Michel Letko, a molecular virologist and assistant professor in Washington State University’s CVM, works in his lab. Photos courtesy of the College of Veterinary Medicine/Ted S. Warren As the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) takes funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA), and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), there is a high level of anxiety among veterinary researchers and educators, and scientists in general, who wonder how the cuts will affect tracking infectious disease outbreaks, operating diagnostic laboratories, approving new drugs and vaccines, and food supply safety, including pet food. The highly pathogenic avian influenza virus (HPAI) A(H5N1) is particularly concerning. It involves both the poultry industry and the dairy industry, as well as the pet food industry. HPAI is deadly to cats, domestic and wild, and the FDA has called on pet food manufacturers who use uncooked meat, unpasteurized milk, or eggs to reanalyze their food safety plans to take HPAI into account as a potential hazard.1,2 Dori Borjesson, DVM, PhD, DACVP, dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine at Washington State University, says researchers and diagnostic labs work closely with the FDA when these types of disease outbreaks occur. Cuts for them will mean delays in responding to diseases that affect humans and animals. Bovine spongiform encephalitis (BSE) is another disease monitored by diagnostic laboratories and federal agencies. For instance, in 2014, the California Animal Health & Food Safety Laboratory System at the University of California, Davis, detected a cow with BSE on delivery to the slaughter plant before processing, says Michael D. Lairmore, DVM, PhD, DACVPM, who was dean at UC Davis at the time. The USDA was notified immediately because BSE is a mandated regulatory reportable disease. “When you have something like that occur, the federal response is critical to alert, report, and make sure all the facts are there before it’s reported,” Dr. Lairmore says. “All of that was coordinated by the USDA in collaboration with the California diagnostic lab system.” When that happens, markets shut down immediately until it can be determined whether other animals are affected and to ensure that none have entered the food system. In that instance, it was only a single animal, and markets reopened quickly. “That’s happening all the time,” Lairmore says. “We just don’t hear about it; and if you don’t have the right people in the field or you’re not detecting disease soon enough, it explodes throughout public health, and that involves people.” National diagnostic labs across the country work closely with the USDA to detect zoonotic diseases early and efficiently, and they are funded through the federal system. Their existence is a safety net for the economy as a whole and agriculture economies in particular, including livestock veterinarians. Private practice trickle down Cutbacks in discovery or regulatory offices mean things slow down. For instance, many veterinary drugs are approved by the USDA or the FDA. Pharmaceuticals can take five to 10 years from development to approval to being on the market. Suppose the review of new medications or preventatives is slowed or halted. In that case, veterinarians will see a delay in new therapeutics, and pets and livestock will receive less timely and less effective care. That is just one way DOGE cuts could trickle down to veterinarians in private practice. Another is a reduction in research and data. “Veterinarians in private practice perform a combination of art and science, and the science component is based on data and research,” says B. Duncan X. Lascelles, BVSC, PhD, FRCVS, professor of Small Animal Surgery and Comparative and Translational Pain Research at North Carolina State University. “If the generation of those data performance of those investigations is compromised, then at some point there will be less new information about how to manage health and welfare filtering down to private practice.” Dr. Lascelles adds. “That’s a long-term impact.” In the shorter term, personnel losses at the FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine may mean private-practice veterinarians do not see important updates on current therapeutics. It will be more difficult for them to report adverse reactions to vaccines or drugs or to find out how long it takes for, say, a cow to metabolize a drug and be cleared to enter the food system. “These networks, both formal and informal, are critical for us to be successful. Without that, veterinarians are going to have fewer resources to rely on if they see adverse events or if they are looking at whether they can use a drug in another species,” Dr. Borjesson says. “All of that type of work saves money for all of us.” Impacts on research progress Policy changes affect animal care in other ways. While the NIH does not fund research for the benefit of animals, NIH research inspires and supports biomedical research in general, contributing to understanding animal diseases. When the biomedical research community is compromised, it has the potential to negatively affect veterinary health research in various ways. That is especially of concern in research that involves collecting data and learning from naturally occurring diseases in pet animals, Lascelles says. Those types of grants focus on improving human health and welfare, but the information gained is also valuable for advancing pet health. Veterinary medicine and research do not stand alone. They are integrated into the broader biomedical research community. If that community becomes downsized or destabilized, it will have negative implications for animal health and welfare. A 2015 UC Davis study published in the journal Science Translational Medicine notes knowledge and resources derived from veterinary medicine—in particular, naturally occurring diseases in companion animals that are similar or identical to diseases in humans—holds promise for providing proof of concept in evaluation of new therapeutics and devices.3 That proved true most recently in the development of COVID-19 vaccines because coronaviruses were well-known in animal species, especially cats. “If you start dramatically reducing the biomedical research industry and a researcher who is NIH-funded but happens to collaborate with some veterinary researchers, maybe they won’t be able to collaborate,” Lascelles says. “You can see how veterinary research would suffer indirectly. Then, directly, where NIH is funding research that involves veterinary species, that new information that is beneficial for both human health, but also importantly for veterinary health, is potentially not going to be generated.” Bronwyn (Bonnie) Gunn, PhD, an assistant professor and viral immunologist inWashington State University’s CVM, who specializes in the study of antibody responsesagainst infectious diseases, pulls materials used in her research from a freezer. Photos courtesy of the College of Veterinary Medicine/Ted S. Warren Public practice veterinarians As many as 3,200 veterinarians are part of the federal workforce, according to the National Association of Federal Veterinarians.4,5,6 That does not include the more than 1,000 veterinarians who serve in the military. Primarily, they are employed by the Food Safety and Inspection Service and the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, but veterinarians can be found working in agencies ranging from the Department of Defense to the USDA. The current reduction in force affects the work they do. Federal veterinarians receiving pink slips perform jobs, including overseeing HPAI response efforts, working on antimicrobial resistance, monitoring unexpected side effects after drug approval, and ensuring the safety of pet food, livestock feed, and animal medications. They were employed in such areas as the FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine, Office of Inspections and Investigations, Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, and Human Foods Program. In a statement, American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) president Sandra Faeh, DVM, says: “We are extremely concerned about these RIFs, which have caught up not only highly qualified veterinarians with unique skillsets, but also some very senior veterinary federal agency leadership. We believe the resulting loss in expertise and institutional knowledge will deeply inhibit the ability of these federal agencies to continue the critical and expansive work that protects and supports animal, human, and environmental health.”7,8 One Health implications The One Health concept recognizes human, animal, and environmental health are interconnected. One Health issues include zoonotic diseases, vector-borne diseases, antimicrobial-resistant germs, antiviral resistance, diseases in food animals and other food-security and food-safety concerns, water contamination, and the importance of the human-animal bond. Human diseases with parallels in companion animals include various cancers, cruciate ligament injuries, intervertebral disk herniation, narcolepsy, cleft palate, and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Chronic disease, occupational health, mental health, and noncommunicable diseases also benefit from One Health collaboration among human, animal, and environmental scientists, health professionals, and other experts, such as ecologists, agriculturalists, policymakers, and even pet owners. One Health researchers study naturally occurring diseases in animals whose owners are seeking veterinary care, allowing them to receive cutting-edge therapeutics for their conditions and ensuring ethical considerations are followed and owners are giving informed consent. Among many advances, comparative biomedicine has revealed new aspects of carcinogenesis and cancer biology, facilitated the development of new diagnostic methods, therapeutics, and modalities for canine and human patients, enabled the translation of personalized therapeutics to human clinical trials, and maximized veterinary tissue engineering efforts to help improve nonsurgical therapies for various degenerative and sports injuries. Losses of research in these and other areas, ranging from cardiovascular research and therapies to osteoarthritis to keratoconjunctivitis sicca, do not augur well for the future health of humans and animals. Take infectious disease, for instance, which involves research not only into zoonotic conditions but also relationships to things such as toxicology or the environmental effects of climate change, Lairmore says. “There are many of these universities and veterinarians involved in One Health research that looks at the interface of these things. These are all aspects that are being affected by government cutbacks. When you start to cut back from USDA or CDC, there is a ripple effect across universities, diagnostic laboratories, government agencies themselves.” Kim Campbell Thornton has been writing about dogs, cats, wildlife, and marine life since 1985, and is a recipient of multiple awards for her articles and books from the Cat Writers Association, Dog Writers Association of America, and American Society of Journalists and Authors. References Center. 2024. “FDA Outlines Ways to Reduce Risk of HPAI in Cats.” U.S. Food and Drug Administration. 2024. https://www.fda.gov/animal-veterinary/cvm-updates/fda-outlines-ways-reduce-risk-hpai-cats. Center. 2025. “Cat & Dog Food Manufacturers Required to Consider H5N1 in Food Safety.” U.S. Food and Drug Administration. 2025. https://www.fda.gov/animal-veterinary/cvm-updates/cat-and-dog-food-manufacturers-required-consider-h5n1-food-safety-plans. Kol A, Arzi B, Athanasiou KA, Farmer DL, Nolta JA, Rebhun RB, Chen X, Griffiths LG, Verstraete FJM, Borjesson DL. Companion animals: Translational scientists’ new best friends. Sci Transl Med. 7 Oct 2015; Vol. 7, Issue 308, p. 308ps21. “Veterinarians among Those Cut in Extensive Layoffs at HHS.” 2025. American Veterinary Medical Association. April 4, 2025. https://www.avma.org/news/veterinarians-among-those-cut-extensive-layoffs-hhs. “Veterinarians in Governmental Work and Policy in the United States of America - Association of Avian Veterinarians.” 2025. Aav.org. 2025. https://www.aav.org/blogpost/1525799/508294/Veterinarians-In-Governmental-Work-and-Policy-in-the-United-States-of-America. “Veterinarians Entangled in Effort to Shrink Federal Workforce.” 2025. Vin.com. 2025. https://news.vin.com/default.aspx?pid=210&catId=3115&id=12523119. Canon, Abbey. 2025. “AVMA Statement on Personnel Cuts at HHS – American Association of Swine Veterinarians.” Aasv.org. April 3, 2025. https://www.aasv.org/2025/04/avma-statement-on-personnel-cuts-at-hhs. “Federal Veterinarians Impacted by Multi-Agency Layoffs.” 2025. AAHA. April 5, 2025. https://www.aaha.org/trends-magazine/publications/federal-veterinarians-impacted-by-multi-agency-layoffs/.
