Following two years of dedicated work to achieve the standards put forth by the Racing Medication and Testing Consortium (RMTC), the Texas A&M Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory (TMVDL) Drug Testing Laboratory has received full accreditation.

The TVMDL Drug Testing Lab is the seventh to receive full accreditation by the RMTC.

Travis Mays, analytical chemistry section head and head of the Drug Testing Laboratory, explained that to achieve RMTC accreditation, the lab must first have ISO 17025 accreditation. The lab (https://thehorse.com/articles/34764/tvmdl-drug-testing-lab-receives-certification) received ISO 17025 accreditation from the American Association of Laboratory Accreditation (A2LA) Competition Animal Drug Testing Laboratory Accreditation Program in 2014.

"Both ISO 17025 and RMTC accreditation require site inspections by an external auditor,” Mays said. “Additionally, before being awarded RMTC accreditation a lab must successfully pass two rounds of an external proficiency-testing program. This includes correctly identifying unknown urine and plasma samples, one of which requires quantification