New blank materials CHARACTERIZED for Veterinary Drug Residues!

Starting this year, given the increasing number of requests, Test Veritas decided to implement a dedicated line of blank materials for Veterinary Drug Residues to be made available to testing laboratories.

During 2024 we introduced for the first time alongside some PTs the availability of blank materials, specifically in the two PTs for the detection of nitrofuran metabolites (in swine gut and honey). For these PTs, “pre-spiking” blank samples were made available upon request, consisting of the same matrix as the PT before the contaminants were added (as with the blank samples from the Trieste Project – Pesticide Residues line ).

For 2025, however, we want to take this a step further by giving the possibility to purchase Control Materials blank, from different bulk than the Test Materials provided in PTs, but characterized as such for a conspicuous list of analyte families. This gives the laboratory the opportunity to use these Control Materials both within a PT but also for other purposes.

They will be products that can be purchased online, see the online order form by registering in our “PTS Member Area” for all the details! They will not all be available for prompt delivery as early as early 2025, but we recommend ordering now as they will be subject to stock-out.

Laboratories that prefer instead to continue using their own blank samples (also used in routine analysis) will not be obliged to use the blank samples made available by Test Veritas while participating in PTs.

These are materials that we make available for all those who find it difficult to buy blank samples; our advice remains to use during participation in PTs the same blank samples used during routine analyses, so that the analytical method can be evaluated in full. This is all because we believe that if a laboratory uses a blank material in routine analysis, the choice of blank material itself is part of the analytical method and consequently should be subject to evaluation during proficiency testing.

This is the beginning of a new approach that was also made possible by the many responses we received to our survey “Use of Blank Samples in Routine and PT”, which helped us to understand how difficult it can sometimes be for a laboratory to source blank samples, especially for particular matrices. We invite you to view the results of this survey, posted in the news section of our website, as we believe they can be valuable food for thought.