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Congressional Action Requested Passage of a new five-year Farm Bill that includes extensions of currently authorized programs of import to veterinary medical education and the veterinary profession, namely the Animal Health and Disease Research/1433 Formula Funds; Centers of Excellence, Food Animal Residue Avoidance Databank (FARAD), and the Competitive, Special and Facilities Research Grant Act, as well as new authority for a competitive veterinary services grant program to develop, implement, and sustain veterinary services (Veterinary Services Investment Act, S. 1053 in the 112th Congress).

Support for tax exemption for awards made under the Veterinary Medicine Loan Repayment Program (VMLRP) (S. 518 in the 112th Congress).

Passage of appropriations legislation that maintains or increases funding for the VMLRP, Animal Health and Disease Research/1433 Formula Funds, Agriculture and Food Research Initiative, FARAD, the National Animal Health Laboratory Network as well as for the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Description The Senate-passed Farm Bill (S. 3240) and the Farm Bill reported out of the House Agriculture Committee (H.R. 6083) in the 112th Congress both contained provisions important to veterinary medicine. A key section established a competitive veterinary services grant program to develop, implement, and sustain veterinary services ( (S. 3240, Sect. 7103 and H.R. 6083, Sec. 7104). Authorized at $10 million annually, this section would amend the National Agricultural Research, Extension and Teaching Policy Act of 1977 to direct the Secretary of Agriculture (USDA) to carry out a program with qualified entities to develop, implement and sustain veterinary services in the states. Grant would allow recipients to: a) establish or expand veterinary practices or establish mobile veterinary facilities, b) recruit veterinarians, technicians, and students, c) attend training programs in food safety or food animal medicine, d) establish or expand accredited education, internship, residency and fellowship programs, e) assess veterinarian shortage situations, and f) support continuing education and extension, including tele-veterinary medicine and other distance-based education. The Veterinary Medicine Loan Repayment Program (VMLRP) Enhancement Act would amend the Internal Revenue Code to make VMLRP awards exempt from gross income and employment taxes. Awards are currently taxed at 39% although those taxes are paid by USDA directly to the treasury on behalf of the award recipient. Tax exemption for VMLRP awards would result in one additional veterinarian for every three based on current appropriations.

The federal government is currently operating under a continuing resolution, or CR. Aspirations for the appropriations for Fiscal Year 2014 should be to maintain current funding levels for such critical programs as the Animal Health and Disease Research/1433 Formula Funds, Veterinary Medicine Loan Repayment Program, Agriculture and Food Research Initiative, the Agriculture Research Service (ARS), and the National Institutes of Health.

Background Veterinary medicine is an integral and indispensable component of our public health system as well as our agriculture and agricultural biosecurity systems. In addition to their obvious role in maintaining animal health, veterinarians also protect human health by preventing and controlling infectious diseases, ensuring the safety and security of our food supply, promoting healthy environments, and providing health care for animals. Because of the threat that infectious diseases pose to both human and animal health, there is an immediate and urgent need to build national capacity in training of veterinarians with 2

expertise in food animal medicine, public health and agricultural biosecurity. Rural veterinarians, engaged in food animal practice, are our nation’s first line of defense in recognizing a foreign animal disease. It has become increasingly important for schools and colleges of veterinary medicine to provide high quality training programs in agricultural biosecurity, within the instructional program for veterinary medical students, and at a higher level, for graduate veterinarians who seek advanced training in agricultural biosecurity. Such additional instructional programs are difficult to implement within the severe constraints of veterinary medical schools and colleges, placing a premium on programs that can assist the educational institutions in meeting a greatly expanded national need.

There are only 28 veterinary medical colleges in the country, and they do not have enough capacity to meet all of these needs. All of these schools are at the maximum number of students they can accept due to space limitations for teaching, diagnostics, and research. Laboratories, teaching hospitals, veterinary research facilities, and animal diagnostic areas are built specifically for use with animals including laboratory animals, livestock species, and wildlife. This is space built with unique safety, restraint, and handling requirements that are not commonly found on American campuses.

In addition to the projected need based on current assumptions about veterinary medicine, even more veterinarians will be needed due to other factors such as greater encroachment on animal habitat, resulting in increased human interaction with wild and exotic animals; changing climates and ecosystems, deforestation, dam building and irrigation, leading to greater numbers of arthropod vectors of disease and greater contact between these vectors and humans; more and faster global travel and displaced human and animal populations, leading to rapid and wide dispersal of infectious diseases; and changing human behavior, such as consuming exotic foods and keeping exotic pets, which increases the risk of exposure to newly emerging infectious diseases.

To be successful, programs that seek to recruit and retain veterinarians in careers in food animal practice, public health and agricultural biosecurity must compete effectively with programs recruiting veterinarians to many other career options. A new graduate from an accredited U.S. veterinary medical school or college typically enters the profession with over $150,000 of educational debt load. Consequently, graduates very logically examine the salary expectations, both at entry and over the long term, of a potential career choice, recognizing their need to repay their student loans even as they seek to establish a family and maintain a reasonable life style. With such financial pressures and analyses, a career in food animal practice and agricultural biosecurity often pales in comparison to the salary potential of other, more lucrative career options. Consequently, measures to relieve a significant portion of debt load, contingent upon entering and remaining in a career in food animal practice and agricultural biosecurity, are very important for the recruitment and retention of veterinarians to this area of national need.

The support of effective strategies to recruit and retain an adequate number of veterinarians in food animal practice, and to facilitate their training in agricultural biosecurity, are key elements in maintaining the security of our food supply and of our agricultural economy.

Measures to facilitate the recruitment and retention of veterinarians in food animal practice, while simultaneously expanding the training of veterinarians in agricultural biosecurity are keys to maintaining the security of animal agriculture, our agricultural economy, and our food supply.

Relevance Please feel free to discuss how these issues impact your school, university and state or region. More importantly, tell your own story about how federal resources are being put to good use at your institution.