Good news! Thanks in part to the hard work and advocacy of our readers, Congress has provided funding for Food Animal Residue Avoidance Databank (FARAD) and the National Veterinary Medical Service Act (NVMSA) -- two important programs for keeping our food safe -- in the omnibus spending bill President Obama signed last month.

As we've told you before, FARAD provides information about how to avoid residues of medications and contaminants in food animals, and NVMSA will provide loan repayment for veterinarians who work in underserved areas -- like with the food supply. Both programs are crucial to sustaining and improving the safety of our food supply.

The inclusion of the funding in the spending bill is a victory for both programs. The battle for ongoing funding will eventually begin again, but for now, we can take a breather and focus on other food safety challenges.

Here's what JAVMA News says about the funding of these programs:

"Congress included $2.95 million for NVMSA... In exchange for a commitment to work in underserved areas of veterinary medicine, recipients are granted student loan repayment. The bill was signed into law in 2003, but its implementation has been delayed by the Agriculture Department, which is still in the process of promulgating regulations for the program...

FARAD, a program until recently on the brink of extinction because of insufficient funding, received a desperately needed $806,000 appropriation. A number of organizations including the AVMA had donated more than $16,000 to keep the program running in the short term, but a major cash infusion was needed.

"I am very relieved because we were basically going to have to shut FARAD forever by the end of summer," said Dr. Alistair Webb, one of the program's three directors and a professor at the University of Florida-Gainesville.

The money will keep FARAD going for another year without additional layoffs, Dr. Webb explained."

Dear President-Elect Obama,

We’ve been saving this letter until we got closer to the inauguration because, with the selection of cabinet members and press conferences, we know you’ve been very busy lately and we didn’t want this note to get lost in the shuffle. Now that we’re less than a month from your first, history-making day as president, let’s get started. First off, we’d like to again say congratulations—the nation really believes in you. Good luck on your first hundred days in the White House.

Now let’s get to the meat of the matter, because, as you already seem to know, you’ve got a lot of work to do. We at KeepOurFoodSafe.org and our readers would like to let you know that you’ve got a big problem you have to solve, and in a word, it’s food.

Over the past several years, we’ve seen a growing number of farm animal welfare challenges and food safety crises. Within the past year alone, we experienced the largest U.S. recall of beef products in American history. Not since the 1960s have Americans been as concerned about their food as they are today. After two Chinese melamine crises in the past two years—first in pet food and then in milk powder and eggs—consumers are deeply worried about imported food stuffs and how they are inspected. While many organizations have been calling for years for a reorganization of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Food and Drug Administration and other agencies to create a single, centralized food inspection authority, it now falls on your shoulders to make that happen. And it must happen if you’re to be successful in keeping our nation’s food supply safe.

We’d also ask you to take actions to solve the growing shortage of food supply and public health veterinarians. No other profession plays a more crucial role in food safety than veterinarians, and we seem to be running out of them. Currently, dozens of rural, agricultural counties are without a single large-animal veterinarian to treat their livestock and chickens. A recent study forecasts that this shortage will only get worse; the demand for farm veterinarians is projected to increase by 12 to 13 percent annually while the availability of those veterinarians will likely decrease by 4 to 5 percent every year.

There are several proposed federal programs that would address this growing shortage of veterinarians, including two competitive grant programs—the School of Veterinary Medicine Grant Program and the Agricultural Biosecurity Grant Program—that would fund expansions at veterinary colleges to increase their output of public health veterinarians and another—the National Veterinary Medical Service Act(NVMSA)—that would repay the college loans of young veterinarians who choose to work in underserved geographic and professional areas of veterinary medicine. These programs have been authorized by Congress, but need to be funded adequately VPHWEA still awaits the approval of Congress. These programs need to become a reality if we stand a chance of turning the tide.

To make the situation even worse, veterinarians will soon have fewer tools to keep our food supply safe unless you take action. The Food Animal Residue Avoidance Databank (FARAD) is expected to close this year due to lack of funding. FARAD offers veterinarians information about the amount of time that drugs, toxins and other contaminants require to be metabolized by farm animals before the animal or animal product like milk is safe for Americans to consume. Obviously, if FARAD closes down, veterinarians will lose a resource that helps them keep Americans safe from contaminated meats. It’s not an expensive program ($2.5 million a year); funding must be found to save FARAD.

There is, of course, more that needs to be done to bolster America’s food safety systems and ensure the quality and safety of our food supplies going forward. We’ll keep you posted on those challenges as they arise. But we are confident that, with your help and support, the solutions we’ve listed in this letter will help us begin to address this critical issue. We at KeepYourFoodSafe.org wish you well. The country needs your leadership.

Sincerely,

KeepOurFoodSafe.org

We have more good news to report from the front lines of food safety. More than five years in the making, the National Veterinary Medical Service Act (NVMSA) is about to become a reality. Soon, the legislation to provide loan repayment for veterinarians who work in underserved areas -- like with the food supply -- will become a living, breathing program.

And for those of you reading this at home who have no idea what NVSMA is, let me give you the back story. There is a shortage of veterinarians who care for, treat and inspect the animals that become our meat and dairy products. Anyway you slice it, that can’t be seen as good news. So, to encourage more vets to work with food supply animals and in rural areas (where the cows, pigs, etc., usually are, obviously), Congress passed NVMSA in 2003. NVMSA will help the vets who volunteer to work in these positions or neglected areas by helping them repay some of their student loans.

Even though the program was approved in 2003 and funded by Congress in 2006, 2007 and 2008, the program never got started. Well, now it’s about to finally happen.

How did we do it? Ultimately, the feat of bringing NVMSA to reality was accomplished by a Congressional mandate – inserted in the Farm Bill approved this spring – that motivated the USDA to move forward. The folks at USDA will be the ones administering NVMSA, and now they have about nine months to work out all the particulars of who is eligible, how they will apply, etc.

Hopefully, by next fall, veterinarians can start applying. And it looks like, soon after that, more vets will be working on the food supply in rural areas.

We had the chance to talk to Dr. Gregory S. Hammer, AVMA’s President, about the success of NVMSA. For Dr. Hammer, the victory is the culmination of a long and arduous pursuit. “ Make no mistake about it – it has taken us five years of reaching out, reaching in, wrangling, rebuking, begging, banging, teaching and testifying on Capitol Hill and to the Executive Branch for NVMSA to become a reality,” Dr. Hammer said.

Dr. Hammer testified in support of NVMSA before a US House of Representatives subcommittee earlier this year, urging implementation of NVSMA. Hats off to him and all the many others who worked so hard for this food safety victory!

If you want to learn more about NVMSA, go here and scroll down. There are a lot of great links at the bottom of the page.