Robust veterinary stockpile is vital, senators are told

The National Veterinary Stockpile must be well funded in the upcoming federal budget to assure proper animal health and food security, members of the Senate Agriculture Committee were told.

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Dr. R.D. Meckes, North Carolina state veterinarian, testifies about the need for a strong National Veterinary Stockpile to the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry. | Screenshot from www.agriculture.senate.gov
Dr. R.D. Meckes, North Carolina state veterinarian, testifies about the need for a strong National Veterinary Stockpile to the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry. | Screenshot from www.agriculture.senate.gov

The National Veterinary Stockpile must be well funded in the upcoming federal budget to assure proper animal health and food security, members of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry were told.

Among the witnesses called to testify before the committee in the December 13 hearing, “Safeguarding American Agriculture in a Globalized World,” were former Sen. Joe Lieberman and North Carolina State Veterinarian R.D. Meckes. Both stressed the importance of a strong veterinary stockpile to protect the agriculture industry and nation as a whole if future outbreaks of avian influenza or foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) occur.

Agriculture security a ‘tiny portion’ of budget

Lieberman, who now serves as the co-chair of the Blue Ribbon Study on Biodefense, told the committee that aside from the development of the National Bio- and Agrodefense Facility, “agridulture security is a tiny portion of the federal budget” and the president’s budget request for fiscal year 2018 “would eliminate agriculture research and development from the (Department of Homeland Security) budget entirely.

“Although Congress and the administration have supported a variety of programs designed to prevent and respond to outbreaks of animal diseases, the level of support has not always been commensurate with the threat or risk,” Lieberman testified. “Further, the worse the outbreak, the less prepared we are for it.”

Lieberman referenced the 2015 avian influenza outbreak, describing it as “the largest animal health disaster ever experienced on U.S. soil” with a total cost to the U.S. economy estimated as high as $3.3 billion.

The former senator expressed concerns that the virus could return and that the virus could mutate and begin to infect the human population.

Stockpile is insufficiently stocked

Meckes told the senators that the greatest concern to state animal health officials is the absence of vaccines for use in the response to potential foreign animal disease outbreaks. He cited his own state as an example.

There are about 9 million pigs east of I-95 in North Carolina. Presently the U.S. shares a North American FMD vaccine bank with Canada and Mexico. However, the quantities in that stockpile only have about 2.5 million doses of any type or subtype of FMD. That amount would only enable the pig industry to “respond to a small, confined outbreak.”

Lieberman shared a similar message.

“Of course, any stockpile is only as strong as its inventory,” he said. “We echo the evaluations of many experts who have testified here and before  other committees that we must establish a foot-and-mouth disease antigen bank, one tied to a vaccine usage policy that would rescue the United States in an FMD emergency.”

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