Restore funding critical to food-safety programs, states AVMA Washington, DC — The American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) is calling on the U.S. House of Representatives to restore funding stripped away from two critically important programs.
In a recent letter to the U.S. House Appropriations Committee chairman and ranking member, the AVMA said the decreased funding for the Veterinary Medicine Loan Repayment Program (VMLRP) and the National Animal Health Laboratory Network (NAHLN) would directly affect each program's critical functions in protecting the country's food-safety initiatives, animal health and welfare, and the public health.
"No one can deny that our nation is facing serious fiscal challenges; however stripping funding from the VMLRP and NAHLN programs is unwise," said Dr. Mark Lutschaunig, AVMA Governmental Relations Division director. "AVMA urges Congress to protect the nation's food safety and security and oppose these funding cuts. AVMA looks forward to working with the Congress as the fiscal year 2012 agriculture spending bill moves forward."
The NAHLN provides a variety of food-supply and public-health functions, such as surveillance, rapid detection, and response and recovery from any foreign-animal disease or emerging diseases. Lutschaunig warned Congress that taking away funding at this time is a mistake that could very well create a critical problem for the United States' response to a disease crisis when it comes.
"This will increase the serious risk to this country in respect to how we can react to a massive animal health emergency," he said. "The relatively small investment in NAHLN pales in comparison to the economic losses our nation may suffer if the labs are unable to continue their work in the event of a serious animal disease event."
Also on the chopping block is the VMLRP, which was cut by 12.5 percent – or $600,000. The program is responsible for placing food-animal and public-health veterinarians in federally designated veterinary shortage areas all across our country. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, last year 62 veterinarians were selected to fill shortages in 34 states. A total of 260 veterinarians applied for the program in 2010.
The AVMA urged elected officials to restore the funding, noting that veterinarians in the VMLRP "provide an array of animal and public-health services for food-animal producer's livestock, including beef, dairy cows, poultry, swine, dairy goats, meat goats, sheep, lamb and farm horses."
For more information about AVMA's Appropriations requests and to read the letter, visit www.avma.org.
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The AVMA, founded in 1863, is one of the oldest and largest veterinary medical organizations in the world. More than 81,500 member veterinarians worldwide are engaged in a wide variety of professional activities.
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