promoting mass campaigns involving nationwide vaccination programs, instruction in the use of antibiotics and insecticides, the improvement of laboratory and clinical facilities for early diagnosis and prevention, assistance in providing pure-water supplies and sanitation systems, and health education for people living in rural communities. These campaigns have had some success against tuberculosis, malaria, and venereal disease. There has also been considerable progress against cholera, trachoma, yellow fever, and yaws. In May 1980 smallpox was globally eradicated, a feat due largely to the efforts of WHO.


3. Consultation and Education: WHO encourages efforts to strengthen and expand the public health administrations of member nations. The organization, on request, provides technical advice to governments in the preparation of long-term national health plans, sends out international teams of experts to conduct field surveys and demonstration projects, helps set up local health centres, and offers aid in the development of national training institutions for medical and nursing personnel. It also makes teachers available for on-the-spot training, and it grants traveling-fellowship awards to doctors, public-health administrators, nurses, sanitary inspectors, and laboratory technicians.
   

In 2003 WHO came under the searchlight of the global media with its role in coordinating the international efforts designed to deal with the epidemic of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). In this context it was again clear that WHO is indispensable to health on this earth.