Approved methods undergo rigorous, systematic scientific scrutiny to ensure they are highly credible and defensible—and can be used with confidence by industry, regulatory agencies, research organizations, testing laboratories, and academic institutions.
The U.S. Code of Federal Regulations recognizes OMA methods, and they are legally defensible in court worldwide.
The program evaluates:
AOAC periodically issues Calls for Methods. Methods developers may also submit sole source/individual methods for methods not associated with an open Call for Methods. The AOAC OMA Program also reviews candidate methods previously certified through the Performance Tested MethodsSM (PTM) program.
The program includes two levels of evaluation:
Convening experts first evaluate First Action Official MethodsSM to develop voluntary consensus standards. The methods are then subject to collective expert judgment of methods using the adopted standards. Expert Review Panels review all AOAC Official MethodsSM for First Action AOAC Official Methods of AnalysisSM status, continuance, repeal, and/or to recommend for AOAC Final Action Official Methods status.
Methods must be shown to be reproducible before they are considered for Final Action, meaning that they perform consistently despite deviations in personnel, equipment, location and laboratory set up.
The Official Methods Board approves Final Action Official Methods following the Expert Review Panel review and approval.
AOAC publishes approved methods in the Official Methods of Analysis and supporting method manuscripts in the Journal of AOAC INTERNATIONAL.
