COLLEGE STATION, Jan. 28, 2011 – The first-ever Veterinary Legislative Day will be held Tuesday (Feb. 1) in the State Capitol Building in Austin. A contingent of faculty, staff and students from Texas A&M University’s College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences will be on hand to brief Texas legislators on the impact of veterinary medicine on Texas and propose ways to improve and enhance veterinary education in the state.
The observance is being conducted in collaboration with the Texas Veterinary Medical Association.
Established in 1916, the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences is the state’s only veterinary medicine school and one of the largest in North America. It is consistently rated among the best veterinary medicine schools in the country, and most of its educational and teaching programs place among the top five in national rankings.
Veterinary Legislative Day events in Austin will coincide with events held globally as 2011 has been designated as the “Year of the Veterinarian,” and a celebration will be held Feb. 4 at the Hagler Center on the Texas A&M campus. Veterinary medicine as a profession was born 250 years ago in Lyon, France.
“The World Veterinary Association has designated 2011 as the ‘Year of the Veterinarian’ and it is encouraging the advancement of the education of veterinarians and sharing knowledge so that we can raise the bar for veterinary medicine throughout the world,” says Leon Russell, professor in the College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences.
Proclamations are expected to be read on the House and Senate floors beginning at 10 a.m. Lawmakers in Austin will hear from Texas A&M representatives about the importance of veterinary medicine on the state’s economy, noting that the profession exerts a $1.7 billion economic impact on the state. Currently, Texas is the leading cattle- and horse-producing state.
In recent years, veterinary medicine has branched into numerous other fields, such as homeland security, food safety, infectious diseases, environmental and biodiversity and other areas critical to the American people, officials note. About three-fourths of the diseases that have emerged in the last 20 years are zoonotic, meaning they can be transmitted from animals to humans, and diseases such as HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) and SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) are believed to have originated in wild animals and eventually transmitted to humans.
Texas A&M officials note that veterinary medicine in Texas faces many challenges. Texas cattle raisers are often hampered by the shortage of rural veterinarians, and officials note that among the 10 most populated states, Texas ranks last in veterinarians per million food and fiber animals.
Additionally, there has been no significant increase in federal funding for veterinary education in the last 30 years, they note. At Texas A&M, there has been no increase in tuition in the College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences in the last 10 years, and many facilities at the college are needing a substantial upgrade, they add. For example, the school’s Veterinary Medicine Teaching Hospital and the Veterinary Medical Sciences Building were both built more than 50 years ago.
Texas A&M recently created the Veterinary Emergency Response Team that has mobile units to respond to disaster situations throughout the state. It will work closely with the Texas Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory, TexasAgriLife, the Texas Animal Health Commission, the Texas Veterinary Medical Association, the Texas Department of Emergency Management and other agencies.
Russell notes that veterinarians today play a more vital role than ever before.
“Veterinarians provide a public oversight in many food industries, such as beef, pork and poultry, and they promote food security by supervising animal production hygiene,” he explains.
“Many of the faculty here have international reputations for their expertise in reproductive biology, cancer, biodefense, infectious diseases, equine and feline medicine, cardiology and many other areas. In addition, the U.S. military relies on veterinarians to monitor the quality and safety of the food that our troops consume and also to provide a safe food supply for our government personnel all over the world.
“The world has never needed veterinarians more than it does today.”
For more information about world veterinary events, go to http://www.vet2011.org/.
For more information about Texas A&M’s College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, go to http://www.vetmed.tamu.edu/.
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