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WASHINGTON – Representatives Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Frank Pallone (D-NJ) and Tim Murphy (R-PA) have introduced legislation that confronts public health threats by investing in the public health veterinary workforce. The Veterinary Public Health Education and Workforce Act (H.R. 2999)creates new programs for training veterinarians and offers additional federal support for them to protect public health.
A February 2009 report to Congress by the Government Accounting Office (GAO) reveals a worsening shortage of large-animal veterinarians that the American Veterinary Medical Association calls a “threat to national security.”
“Veterinarians are our frontline of defense against potentially deadly disease outbreaks,” said Congresswoman Baldwin. “Diseases spread from animals to humans in several ways. As the H1N1 pandemic is proving now, disease outbreaks can grow rapidly and unpredictably. We need enough public health veterinarians to help keep our food supply and our families safe,” Baldwin said.
"This legislation expands our pool of public health veterinarians, increasing our ability to fight animal-born diseases and keep our food supply safe," Pallone said. "With the recent outbreak of the H1N1 flu and other pandemic illnesses, it is imperative that we take all necessary steps to protect the public health. We are inseparably linked from the foods we eat to the diseases we must fight and veterinarians are our first line of defense against those diseases."
“The importance of food safety and public health cannot be overstated. Food-related illnesses and animal-borne disease can quickly become a national epidemic, as we have tragically discovered in recent months. Nationally we must invest in domestic surveillance to protect public health, and our veterinarians are an important component in detecting and preventing the spread of disease,” said Congressman Murphy.
“Veterinarians play a critical role in preserving our country's public health by protecting humans from diseases spread by animals and assuring the safety of our food supply. As the number of veterinarians available to serve in these key roles does not meet demand, this bill is essential to reversing this shortage and providing the support veterinary programs around the nation need,” Murphy said.
For more than 100 years, veterinarians have been responsible for some of the most significant advances in public health, including the near eradication of diseases such as Tuberculosis and Brucellosis in domestic animals. In recent years, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), Monkeypox, West Nile Virus, Lyme disease, Avian Flu, and Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (Mad Cow Disease) have had a significant impact on public health, and veterinarians have played a vital role in the identification, diagnosis, control, and surveillance of all of these diseases.
In recent years, we have seen numerous outbreaks of animal-borne diseases, such as Bovine Tuberculosis (a bacterial disease that spreads from deer to cattle) in Michigan; Newcastle Disease (a highly infectious virus that spread rapidly throughout poultry) in California; and Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) (a transmissible neurological disease of deer and elk) in Wisconsin and the West, to name just a few.
“Representatives Baldwin, Pallone and Murphy have shown great vision and understanding of the role that veterinary medicine plays in protecting and promoting the health of our nation, and the crisis that is at hand by a critical shortage in our national veterinary workforce,” said Marguerite Pappaioanou, DVM, MPVM, PhD, DACVPM, Executive Director, Association of American Veterinary Medical Colleges. “Passing this legislation is critical to meeting the needs of the nation,” Pappaioanou said.
W. Ron DeHaven, DVM, MBA, Chief Executive Officer, American Veterinary Medical Association said, “This legislation highlights the critical role veterinarians in public and private practice have in promoting public health and it recognizes the need for federal investment in bolstering the veterinary workforce which is on the front lines of public health, food protection and animal health. Representatives Baldwin, Pallone, and Murphy fully understand that the country needs to move quickly if we are going to be able to provide Americans a safe, healthy and secure food supply, and protect them from disease outbreaks and pandemics.”
The Veterinary Public Health Education and Workforce Act offers a competitive grant program to schools of veterinary medicine, allowing them to use the funds for faculty recruitment, physical expansion, or curriculum development. It also creates a new fellowship program within the Department of Health and Human Services, and allows fellows to be placed throughout the network of federal agencies that employ veterinarians. Finally, the legislation creates a new Division of Veterinary Medicine and Public Health at the Health Resources and Services Administration, ensuring that this workforce receives the federal attention it deserves.
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