Focus new drugs. The 1958 Delaney Amend ment, which prohibited the use of ad ditives found to induce cancer in hu mans or experimental animals, later became a source of controversy as ana lytical techniques capable of finding trace components at incredibly low detection limits were refined in the 1970s and 1980s. Regulatory develop ments such as these have posed con tinuing challenges to AOAC over the years. AOAC's present scope involves a broad mandate to develop and vali date analytical methods for foods, drugs, cosmetics, pesticides, feeds, fer tilizers, hazardous substances, and other products and materials that af fect public health and safety, consum er protection, or environmental qual ity. The expanded scope of the organization's concerns was reflected in its 1965 name change from the As sociation of Official Agricultural Chemists (the original name) to the Association of Official Analytical Chemists. The origins of AOAC's methods de velopment and validation process can be traced back to the 1884 Atlanta meeting, where one speaker cautioned attendees "to agree upon no method of analysis before thoroughly testing it by repeated actual investigations on the part of all official laboratories, and to refrain from adopting it until con cordant results are secured from all participants." Today, the methods de velopment and validation process in volves collaborative testing by a vari ety of laboratories, scrutiny by an associate referee and a general ref eree, statistical data analysis, over sight by one of seven methods com mittees, and adoption by AOAC mem bers (Figure 1). The end products of this process are AOAC's official meth ods, which are published in the Jour nal of the AOAC and in "Official Methods of Analysis of the AOAC," a compendium volume that is updated every five years. The 14th edition of "Official Methods" will, like the Helrich book, be published this year in conjunction with AOAC's centennial celebration. By the 1970s, AOAC was funded primarily through sales of "Official Methods" and through support of gov ernment agencies such as USDA and FDA, which included donations of government personnel time and office space. In fact, the relationship be tween AOAC and FDA was so close that in 1970 almost half of AOAC's as sociate refereeships were held by FDA personnel. This AOAC-government relationship came under intense scru tiny in the early 1970s, precipitating a major crisis in AOAC history that was
successfully resolved on April 28, 1979, when a truly self-supporting, in dependent AOAC moved out of a Washington, D.C., FDA building and into new offices in Arlington, Va. To day AOAC's support base includes a significant amount of financial partici pation by private industry. Many public institutions depend on AOAC methods for regulatory compli ance and quality control, including FDA, USDA, the Environmental Pro tection Agency, Health and Welfare Canada, Agriculture Canada, many state and local agencies, and regula tory agencies in a number of Euro pean, Asian, African, and Latin American countries. Private and in dustrial laboratories use AOAC offi cial methods to monitor purchased commodities for compliance with pro curement "specs" and to ensure that their own products comply with regu lations. AOAC official methods are routinely accepted by parties to regu latory compliance actions and in courts of law. AOAC also maintains close cooper ative relationships with many associ ations and standards-making organi zations, including ACS, the Analytical Division of the (U.K.) Chemical Soci ety, the Collaborative International Pesticides Analytical Council, the In ternational Standards Organization, the American National Standards In stitute, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, and United Nations agencies such as the World Health Organization. AOAC plans to expand extramural coopera tion, a process exemplified by AOAC cosponsorship of the Harmonization Conference, at which scientists from many organizations worldwide will meet to cooperatively develop interna tionally recognized protocols for the design and conduct of collaborative studies. This year AOAC looks back on a century of accomplishments and for ward to a new century of progress. Ac cording to AOAC executive director David B. MacLean, "Our first priority will be to strengthen and expand our present volunteer system of methods validation to include new areas such as biological tests, immunological as says, and environmental analysis. In addition, we will seek to improve labo ratory and analyst performance through training programs, special publications, and quality assurance activities. "We have every confidence," adds MacLean, "that AOAC will meet the challenges of its next century with the same commitment to analytical excel lence that has brought us to this cen tennial year."
only Vd known about Scott!"
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Early worker in gas diffusion, Thomas Graham gave us our first glimpse of adsorption and surface phen omena. How he would have loved to get his hands on parts per billion gas mixtures produced by the new Micrograv™ process! The new Micrograv technique developed by Scott permits direct gravimetric preparation of singleand multiple-component gaseous mixtures containing volatile and semi-volatile compounds in defined concentrations down to 10 ppb. Micrograv cylinders are specially treated to insure low background and to minimize adsorption and desorption of trace constituents from wall and valve materials. Take a look at what you can get: cone range (ppb)
blend specs
analytical uncertainty*
500-900 100-499 10-99
± 2% ± 5% ±10%
± 2% ± 5% ±10%
may vary with component
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CIRCLE 199 ON READER SERVICE CARD
ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY, VOL. 56, NO. 11, SEPTEMBER 1984 • 1155 A
