a

GAO

United States Government Accountability Office

Report to the Chairman, Subcommittee on 

Oversight of Government Management, the 

Federal Workforce, and the District of 

Columbia, Committee on Homeland Security 

and Governmental Affairs, U.S. Senate

February 2009 VETERINARIAN 

WORKFORCE

Actions Are Needed to 

Ensure Sufficient 

Capacity for 

Protecting Public and 

Animal Health

GAO-09-178
What GAO Found

United States Government Accountability Office

Why GAO Did This Study

Highlights

Accountability Integrity Reliability

February 2009

VETERINARIAN WORKFORCE 

Actions Are Needed to Ensure Sufficient Capacity for 

Protecting Public and Animal Health 

Highlights of GAO-09-178, a report to the 

Chairman, Subcommittee on Oversight of 

Government Management, the Federal 

Workforce, and the District of Columbia, 

Committee on Homeland Security and 

Governmental Affairs, U.S. Senate 

Veterinarians are essential for 

controlling zoonotic diseases—

which spread between animals and 

humans—such as avian influenza.

Most federal veterinarians work in 

the Departments of Agriculture 

(USDA), Defense (DOD), and 

Health and Human Services (HHS).

However, there is a growing 

national shortage of veterinarians. 

GAO determined the extent to 

which (1) the federal government 

has assessed the sufficiency of its

veterinarian workforce for routine 

activities, (2) the federal 

government has identified the 

veterinarian workforce needed 

during a catastrophic event, and (3) 

federal and state agencies 

encountered veterinarian

workforce challenges during four

recent zoonotic outbreaks. GAO 

surveyed 24 federal entities about

their veterinarian workforce; 

analyzed agency workforce,

pandemic, and other plans; and 

interviewed federal and state 

officials that responded to four 

recent zoonotic outbreaks.

What GAO Recommends

GAO is making recommendations 

to help ensure sufficient 

veterinarian capacity to protect

public and animal health. In 

commenting on a draft of this

report USDA, DOD, OPM, DHS, and 

Interior generally agreed with our 

recommendations. HHS generally 

concurred with the report, but 

disagreed with a 2007 FDA 

Advisory Committee report GAO

cited, which said that FDA’s Center 

of Veterinary Medicine is in a state 

of crisis. 

The federal government lacks a comprehensive understanding of the 

sufficiency of its veterinarian workforce. More specifically, four of five 

component agencies GAO reviewed have assessed the sufficiency of their

veterinarian workforce to perform routine activities and have identified 

current or future concerns. This includes USDA’s Animal and Plant Health 

Inspection Services (APHIS), Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), 

and Agricultural Research Service (ARS); and DOD’s Army. Current and 

future shortages, as well as noncompetitive salaries, were among the 

concerns identified by these agencies. HHS’s Food and Drug 

Administration (FDA) does not perform such assessments and did not 

identify any concerns. In addition, at the department level, USDA and HHS 

have not assessed their veterinarian workforces across their component 

agencies, but DOD has a process for doing so. Moreover, there is no 

governmentwide effort to search for shared solutions, even though 16 of 

the 24 federal entities that employ veterinarians raised concerns about the 

sufficiency of this workforce. Further exacerbating these concerns is the 

number of veterinarians eligible to retire in the near future. GAO’s analysis 

revealed that 27 percent of the veterinarians at APHIS, FSIS, ARS, Army, 

and FDA will be eligible to retire within 3 years. 

Efforts to identify the veterinarian workforce needed for a catastrophic 

event are insufficient. Specifically, agencies’ plans lack important elements

necessary for continuing essential veterinarian functions during a 

pandemic, such as identifying which functions must be performed on-site 

and how they will be carried out if absenteeism reaches 40 percent—the 

rate predicted at the height of the pandemic and used for planning 

purposes. In addition, one federal effort to prepare for the intentional 

introduction of a foreign animal disease is based on the unrealistic 

assumption that all affected animals will be slaughtered, as the United 

States has done for smaller outbreaks, making the resulting veterinarian 

workforce estimates irrelevant. A second effort lacks crucial data, 

including data on how the disease would spread in wildlife. If wildlife 

became infected, as they have in the past, response would be greatly 

complicated and could require more veterinarians and different expertise.

Officials from federal and state agencies involved in four recent zoonotic 

disease outbreaks commonly cited insufficient veterinarian capacity as a 

workforce challenge. However, 10 of the 17 agencies that GAO 

interviewed have not assessed their own veterinarian workforce’s 

response to individual outbreaks and are thus missing opportunities to 

improve future responses. Moreover, none of the entities GAO reviewed 

has looked across outbreaks to identify common workforce challenges 

and possible solutions. To view the full product, including the scope 

and methodology, click on GAO-09-178. 

For more information, contact Lisa Shames at 

(202) 512-3841 or shamesl@gao.gov. 
Contents 

Letter 1

Results in Brief 5

Background 9

The Federal Government Lacks a Comprehensive Understanding of 

the Sufficiency of Its Veterinarian Workforce 12 

Efforts to Identify the Veterinarian Workforce Needed during a 

Pandemic and Large-Scale Animal Disease Outbreak Are 

Insufficient 29

Federal and State Agencies Are Missing Important Opportunities to 

Ensure Efficient Use of Veterinarians During Disease Outbreaks 35 

Conclusions 41

Recommendations for Executive Action 42 

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation 43 

Appendix I Location and Responsibilities of Veterinarians in the 

Federal Government 47 

Appendix II Scope and Methodology 50 

Appendix III Comments from the Department of Agriculture 54 

Appendix IV Comments from the Department of Defense 66 

Appendix V Comments from the Department of Health and 

Human Services 68 

Appendix VI Comments from the Office of Personnel Management 77 

Appendix VII Comments from the Department of Homeland 

Security 80 

Page i GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
Appendix VIII Comments from the Department of the Interior 84 

Appendix IX GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments 87 

Tables 

Table 1: Agency Concerns about Sufficiency of the Federal 

Veterinarian Workforce 24 

Table 2: Four Recent Zoonotic Outbreaks We Analyzed 36 

Figures 

Figure 1: Percentage of Veterinarian Grade Levels by Key USDA 

Agencies in Fiscal Year 2008 21 

Figure 2: Mean Veterinarian Salaries by Key USDA Agencies, Fiscal 

Years 2003-2007 22 

Figure 3: Mean Veterinarian Base Salaries at 19 Component 

Agencies or Federal Entities in Fiscal Year 2008 26 

Page ii GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
Abbreviations 

APHIS Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service 

ARS Agricultural Research Service 

CDC Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 

CSREES Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension 

Service 

CVM Center for Veterinary Medicine 

DHS Department of Homeland Security 

DOD Department of Defense 

FDA Food and Drug Administration 

FEMA Federal Emergency Management Agency 

FSIS Food Safety and Inspection Service 

HHS Department of Health and Human Services 

HSPD Homeland Security Presidential Directive 

Interior Department of the Interior 

NADC National Animal Disease Center 

NAFV National Association of Federal Veterinarians 

NIH National Institutes of Health 

OIG Office of Inspector General 

OPM Office of Personnel Management 

SES Senior Executive Service 

USDA Department of Agriculture 

USGS U.S. Geological Survey 

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Page iii GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
United States Government Accountability Office

Washington, DC 20548 

 

February 4, 2009 

The Honorable Daniel K. Akaka 

Chairman 

Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, 

 the Federal Workforce, and the District of Columbia 

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs 

United States Senate 

The Honorable Daniel K. Akaka 

Chairman 

Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, 

 the Federal Workforce, and the District of Columbia 

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs 

United States Senate 

Dear Mr. Chairman: 

Veterinarians play a vital role in the defense against animal diseases—

whether naturally or intentionally introduced—and these diseases can 

cause serious harm to human health and the economy. For example, 

veterinarians were at the forefront of the response to the 2001 United 

Kingdom outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, which resulted in the 

slaughter of more than 4 million animals to control the outbreak, losses of 

over $5 billion to the food and agriculture sectors, and comparable losses 

to the tourism industry. Veterinarians are also essential for controlling 

zoonotic diseases, which are diseases that spread between animals and 

humans. Zoonotic diseases are of particular concern because, in recent 

years, about 75 percent of the newly emerging infectious diseases affecting 

humans have originated in animals. For example, over the past few years, 

a highly pathogenic strain of avian influenza has killed millions of wild and 

domestic birds worldwide and infected over 400 people, more than half of

whom have died. Health experts are concerned that this virus could cause

a pandemic if it develops the ability to spread efficiently from human to 

human. Veterinarians also help prevent foodborne illness, which humans 

can acquire, for example, from meat contaminated with viruses or 

bacteria. Each year, about 76 million Americans contract foodborne 

illnesses, and about 5,000 die. 

Veterinarians play a vital role in the defense against animal diseases—

whether naturally or intentionally introduced—and these diseases can 

cause serious harm to human health and the economy. For example, 

veterinarians were at the forefront of the response to the 2001 United 

Kingdom outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, which resulted in the 

slaughter of more than 4 million animals to control the outbreak, losses of 

over $5 billion to the food and agriculture sectors, and comparable losses 

to the tourism industry. Veterinarians are also essential for controlling 

zoonotic diseases, which are diseases that spread between animals and 

humans. Zoonotic diseases are of particular concern because, in recent 

years, about 75 percent of the newly emerging infectious diseases affecting 

humans have originated in animals. For example, over the past few years, 

a highly pathogenic strain of avian influenza has killed millions of wild and 

domestic birds worldwide and infected over 400 people, more than half of

whom have died. Health experts are concerned that this virus could cause

a pandemic if it develops the ability to spread efficiently from human to 

human. Veterinarians also help prevent foodborne illness, which humans 

can acquire, for example, from meat contaminated with viruses or 

bacteria. Each year, about 76 million Americans contract foodborne 

illnesses, and about 5,000 die. 

However, there is a growing shortage of veterinarians nationwide, 

particularly of veterinarians who care for animals raised for food, serve in

rural communities, and have training in public health, according to several 

professional associations. This shortage has, according to the American 

Veterinary Medical Association, placed the nation’s food supply at risk and 

could hinder efforts to protect humans from zoonotic diseases. The 

veterinarian shortage is expected to worsen, partly as a result of space 

constraints at the country’s 28 veterinary colleges, which can graduate 

only about 2,500 students a year combined, according to the American 

Association of Veterinary Medical Colleges. The demand for veterinarians

However, there is a growing shortage of veterinarians nationwide, 

particularly of veterinarians who care for animals raised for food, serve in

rural communities, and have training in public health, according to several 

professional associations. This shortage has, according to the American 

Veterinary Medical Association, placed the nation’s food supply at risk and 

could hinder efforts to protect humans from zoonotic diseases. The 

veterinarian shortage is expected to worsen, partly as a result of space 

constraints at the country’s 28 veterinary colleges, which can graduate 

only about 2,500 students a year combined, according to the American 

Association of Veterinary Medical Colleges. The demand for veterinarians

Page 1 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
 

is expected to increase, however. For example, the Bureau of Labor 

Statistics predicts that demand will increase by 35 percent from 2006 to 

2016—from 62,000 full-time jobs to 84,000. Subsequently, the Congress 

enacted two pieces of legislation that address these concerns. In 2003, it 

enacted the National Veterinary Medical Services Act directing the 

Secretary of Agriculture to carry out a program to help repay school loans 

for veterinarians who agree to work in areas of need. In August 2008, the 

Congress passed the Higher Education Opportunity Act, which has 

provisions intended to increase the number of veterinarians in the 

workforce. 

The federal government employs more than 3,000 veterinarians. Although 

this number represents a small portion of the federal workforce, these 

veterinarians play a crucial role in helping to protect people and the 

economy from animal diseases. More than 2,900 federal veterinarians 

work for component agencies within the Departments of Agriculture 

(USDA), Defense (DOD), and Health and Human Services (HHS). The 

1,771 veterinarians at USDA have numerous functions, including the 

following: 

• Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) veterinarians help 

protect and maintain the health of American livestock and poultry during 

production, and monitor wildlife populations for critical endemic and 

foreign animal diseases;

• Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) veterinarians inspect animals at 

slaughter plants to help ensure the safety of meat and poultry products, 

and they also oversee the humane treatment of livestock during slaughter;

and 

• Agricultural Research Service (ARS) veterinarians research critical 

endemic and foreign animal diseases. 

DOD employs 841 veterinarians, the majority of whom work for the Army

as active duty veterinarians or as part of the Army’s veterinary reserve 

corps. These veterinarians are responsible for caring for service and 

research animals, ensuring food safety at military installations, and 

conducting intelligence work related to bioterrorism, among other things. 

HHS employs 316 veterinarians, whose functions include the following: 

• Food and Drug Administration (FDA) veterinarians are responsible for 

ensuring that animal drugs are safe and effective, that animal feed is safe,

Page 2 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
 

and that food from medically treated animals is safe to eat. They also help

ensure the safety of food, drugs, and cosmetics, among other things; 

• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) veterinarians help 

promote human health by conducting research and investigating human

disease outbreaks of animal origin. They also oversee the welfare of 

animals used in such research, as required by federal regulation. 

Veterinarians work in other departments, such as the Department of the 

Interior (Interior), whose 24 veterinarians play a role in researching, 

diagnosing, and responding to wildlife diseases. The Department of 

Homeland Security (DHS) also employs veterinarians to, among other 

things, help develop national policy for defending the nation’s agriculture 

and food supply against terrorist attacks and other emergencies. See 

appendix I for a list of veterinarian roles and responsibilities within the 

federal government. 

As this list of responsibilities indicates, the federal veterinarian workforce 

plays a critical role in ensuring the safety of the U.S. food supply. 

However, we testified in 2008 that the staffing levels at FSIS—where 

veterinarians play an important role in helping to ensure the safety of our 

food supply and the humane treatment of animals during slaughter—have 

declined since 1995 despite an increasing budget, and some districts have 

experienced high vacancy rates among inspectors. This could impair 

enforcement of the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act of 1978 and of food

safety regulations generally.1

 In addition, we have designated the federal

oversight of food safety as a high-risk area of government operations 

because the current system is fragmented, causing inconsistent oversight, 

ineffective coordination, and inefficient use of resources.2

As with all professions in the federal government, departments and their 

component agencies are responsible for hiring and maintaining a 

veterinarian workforce sufficient to meet their missions. High-performing 

public organizations have found that maintaining a quality workforce 

requires them to systematically assess current and future workforce needs 

and formulate a long-term strategy to attract, retain, develop, and motivate 

 1

GAO, Humane Methods of Handling and Slaughter: Public Reporting on Violations Can 

Identify Enforcement Challenges and Enhance Transparency, GAO-08-686T (Washington, 

D.C.: April 17, 2008). 

2

GAO, High-Risk Series: An Update, GAO-09-271 (Washington, D.C.: January 2009). 

Page 3 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
 

employees.3 The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) provides 

guidance and leadership intended to help build a high-quality and diverse 

federal workforce. Our prior work has identified the need for OPM to use 

its leadership position to help departments and agencies recruit and retain

a capable and committed workforce.4

In this context, you asked us to determine the extent to which (1) the 

federal government has assessed the sufficiency of its veterinarian 

workforce for routine program activities, (2) the federal government has 

identified the veterinarian workforce needed during a catastrophic event,

and (3) federal and state agencies encountered veterinarian workforce 

challenges during four recent zoonotic outbreaks.

To address the first objective, we identified and surveyed departments, 

component agencies, and other federal entities employing veterinarians to 

determine, among other things, the number, salaries, and roles and 

responsibilities of veterinarians, as well as the sufficiency of this 

workforce. We then selected component agencies within three 

departments for further analysis to determine the extent to which they 

assessed the sufficiency of their veterinarian workforce. We selected

USDA, DOD, and HHS because these departments employ about 96 

percent of federal veterinarians. Within these departments, we focused our 

veterinarian workforce assessment review on APHIS, FSIS, Army, and 

FDA, because these component agencies employ the most veterinarians. 

We also selected ARS for further review because it is USDA’s chief 

scientific research agency and conducts research to solve agricultural 

problems of high national priority. We interviewed officials involved in

workforce planning, as well as those that carry out program activities such 

as veterinarians working in slaughter plants. To address the second 

objective, we analyzed agency plans for continuing essential functions 

during a pandemic, and compared them with DHS national planning 

guidance, which identifies essential elements that federal departments and 

agencies should consider. We also reviewed veterinarian workforce 

outcomes from DHS’s nationwide effort to assess the nation’s 

preparedness for multiple, intentional introductions of foot-and-mouth 

disease. We selected a pandemic and intentional foot-and-mouth disease 

 3

GAO, Human Capital: Key Principles for Effective Strategic Workforce Planning, 

GAO-04-39 (Washington, D.C.: Dec. 11, 2003).

4

GAO, Human Capital: Transforming Federal Recruiting and Hiring Efforts, 

GAO-08-762T (Washington, D.C.: May 8, 2008). 

Page 4 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
 

outbreak because these are two potential catastrophic events the White 

House Homeland Security Council has deemed critical for planning 

purposes. To address the third objective, we conducted semistructured 

interviews with selected officials from 17 federal and state agencies 

involved in responding to the following four recent zoonotic outbreaks: 

• bovine tuberculosis in Michigan: a bacterial disease that spreads from deer 

to cattle; 

• exotic Newcastle disease in California: a highly infectious virus that 

spread rapidly throughout poultry; 

• monkeypox in Wisconsin: a virus not seen in the United States until 2003, 

when there was an outbreak in exotic pets and humans; and 

• West Nile virus in Colorado: a disease that spread rapidly across the 

United States, infecting numerous species. 

We focused our review on these outbreaks because they were most 

frequently recommended by federal officials as examples of zoonotic 

diseases, are still occurring or occurred since 2001, and affected various 

types of animals, among other things. Additional details about our scope 

and methodology are presented in appendix II. 

We conducted this performance audit from September 2007 to February 

2009, in accordance with generally accepted government auditing 

standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to

obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for 

our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe 

that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings 

and conclusions based on our audit objectives. 

Despite a growing shortage of veterinarians, the federal government does 

not have a comprehensive understanding of the sufficiency of its 

veterinarian workforce for routine program activities. Specifically, 

although four of five component agencies we reviewed have assessed their 

veterinarian workforces, little has been done to gain a broader,

departmentwide perspective, and no assessment has been conducted 

governmentwide. 

Results in Brief 

• At the component agency level, APHIS, FSIS, ARS, and Army assessments 

have each identified actual or potential veterinarian shortages. First, 

APHIS reported it has filled all of its veterinary positions but has identified

Page 5 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
 

a potential future shortage of, for example, veterinary pathologists, who 

diagnose animal diseases. In addition, 30 percent of APHIS’ veterinarians 

will be eligible to retire by the end of fiscal year 2011. Second, FSIS has 

not been fully staffed over the past decade, according to agency officials. 

In fiscal year 2008, it had a goal of employing 1,134 veterinarians to carry 

out its mission of ensuring the safety of meat and poultry products, but it 

had 968 as of the end of that fiscal year—a 15 percent shortage. FSIS 

veterinarians working in slaughter plants told us that a lack of

veterinarians has impaired the agency’s ability to meet its food safety 

responsibilities, but FSIS headquarters officials told us this was not the 

case. In 2004, we recommended that FSIS periodically assess whether the 

level of resources dedicated to humane handling and slaughter activities is

sufficient, but the agency has yet to demonstrate that they have done so. 

Third, ARS reported a 12 percent shortage of veterinarians. Officials told 

us the agency needed 65 veterinarians—most of them with a Ph.D.—to 

conduct critical animal disease research, such as detecting avian influenza 

and developing vaccines against it. However, in fiscal year 2008, ARS had 

only 57. Fourth, while the Army has filled all of its active-duty veterinarian 

positions, officials reported that the veterinary reserve corps is 12 percent 

short of its goal and identified an increasing demand for veterinary 

pathologists and medical intelligence specialists. In contrast to these four 

agencies, FDA does not regularly assess the sufficiency of its veterinarian

workforce. FDA officials told us the agency has enough veterinarians to 

meet its responsibilities, despite a 2007 internal review that found its 

scientific workforce, including veterinarians, is inadequate and that FDA’s 

Center for Veterinary Medicine is in a state of crisis. 

• At the department level, neither USDA nor HHS has assessed its 

veterinarian workforce to gain a departmentwide perspective on trends 

and shared issues, whereas DOD has a process for doing so. USDA does 

not perform such assessments because, according to department-level

officials, workforce planning is the responsibility of the component 

agencies. As a result, USDA’s agencies compete against one another for a 

limited number of veterinarians. According to FSIS officials, APHIS is 

attracting veterinarians away from FSIS because the work at APHIS is 

more appealing, there are more opportunities for advancement, and the 

salaries are higher. HHS officials told us they do not assess veterinarian 

workforce needs departmentwide because veterinarians are not deemed 

mission critical for the department, even though they are critical to the 

missions of its component agencies that employ veterinarians. 

• Governmentwide, no integrated approach exists for assessing the current 

and future sufficiency of the veterinarian workforce. Yet officials from 16 

of the 24 component agencies and other federal entities that employ 

Page 6 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
 

veterinarians told us they are concerned about the sufficiency of their 

veterinarian workforce. This includes four of the five key agencies where 

we focused our agency-level review. Further exacerbating these concerns 

is the number of veterinarians eligible to retire in the near future. Our 

analysis revealed that 27 percent of the veterinarians at APHIS, FSIS, ARS, 

Army, and FDA will be eligible to retire within 3 years. OPM officials told 

us they will initiate a governmentwide effort to address this issue if the 

departments demonstrate that a shortage exists. This could include 

allowing departments to expedite the hiring of veterinarians, as OPM has 

done in the past in the case of doctors and nurses. 

We are making several recommendations to improve the federal 

government’s ability to meet its routine veterinary responsibilities. 

The federal government has undertaken efforts to identify the veterinarian 

workforce needed during two catastrophic events—a pandemic and 

multiple intentional introductions of foot-and-mouth disease. However, 

these efforts are insufficient because they are either incomplete, based on

an infeasible planning assumption, or lacking in adequate data. 

• Four of the five agencies we reviewed—APHIS, FSIS, ARS, and FDA—

have developed pandemic plans that identify how they will continue 

essential functions, including those that veterinarians perform, during a 

pandemic that severely reduces the workforce. However, each plan lacks 

elements that DHS has deemed necessary. For example, FDA’s plan does 

not identify which functions its veterinarians must perform on site, which 

can be performed remotely, or how the agency will conduct essential 

functions if a pandemic renders its leadership and essential staff 

unavailable. FDA officials told us they are updating their plan and will 

consider such gaps. The Army is still in the process of getting its pandemic 

plan approved and, therefore, we have not evaluated it. 

• DHS has two efforts under way that involve identifying the workforce 

needed during a catastrophic outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, which 

would require veterinarians to quickly diagnose and control the fastmoving disease in a large number of animals. The first effort is hindered by

an infeasible planning assumption. Specifically, DHS is coordinating a 

long-term national effort that is based on the assumption, set forth by a 

White House Homeland Security Council working group, that the United 

States would slaughter all potentially exposed animals, as it has during 

smaller outbreaks of foreign animal diseases. However, DHS and USDA 

officials consider this approach infeasible for such a large outbreak and 

told us that although the planning effort is a valuable exercise for 

understanding the enormity of the resources needed to respond to such an 

event, any workforce estimates produced from this effort are not relevant. 

Page 7 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
 

The second effort is hindered by a lack of information. Specifically, DHS is 

modeling various foot-and-mouth disease outbreak scenarios in order to 

estimate the number and type of personnel needed for responding to footand-mouth disease by using vaccines, among other things. Vaccinating 

animals instead of slaughtering them to control the outbreak is a new 

strategy, which DHS and USDA officials believe may play an important 

role in controlling a catastrophic outbreak. However, the details of how 

this vaccine-based strategy would be implemented are not yet formalized, 

reducing the likelihood that workforce estimates will be accurate. In 

addition, the models do not yet factor in the potential for the disease to 

spread between livestock and wildlife. If wildlife became infected, as they

have in some past outbreaks, control and eradication strategies would be 

greatly complicated and could require more veterinarians and different 

expertise. Agency officials recognize the importance of including wildlife 

for controlling and eradicating foot-and-mouth disease but told us that the 

data on how wildlife and livestock interact are limited. 

We are making recommendations to improve the federal government’s 

ability to identify the veterinarian workforce needed during a pandemic 

and to respond to a large-scale outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease. 

The veterinarian workforce challenge most commonly cited by federal and 

state agencies involved in the four recent zoonotic outbreaks we reviewed 

was insufficient veterinarian capacity. Specifically, officials we

interviewed at 12 of the 17 agencies involved in the recent outbreaks told 

us they did not have enough veterinarians to address these outbreaks 

while continuing to carry out their routine activities. Officials at numerous 

state agencies attribute this insufficient capacity to difficulty recruiting 

and retaining veterinarians because, among other things, the salaries they 

are able to offer are lower than those offered in the federal or private 

sectors. In addition, to control a demanding outbreak of exotic Newcastle 

disease in poultry in California in 2003, APHIS had to borrow more than 

1,000 veterinarians from federal and state agencies around the country, as 

well as the private sector. This reduced the number of veterinarians 

available to respond to outbreaks of bovine tuberculosis in Michigan,

monkeypox in Wisconsin, and West Nile virus in Colorado. Despite reports 

of insufficient veterinarian capacity during the four outbreaks, the 

agencies have not taken full advantage of two key opportunities to learn 

from past experience. First, 10 of the 17 agencies have not assessed their 

own veterinarian workforce’s response to individual outbreaks, which our 

Page 8 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
 

prior work has identified as a useful tool for improving response.5 Second,

none of the agencies have looked across outbreaks to identify common 

challenges. Consequently, the agencies are missing the opportunity to 

identify workforce challenges that have arisen during outbreaks and ways

to address them in the future. Federal and state agency officials we spoke 

with generally agreed that it would be beneficial to conduct postoutbreak 

assessments. However, some agency officials told us that they are already 

having difficulty meeting their responsibilities and have not had time to do 

so. We are making recommendations to improve the ability of the federal

government to help ensure the efficient and effective use of the 

veterinarian workforce during future zoonotic disease outbreaks. 

In commenting on a draft of this report, USDA, DOD, OPM, DHS, and 

Interior generally concurred with the report’s recommendations. However, 

DHS did not agree that veterinarian workforce estimates produced from 

one of its planning efforts are not relevant. HHS generally concurred with 

our report but disagreed with a 2007 FDA Advisory Committee report GAO 

cited, which said that FDA’s Center of Veterinary Medicine is in a state of 

crisis. USDA, DOD, HHS, OPM, DHS, and Interior also provided additional 

information, comments, and clarifications on the report’s findings that we 

have addressed, as appropriate, throughout the report. 

High-performing public organizations have found that maintaining a 

quality workforce requires them to systematically assess current and 

future workforce needs and formulate a long-term strategy to attract, 

retain, develop, and motivate employees. While simple in theory, strategic 

planning can be difficult to carry out. Managers must, for example, acquire 

accurate information on the workforce, set goals for employee 

performance, and develop ways to measure that performance. According 

to our previous work, strategic workforce planning should involve certain

key principles. Among these principles is the need to involve top 

management, employees, and other stakeholders in developing, 

communicating, and implementing a strategic workforce plan. Other 

principles include determining the critical skills that will be needed, 

developing strategies to address any gaps in these skills, building the 

capability needed to address educational and other requirements 

important to support workforce planning strategies, and monitoring and 

Background 

 5

GAO, Emergency Preparedness and Response: Some Issues and Challenges Associated

with Major Emergency Incidents, GAO-06-467T (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 23, 2006). 

Page 9 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
 

evaluating progress toward workforce goals.6 However, federal agencies 

have for years lacked a strategic approach to workforce management. 

Consequently, since 2001, we have identified human capital management 

as a high-risk area needing urgent attention and transformation.7

OPM provides information and guidance on a wide range of strategies that 

departments and agencies can use to help strategically plan for and 

maintain a workforce sufficient to accomplish their missions. This 

includes standard retention and recruitment payments, such as 

recruitment incentives and student loan repayments. OPM can also 

authorize departments to use additional strategies to address workforce 

shortage situations should standard strategies prove insufficient. For 

example, OPM can approve higher salaries for individual positions in an 

occupation if the agency has difficulty staffing a position requiring an 

extremely high level of expertise that is critical to the agency’s successful 

accomplishment of an important mission. 

In addition to maintaining a workforce sufficient for routine functions, 

departments and agencies are directed by the President to ensure they can

carry out essential functions during a “catastrophic event.” Such a 

catastrophic event is any natural or man-made incident, including 

terrorism, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, 

or disruption severely affecting the population, infrastructure, 

environment, economy, national morale, and/or government functions. To 

do so, agencies must develop continuity of operation plans for 

emergencies that disrupt normal operations. Continuity planning includes 

identifying and establishing procedures to ensure vital resources are 

safeguarded, available, and accessible to support continuity operations. 

Vital resources are personnel, equipment, systems, infrastructures, 

supplies, and other assets required to perform an agency’s essential 

functions. DHS’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) 

provides direction to the federal executive branch for developing 

continuity plans and programs, including pandemic plans. 

For one type of catastrophic event, a pandemic that severely reduces the 

workforce, DHS has developed guidance that identifies specific elements

 6

See GAO-04-39; GAO, Human Capital: Insights for U.S. Agencies from Other Countries’

Succession Planning and Management Initiatives, GAO-03-914 (Washington, D.C.: Sept.

15, 2003). 

7

See GAO-09-271. 

Page 10 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
 

agencies should consider as they plan to maintain essential services and

functions. FEMA concluded that planning for a pandemic requires a state 

of preparedness that goes beyond normal continuity of operations 

planning. On March 1, 2006, FEMA first issued guidance to assist 

departments and agencies in identifying special considerations for 

protecting the health and safety of employees and maintaining essential 

functions and services during a pandemic. The Implementation Plan for 

the National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza recommends that 

organizations plan for a 40 percent absenteeism rate at the height of a 

pandemic. In addition, it called for department and agency pandemic plans 

to be completed by March 31, 2006.

Departments and agencies must also plan for other events that could place 

extraordinary demands on their workforce, such as a catastrophic 

outbreak of a foreign animal disease. In December 2003, the President 

issued a Homeland Security Presidential Directive (HSPD-8) to establish 

national policy to strengthen the preparedness of the United States to 

prevent and respond to terrorist attacks, major disasters, and other 

emergencies. As part of its efforts to meet HSPD-8, a White House 

Homeland Security Council working group developed National Planning 

Scenarios for 15 major events, including a biological attack with a foreign 

animal disease, foot-and-mouth disease. According to the scenario, 

terrorists introduce the disease in several locations and states 

simultaneously. The transportation of livestock spreads the contagious 

virus to surrounding states and, within 10 days of the attack, more than 

half of the states may be affected. Ultimately, almost half the nation’s beef, 

dairy, and swine would be affected. These scenarios serve as the basis for 

assessing the nation’s preparedness for such an event by defining tasks 

that may be required and the capabilities needed governmentwide to 

perform these tasks. Although not a prescription for the resources needed 

to achieve these capabilities, they are intended to help identify such 

resource needs and guide planning efforts. No single jurisdiction or agency 

will be expected to perform every task, so the response to a catastrophic 

event will require coordination among all levels of government. State and 

local agencies are typically the first to respond, but federal agencies 

become involved if state resources are overwhelmed. In certain 

catastrophic events, it becomes the responsibility of DHS to coordinate 

the federal response. 

Page 11 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
 

Four of the five key agencies that employ veterinarians—APHIS, FSIS, 

ARS, and Army—regularly assess the sufficiency of their veterinarian 

workforces for routine program activities, and all four identified existing 

or potential shortages. FDA does not perform such assessments. At the 

department level, USDA and HHS have not assessed their veterinarian 

workforces across their component agencies, whereas DOD has delegated 

this task to the Army. Finally, there is no governmentwide assessment of 

the veterinarian workforce. Specifically, OPM has not conducted a 

governmentwide effort to address current and future veterinarian 

shortages identified by component agencies, and efforts by the Congress 

to address the national shortage have thus far had minimal impact. 

APHIS, FSIS, ARS, and Army conduct regular workforce assessments. 

While APHIS reported it does not currently have a shortage, it identified a

potential future shortage. FSIS, ARS, and Army have identified both 

existing and potential future shortages. FDA does not conduct such 

assessments, but officials there told us the veterinarian workforce is 

adequate to meet its responsibilities. Our work has shown that agencies 

should be held accountable for the ongoing monitoring and refinement of

human capital approaches to recruit and hire a capable and committed 

federal workforce. 

APHIS reported that none of its six units that employ veterinarians has 

identified a current shortage, but officials told us they are concerned 

about the future size and skills of the veterinarian workforce. First, the 

agency reported that 30 percent of its veterinarians will be eligible to retire

by the end of fiscal year 2011, potentially creating a serious shortage. This

is consistent with our previous work where we reported that one-third of

federal career employees on board at the end of fiscal year 2007 are 

eligible to retire between spring 2008 and 2012.8

 In addition, APHIS is 

concerned that it will be unable to maintain an adequate workforce of 

veterinary pathologists. This is consistent with a report by the United 

States Animal Health Association, which found a shortage of over 40 

percent nationwide. An APHIS laboratory director told us that veterinary

pathologists are integral to work conducted in APHIS diagnostic 

laboratories, including work on diseases that threaten animal and human 

health. For example, APHIS veterinary pathologists work on bovine 

The Federal 

Government Lacks a 

Comprehensive 

Understanding of the 

Sufficiency of Its 

Veterinarian 

Workforce 

Four of Five Agencies 

Have Identified Existing 

and Potential Veterinarian 

Shortages

APHIS 

 8

See GAO, Older Workers: Federal Agencies Face Challenges, But Have Opportunities to

Hire and Retain Experienced Employees, GAO-08-630T (Washington, D.C.: April 30, 2008).

Page 12 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
 

spongiform encephalopathy, a fatal degenerative disease—commonly 

known as mad cow disease—that has been linked to at least 165 human 

deaths worldwide. APHIS also identified a need to maintain a veterinarian

workforce with sufficient expertise to help protect livestock and the 

nation’s food supply from foreign animal diseases. We reported in 2005 

that many U.S. veterinarians lack the training needed to identify such 

diseases, whether naturally or intentionally introduced.9

 Finally, after the 

terrorist attacks of 2001, USDA’s responsibilities were broadened to 

enhance the ability of the United States to manage domestic incidents. As 

such, in addition to being the lead for coordinating any response efforts to 

incidents involving an animal disease, APHIS will now also play a 

supporting role in incidents not directly related to animal diseases. For 

example, APHIS veterinarians may be called upon to assist in ensuring the 

safety and security of the commercial food supply or for caring for 

livestock stranded in hurricanes and floods. These increased 

responsibilities raise concerns about the ability of veterinarians to respond 

to multiple, simultaneous events, according to agency officials. 

APHIS has supported training opportunities to help overcome some of 

these projected skill gaps. The agency has also set a goal of recruiting at 

all veterinary colleges and working with universities to help them include 

relevant training in their course offerings. In addition, APHIS uses bonuses 

to attract and maintain its veterinarian workforce. During the first 9 

months of fiscal year 2008, it provided one retention and one relocation 

bonus to veterinarians, totaling $41,654. 

Over the past decade, FSIS has not had a sufficient number of 

veterinarians and remains unable to overcome this shortage, according to

FSIS officials. The agency’s goal was to have 1,134 veterinarians on staff in 

fiscal year 2008, but it fell short of that by 166 veterinarians, or 15 percent.

Moreover, since fiscal year 2003, the FSIS veterinarian workforce has 

decreased by nearly 10 percent—from 1,073 to 968. The majority of these 

veterinarians work in slaughter plants. Federal law prohibits slaughtering

livestock or poultry at a plant that prepares the livestock or poultry for 

human consumption for use in interstate commerce unless the animals 

have been examined by USDA inspectors and requires the humane 

slaughtering and handling of livestock at such plants. In implementing 

federal law, each slaughter plant is covered by one or more FSIS 

FSIS 

 9

GAO, Homeland Security: Much Is Being Done to Protect Agriculture from a Terrorist 

Attack, but Important Challenges Remain, GAO-05-214 (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 8, 2005).

Page 13 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
 

veterinarians to, among other things, ensure the safety and quality of meat

and poultry products and the humane treatment of livestock during 

slaughter. Agency data from the past 5 years reveal that vacancy rates for 

veterinarian positions in slaughter plants vary by location and year, from 

no vacancy to as many as 35 percent of the positions vacant. 

FSIS headquarters officials and veterinarians working in slaughter plants 

differed on the impact of this shortage. Headquarters officials told us that, 

despite the shortage, the agency has been able to meet its food safety and

other responsibilities by redistributing the workforce. For example, in 

some cases, FSIS has assigned one veterinarian to several slaughter plants 

or assigned only one to plants that previously had two. In contrast, several 

veterinarians working in slaughter plants told us that, because of 

inadequate staffing, they are not always able to meet their responsibilities 

and perform high-quality work. For example, veterinarians told us they 

cannot always verify crucial sanitation and security checks of the plant or 

promptly log data on animal diseases and welfare. 

In early 2008, veterinarians also told us they did not always have time to 

ensure the humane treatment of livestock. Inhumane treatment triggered

an investigation that led to the largest beef recall in U.S. history. More 

specifically, in February 2008, the Humane Society of the United States 

released videos to the public that documented abuse of cattle awaiting 

slaughter at a plant in Chino, California. These alleged abuses, which took 

place in the fall of 2007, included electrically shocking nonambulatory 

“downer” cattle, spraying them with high-pressure water hoses, and 

ramming them with a forklift in an apparent attempt to force them to rise 

for slaughter. These acts are not only cruel, they pose a risk to the safety 

of the food supply, because downer animals are known to be at greater 

risk for bovine spongiform encephalopathy. FSIS regulations require that 

downer cattle be separated to await disposition by an inspector, even if 

they become nonambulatory after an inspector has approved the animal

for slaughter during the preslaughter inspection. On February 1, 2008, the 

plant voluntarily ceased operations pending investigation by FSIS into the 

alleged abuses. On February 17, 2008, the plant announced that it was 

voluntarily recalling approximately 143 million pounds of raw and frozen 

beef products because of its failure to notify FSIS of the downer cows and 

the remote possibility that the beef being recalled could cause adverse 

health effects if consumed. The release of the videos by the Humane 

Society led congressional committees and USDA to question how such 

events could have occurred at a plant in which FSIS inspectors were 

assigned. At the request of the Secretary of Agriculture, USDA’s Office of 

Inspector General (OIG) is leading a criminal investigation that is ongoing

Page 14 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
 

at the time of this report. In addition, OIG conducted an audit of FSIS’s 

controls over preslaughter activities and reported in November 2008 that 

controls to demonstrate the sufficiency and competency of FSIS’ 

personnel resources could be strengthened to minimize the chance that 

such events could recur, among other things.10

Veterinarians and other FSIS officials we interviewed told us that, at the 

time of the incident, only one veterinarian was assigned to the plant that 

was the source of the recall, whereas two had been assigned in past years.

Two veterinarians were needed, according to these officials, because the

plant processed “cull” dairy cows, which are no longer used for milk 

production. These cows are generally older and in poorer condition than 

other livestock and thus require more frequent veterinary inspection. In 

the wake of this incident, FSIS required veterinarians to spend more time 

verifying the humane treatment of animals. However, veterinarians told us 

that this exacerbated the difficulty of completing their other work. In 2004, 

we made recommendations aimed at ensuring that FSIS can make wellinformed estimates about the inspection resources—including 

veterinarians—needed to enforce the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act of 

1978.

11 Specifically, we recommended that FSIS periodically assess 

whether the level of resources dedicated to humane handling and 

slaughter activities is sufficient, but the agency has yet to demonstrate that 

they have done so. 

FSIS officials told us that there are several reasons for the agency’s 

ongoing shortage of veterinarians. For example, most veterinarians do not 

want to work in the unpleasant environment of a slaughterhouse. 

Furthermore, veterinarians are trained to heal animals, but FSIS 

veterinarians are hired to oversee the slaughter of animals. The job can 

also be physically and emotionally grueling, and many of the plants are in

remote and sometimes undesirable locations. In addition, as a result of 

staff shortages, there is little opportunity to take time off for training that

could lead to promotion. Finally, FSIS veterinarians told us that their 

salaries do not sufficiently compensate for the working conditions and are 

low relative to those of other veterinarians. According to OPM’s Central 

 10USDA, Office of Inspector General, Great Plains Region, Audit Report: Evaluation of 

FSIS Management Controls Over Pre-Slaughter Activities, 24601-0007-KC (Washington, 

D.C.: November 2008). 

11GAO, Humane Methods of Slaughter Act: USDA Has Addressed Some Problems but Still 

Faces Enforcement Challenges, GAO-04-247 (Washington, D.C.: Jan. 30, 2004). 

Page 15 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
 

Personnel Data File, the mean annual salary for FSIS veterinarians in 2007 

was $77,678; in contrast, the mean salary for private-practice veterinarians 

was $115,447 in 2007, according to the most recent data from the American 

Veterinary Medical Association. In commenting on a draft of this report, 

FSIS officials added that there is a lack of public health and food-safety 

emphasis in veterinary schools. 

FSIS has taken several steps to address the shortage. For example, it 

awarded 35 recruitment bonuses totaling more than $583,000 in the first 9 

months of fiscal year 2008. FSIS also has internship programs that have, 

according to agency officials, increased awareness and generated interest 

in veterinarian work at the agency. For example, over the past 5 years, 

FSIS has established agreements with 16 veterinary schools to provide 

volunteer training opportunities to veterinary students with an interest in 

food safety and public health. In fiscal year 2008, there were 26 

participants in the program, compared with only 1 when the program 

began in 2003. Two participants have thus far returned to FSIS for full-time 

employment after graduation. FSIS also has a paid veterinary student 

program that is designed to provide experience directly related to the 

student’s educational program and career goals. Since 2002, when FSIS 

began tracking this program, 77 students have participated, and 6 have

become full-time employees. In addition, FSIS has sought special hiring 

authorities from OPM. For example, in July 2008, the agency was 

delegated authority to hire a limited number of retirees at full salary 

instead of at the reduced salary required for those with annuity income. 

Officials told us they hope this will encourage retired veterinarians to join 

FSIS, but, as of the date of this report, no retirees have been hired through

this program. FSIS intends to track the effectiveness of this special hiring

authority. Moreover, FSIS has proposed implementing a demonstration 

project that would allow the agency to test a pay system that offers more 

competitive salaries to veterinarians, among others. OPM requires that 

agencies undertaking such a project provide OPM with an analysis of the 

impact of the project results in relation to its objectives. OPM officials told 

us the project may be implemented in July 2009. Finally, OPM has in the 

past granted FSIS the ability to make immediate job offers to veterinarians

without following prescribed competitive procedures, which can slow the 

hiring process. This “direct-hire authority” expired in 2007 and was not 

renewed at that time because, according to FSIS officials, USDA did not 

provide the expiration notification to FSIS. We were recently informed 

that USDA received approval from OPM on November 25, 2008, for direct 

hire for FSIS veterinarians lasting through December 31, 2009. However, 

FSIS officials raised concerns about the length of time of the authority, 

Page 16 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
 

among other things, stating that it takes 5 to 6 months to renew this 

authority. 

ARS employed 57 veterinarians in fiscal year 2008, 12 percent short of its 

goal of 65. It has reported similar shortages throughout the last 5 years. 

Although veterinarians represent a small share of the ARS workforce 

(about 1 percent of more than 4,300 scientists and research technicians), 

the agency considers them critical to its mission. According to ARS 

officials, a sufficient veterinarian workforce is important to the quality and

breadth of research ARS is able to conduct. For example, ARS would not 

have been able to conduct its research on the detection of avian influenza 

and development of vaccines against it, or on the transmission of bovine 

tuberculosis, without its veterinarians’ skills and experience.

ARS officials told us it is difficult to attract and retain veterinarians 

because the agency requires its research veterinarians and senior program 

leaders who are veterinarians to have a Ph.D. in animal sciences or a 

related field, as well as a veterinary degree, and there is a limited pool of 

candidates for these positions. A recent report by the National Academy of 

Sciences identified a declining interest in veterinary research among 

veterinary students as a cause of a shortage of Ph.D. veterinarians. In 

addition, ARS officials told us the agency cannot compete with many of 

the salaries offered in the private sector. In 2007, the mean salary for ARS 

veterinarians was $102,081, according to OPM’s Central Personnel Data 

File. This is about $28,000 less than the mean salary reported by the 

American Veterinary Medical Association for veterinarians with a Ph.D. 

working at universities and colleges and about $96,000 less than those 

working in industry with similar qualifications, such as at pharmaceutical 

companies. 

To address its shortage of Ph.D. veterinarians, ARS provided six 

recruitment or retention bonuses to its veterinarians totaling $48,313 in the 

first 9 months of fiscal year 2008. The agency also created a tuition 

program in 2003, but participation has been limited. Only four individuals 

have been hired through the tuition program, and only two remained with 

the agency, according to officials. Under this program, ARS hires 

veterinarians without a Ph.D. and pays tuition and other educational costs

while they earn this degree. Officials told us that the lack of success is 

most likely due to low salaries at ARS. In addition, the agency is reluctant 

to use this program because it diverts funding from the hiring of 

employees already qualified and ready to work. 

ARS 

Page 17 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
 

The Army reported that it filled its 446 authorized active-duty veterinarian 

positions, but that its veterinary reserve corps is not at full strength. 

Specifically, the Army only filled 173 of its 197 reserve positions in fiscal 

year 2008, a 12 percent shortage. According to the Army’s analysis, the 

reserve corps has been at less than full strength since fiscal year 2005. 

These veterinarians commit to part-time training and to being deployed to

full-time active duty when needed. The shortage means there is not a 

sufficient pool of veterinarians that can be called into active duty as the 

need arises. This is a concern, according to the official responsible for 

assessing Army veterinarian workforce needs, because the Army’s need 

for veterinarian services is increasing due to growing concerns over 

bioterrorism, intentional contamination of the food supply, emerging 

zoonotic diseases, and due to operational requirements, such as 

agricultural reconstruction in Afghanistan and Iraq, among other things. 

This official told us that recruitment into the reserves has been a problem 

because of the length, frequency, and uncertainty of deployments, which, 

in some cases has also resulted in veterinarians losing their jobs or 

suffering financial hardships. However, he told us that recent changes to 

the reserve corps program—such as decreasing the length of deployment 

from 1 year to 180 days, and making additional incentives available to 

veterinarians in the reserves—have helped strengthen the capacity of the

veterinary reserve corps.

Officials also told us they are concerned about a growing need for certain

special veterinary skills. For example, there is an increasing demand for 

Army veterinary pathologists, who are essential for interpreting test 

results from animals used in drug and vaccine research. The official 

responsible for assessing Army veterinarian workforce needs told us the 

Army has yet to formally assess this need. Other Army veterinarians 

conduct medical intelligence work for DOD’s Defense Intelligence Agency, 

where officials told us they are concerned about the difficulty of recruiting 

veterinarians with appropriate skills to meet a growing need to, among 

other things, collect and analyze data on animal diseases that could be 

used in a terrorist attack. Veterinarians are important to such work 

because, according to these officials, the majority of diseases considered 

to be potential bioterrorism agents are animal diseases that could also 

affect humans. They told us that while the agency is working to expand its 

workforce capabilities to address bioterrorism, there is a concern that the 

growing demand for veterinarian capabilities may outpace the growth of 

the Army’s workforce. 

The primary reason for the Army’s success in maintaining its active-duty

veterinarian workforce is a scholarship program, according to the official

Army

Page 18 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
 

responsible for assessing Army veterinarian workforce needs. This 

program targets veterinary students and pays their tuition and fees to 

veterinary school in exchange for a commitment to (1) serve as a 

veterinarian in the Army for 3 years and (2) serve an additional 5 years 

either in active duty or in the Army reserve program. In fiscal year 2008, 

the Army reported it had 106 qualified applicants for 47 scholarships. 

According to the official, the program is successful because it targets 

students before they accumulate school-related debt. Veterinary students 

graduate with more than $106,000 in debt, on average, according to the 

American Veterinary Medical Association. In addition, the funding for this

program is directed specifically by congressional committees, separate 

from funds the Army uses to hire veterinarians. 

FDA officials reported that the agency has not assessed the sufficiency of 

its veterinarian workforce, but they told us that the workforce is sufficient 

to meet its responsibilities. However, a 2007 report by an FDA Advisory 

Committee found that FDA cannot fulfill its mission because of an 

insufficient scientific workforce.12 More specifically, the report states that 

FDA’s scientific workforce has remained static while its workload has 

increased, and that FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM) is in a 

state of crisis. This center employs nearly two-thirds of FDA’s 152 

veterinarians and is responsible for ensuring the safety of veterinary drugs 

and regulating animal feed, among other things. An author of the report 

told us that veterinarians enter FDA employment lacking necessary skills 

and experience to examine the wide variety of veterinary products that 

require FDA approval and that FDA needs to better train its veterinarians 

to review the many diverse products under its jurisdiction. FDA officials 

told us the agency is currently undertaking significant reforms to address 

fundamental concerns in the report. For example, FDA reported it hired 

more than 1,000 scientists in order to build a more robust workforce, and 

it created the position of Chief Scientist to improve coordination of 

science planning and execution across the agency. However, FDA did not 

tell us how these reforms address the identified veterinarian skill gaps. 

Although FDA officials said the veterinarian workforce is sufficient, CVM 

officials recently told us that as a result of new obligations, the center 

hired 26 veterinarians in 2008 to fill vacancies. This represents a 17 

FDA 

 12FDA Science Board, Subcommittee on Science and Technology, FDA Science and 

Mission at Risk, a special report prepared at the request of the Food and Drug 

Administration (November 2007). 

Page 19 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
 

percent increase in FDA’s overall veterinarian workforce in 2008, and it 

plans to hire more. The additional staff will enhance FDA’s ability to 

review generic animal drug submissions, among other things, according to

these officials. In addition, in commenting on a draft of this report, OPM 

informed us that it is currently reviewing a request for direct-hire authority 

from FDA to fill veterinary positions. According to OPM, this request is 

based on a severe shortage of candidates and it is projected that this 

authority may be granted through December 31, 2010. CVM also plans to 

develop an internship program for entry-level veterinarians and other 

scientists in order to develop a qualified talent pool from which to draw 

permanent employees. Further, these officials said that, as a result of 

recent participation in interagency efforts to protect the nation’s food 

supply, CVM has begun to analyze the gap between its current resources 

and its needs. 

Even though their component agencies identified concerns about their 

veterinarian workforces, officials from both USDA and HHS told us that 

they have not undertaken a departmentwide assessment of these 

workforces to gain a broader perspective on trends and shared issues. In 

contrast, DOD has a process for such an assessment. Our prior work has 

found that top-level management needs to be involved in order for 

strategic workforce planning to be effective.13

Although USDA regularly collects veterinarian workforce data from its 

component agencies that employ veterinarians, it does not use this 

information to assess the sufficiency of the veterinarian workforce 

departmentwide. Department officials told us that workforce assessment 

is the responsibility of the agencies. Because USDA delegates this 

responsibility, it appears to be unaware of the scope of the workforce 

problems facing its agencies. For example, in its fiscal year 2007 human 

capital management report, USDA reported that its agencies had met or 

surpassed certain veterinarian workforce goals but made no mention of 

the shortages that FSIS and ARS identified in their workforce reports. 

USDA officials agreed that the report did not capture this critical 

information and that future reports should address the shortages. 

Departments Have Done 

Little to Assess the 

Sufficiency of Their 

Veterinarian Workforces 

across Their Component 

Agencies

USDA 

 13See GAO-04-39; GAO-03-914. 

Page 20 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
 

One result of this lack of department-level involvement is that USDA 

agencies compete against one another for veterinarians instead of 

following a departmentwide strategy to balance the needs of the agencies. 

According to FSIS officials, APHIS is attracting veterinarians away from 

FSIS because the work at APHIS is more appealing, there are more 

opportunities for advancement, and the salaries are higher. Indeed, our 

analysis shows that veterinarians are more concentrated in lower grade 

levels at FSIS than at APHIS (see fig. 1). Moreover, according to OPM’s 

Central Personnel Data File, the mean annual salary for veterinarians at 

FSIS in 2007 was about $78,000, the lowest among the three key USDA 

agencies (see fig. 2). According to an APHIS human resources official, the 

agency hired 75 veterinarians from FSIS between fiscal years 2003 and 

2007, 17 percent of total new APHIS veterinarians hired. 

Figure 1: Percentage of Veterinarian Grade Levels by Key USDA Agencies in Fiscal 

Year 2008 

Note: Federal agency grade levels represent ascending rates of basic pay, from GS-1 through GS-15, 

above which is the Senior Executive Service (SES). 

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

FSIS

ARS

APHIS

GS-16+ 

or SES

GS-9-10 GS-11 GS-12 GS-13 GS-14 GS-15

Percentage of veterinarians

Grade level

Source: GAO analysis of agency survey responses.

Page 21 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
 

Figure 2: Mean Veterinarian Salaries by Key USDA Agencies, Fiscal Years 2003-

2007 

Note: Data in this figure contains locality pay. 

HHS neither assesses veterinarian workforce needs departmentwide nor 

has it instructed any of its component agencies that employ 

veterinarians—FDA, CDC, and the National Institutes of Health (NIH)—to 

assess their own workforces. HHS is thus not fully aware of the status of 

the veterinarian workforce at these component agencies and cannot 

strategically plan for future veterinarian needs. If it were able to provide 

such planning, it might be able to help FDA address workforce concerns 

raised in the 2007 FDA Science and Mission at Risk report. However, 

senior HHS strategic workforce planning officials we spoke with were 

unaware of the report. 

HHS officials told us that departmental leadership in workforce planning 

is important. In fact, they said the department is in the preliminary stages 

of developing a strategic departmentwide approach to workforce planning

for certain professions. This effort will initially focus on workforce 

assessments for specific occupations, such as nurses and medical doctors.

Source: GAO analysis of Central Personnel Data File data.

Fiscal year

Mean veterinarian salary (in thousands)

0

65

70

75

80

85

90

95

100

105

ARS

APHIS

FSIS

2003 2004 2005 2006 2007

HHS 

Page 22 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
 

HHS officials told us they will not initially include veterinarians in this 

effort, because veterinarians are not deemed mission critical for the 

department, even though they are critical to the missions of FDA, CDC, 

and NIH. However, HHS officials said that this effort does not preclude 

agencies from assessing their own veterinarian workforce needs and 

sharing that information with the department. HHS officials also told us 

that because the department is expected to provide veterinary medical 

care and support during public health and medical disasters that warrant a 

coordinated federal response, it is critical that appropriate veterinary 

resources are identified and maintained. Furthermore, these officials told

us that efforts are under way at the component agency level to address the 

national veterinary shortage. Specifically, CDC, in collaboration with 

Emory University, has developed a residency program designed to provide 

comprehensive training in laboratory animal medicine to better prepare 

veterinarians for working in laboratory research facilities at CDC and 

across the nation. In addition, in 2006 and 2008 CDC sponsored a 

“Veterinary Student Day” to promote public health careers for 

veterinarians. 

Unlike USDA and HHS, DOD has a process for assessing veterinarian 

workforce needs departmentwide. It has given this responsibility to the 

Army, which employs 89 percent of DOD veterinarians, with the remaining 

veterinarians working as public health officials for the Air Force. The

Army assesses not only the number and type of veterinarians it will need 

but also what will be needed for the other services. For example, Army 

veterinarians are routinely assigned to care for working dogs and other 

animals at Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine bases. Army veterinarians 

also conduct medical intelligence activities at the Defense Intelligence 

Agency. As the executive agency charged with assessing veterinarian 

workforce requirements for DOD, the Army takes all of these needs into 

consideration, then forwards the assessment results to DOD, which 

integrates them with overall workforce planning.

No effort is being made to assess the sufficiency of the veterinarian 

workforce governmentwide. This is problematic because the majority (67 

percent) of the 24 component agencies and other federal entities that 

employ veterinarians told us they have concerns about their veterinarian 

capabilities. OPM has not conducted a governmentwide effort to address 

current and future veterinarian shortages identified by component 

agencies, as it has done for other professions, and efforts by the Congress 

to address the national shortage have thus far had minimal impact. 

DOD 

There Is No 

Governmentwide 

Assessment of the 

Veterinarian Workforce 

Page 23 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
 

Sixteen of the 24 component agencies and other entities employing 

veterinarians reported concerns about their veterinarian workforce (see 

table 1). For example, several agencies reported that they lack veterinarian

expertise required to fully meet agency responsibilities, such as addressing 

wildlife disease outbreaks. 

Table 1: Agency Concerns about Sufficiency of the Federal Veterinarian Workforce 

Department

Component 

agency/other federal 

entity Examples of concerns reported by component agency/other federal entity 

Department of 

Agriculture 

Animal and Plant Health 

Inspection Service 

Thirty percent of its veterinarians will be eligible to retire by the end of fiscal year 

2011, and it may be difficult to maintain enough veterinarians with expertise in 

pathology and foreign animal disease in the future. Responsibilities have also 

increased in recent years, raising concerns that there will not be sufficient 

veterinarian capacity if multiple emergencies occur at once.

Food Safety and 

Inspection Service 

Veterinarian workforce falls short of agency goal by 15 percent due, in part, to 

unpleasant environment, grueling work, and low salary. 

Agricultural Research

Service 

Veterinarian workforce falls short of agency goal by 12 percent. There is a limited 

number of qualified veterinarians and agency salaries are not competitive with 

private sector. 

Cooperative State

Research, Education, and 

Extension Service 

One of the four veterinarian positions is vacant, stressing the agency’s ability to 

oversee funds for a national network of laboratories that diagnose and track animal 

diseases. 

Army Veterinary reserve corps falls short by 12 percent. Also, the number of active-duty 

veterinarian positions has remained relatively static despite increasing demands 

across the Army’s mission, including in medical intelligence, food safety and 

defense, agricultural reconstruction efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and emerging 

zoonotic diseases. 

Department of 

Defense 

Air Force Not enough veterinarians choose to join the Air Force because of the service 

commitment, and the salary is not competitive. Air Force officials are concerned 

they might not be able to fully meet the agency’s public health mission, which 

includes ensuring food safety and tracking infectious diseases on Air Force bases. 

Department of Health 

and Human Services 

Food and Drug

Administration

No concerns reported. 

National Institutes of 

Health 

Agency faces challenges recruiting veterinarians that specialize in laboratory

animal medicine and veterinary pathology, who make up the majority of veterinary 

positions at the agency. Both specialities are reporting significant shortages that 

are not forecast to improve for at least 10 years, which will hinder the agency’s 

ability to recruit qualified veterinarians. 

Centers for Disease 

Control and Prevention 

Veterinarian expertise in agriculture and animal health contribute significantly to 

human health programs and could be enhanced. 

Office of the Assistant 

Secretary for 

Preparedness and 

Response 

The Office reported that more than two full-time veterinarians are needed to help 

develop effective response programs to public health emergencies. Department 

officials did not support this statement, but said that veterinarians are integral to its 

response strategy and their continued engagement is essential. 

Department of 

Veterans Affairs 

Office of Research and 

Development 

No concerns reported. 

Page 24 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
 

Department

Component 

agency/other federal 

entity Examples of concerns reported by component agency/other federal entity 

Department of the 

Interior 

U.S. Geological Survey Salaries are not competitive with the private sector. The agency faces difficulty 

hiring veterinarians to address wildlife diseases, including those that kill many 

animals in a single local outbreak. 

U.S. Fish and Wildlife 

Service 

Agency has too few veterinarians to monitor diseases in wildlife, nationally and 

internationally.

National Park Service Agency has too few veterinarians to address wildlife diseases and survey 

outbreaks in the vast park system of 84 million acres. 

Department of 

Homeland Security 

Office of Health Affairs Agency has too few veterinarians to effectively develop the capabilities to respond 

to catastrophic food, agriculture, and veterinary events. 

Directorate for Science

and Technology 

No concerns reported. 

Directorate for National

Protection and Programs 

No concerns reported. 

Smithsonian National Zoo Salaries are not competitive; American Veterinary Medical Association-specialty 

boarded status is necessary to perform responsibilities, but compensation for this 

additional training is not available; too few veterinarians to fully conduct agency 

wildlife health and surveillance studies. 

Environmental

Protection Agency 

No concerns reported. 

U.S. Agency for 

International 

Development 

Bureaus for Economic 

Growth, Agriculture and 

Trade; for Global Health; 

and for Africa 

No concerns reported. 

Department of 

Commerce 

National Oceanic and 

Atmospheric 

Administration

Too few veterinarians available to investigate major or multiple outbreaks, or single 

events that kill many animals, when they occur in marine animals. 

National Aeronautics 

and Space 

Administration

Office of the Chief Health 

and Medical Officer 

No concerns reported. 

Department of Energy Lawrence Livermore 

National Laboratory 

There is a limited number of veterinarians with the expertise to develop models 

and conduct analyses to identify the resources agencies will need to respond to 

animal disease outbreaks, among other things. 

Department of Justice Federal Bureau of 

Investigation 

No concerns reported. 

Source: Agency survey responses and interviews. 

These current challenges are likely to worsen because a large number of 

federal veterinarians are eligible to retire in the near future. These 

retirements would exacerbate the veterinarian shortage and possibly 

increase interagency competition. Our analysis found that 697 

veterinarians at FSIS, APHIS, ARS, Army, and FDA—27 percent of the

combined veterinarian workforce of these agencies—are eligible to retire

over the next 3 years. As the shortage grows, agencies across the federal

Page 25 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
 

government may experience a situation similar to the competition 

between FSIS and APHIS, and agencies with higher salaries for 

veterinarians are likely to gain an advantage. As figure 3 illustrates, mean 

veterinarian base salaries vary widely across agencies, from just under 

$70,000 at Interior’s National Park Service to just about $122,000 at DHS’s 

Office of Health Affairs. Salaries for individual veterinarians range from 

$35,000 for those in the residency program at the National Zoo to $205,000

for the highest paid veterinarian at NIH. 

Figure 3: Mean Veterinarian Base Salaries at 19 Component Agencies or Federal Entities in Fiscal Year 2008 

Mean veterinarian salaries (in thousands)

Source: GAO analysis of agency data.

Component agency/federal entitya

USDA DOD HHS Interior

0

30

60

90

120

150

National Aeronautics

and Space

Administration

U.S. Agency for International Development

Office of Health

Affairs

Environmental Protection Agency

National Zoo

National Park Service

U.S. Fish and

Wildlife Service

Department of

Veterans

Affairs

Survey

U.S. Geological

and Atmospheric

Administration

National Oceanic

Centers for

Disease Control and Preventionb

National Institutes

of Health

Food and Drug

Administration

Air Force

Army

Cooperative State

 Research, Education,

and Extension Service

Agricultural

Research Service

Animal and Plant Health Inspection

Service

Food Safety and

Inspection Serviceb

Note: Salaries do not include locality pay and stipends. In addition, we do not display mean salary for 

those agencies with fewer than four veterinarians due to the small number of employees represented. 

This includes the Departments of Energy and Justice; HHS’s Office of the Assistant Secretary for 

Preparedness and Response; and DHS’s Directorate for National Protection and Programs. In 

addition, DHS’s Science and Technology was unable to provide base salary information in time for 

this report and, therefore, is not included. 

a

We relied on officials from these federal entities to identify mean salaries of all veterinarians 

employed, including civil and military service employees, contractors, and other, regardless of job 

title. Because data are means reported by agencies, we could not assess the underlying distribution 

for outliers or skewness. 

b

This does not include the salaries of the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps 

veterinarians stationed at these agencies. The Commissioned Corps is a uniformed service that 

belongs to HHS but fills public health leadership and service roles at several federal agencies.

Page 26 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
 

Some agencies, such as those within HHS and the Department of Veterans 

Affairs, can augment base salaries for veterinarians using special statutory 

authorities.14 Agencies can use these authorities to hire veterinarians when 

standard hiring practices, including the use of recruitment incentives, are

impracticable, less effective, or have been exhausted. In addition, DOD 

can provide all of its veterinarians with a $100 per month stipend, as well 

as up to an additional $5,000 per year of special pay if they have met the 

education and training standards of an American Veterinary Medical 

Association-recognized specialty college.15 There is no similar authority for 

USDA veterinarians. 

OPM’s mission is to ensure the federal government has an effective civilian 

workforce, but it has not conducted a governmentwide effort to address 

current and potential veterinarian shortages, as it has done for other 

professions. For certain professions, OPM has initiated governmentwide 

direct-hire authority, which allows expediting hiring during a time of 

critical need or a severe shortage of candidates. For example, in 2003, 

OPM authorized departments to immediately hire doctors, nurses, and 

other types of medical professionals without following prescribed 

competitive procedures. OPM officials told us their agency issued this 

authority based in part on department and agency concerns. OPM can also 

hold interagency forums to discuss workforce concerns but has not done 

so for veterinarians. According to OPM officials, interagency forums are 

open to all senior human capital representatives from all departments, 

including USDA and HHS. The forums provide an opportunity to discuss 

concerns, exchange ideas, and explore solutions to governmentwide 

staffing issues. OPM officials told us that no department has requested a 

discussion about veterinarian workforce concerns. Further, officials told

us that the agency will facilitate a governmentwide solution, such as an 

interagency forum, if the departments demonstrate that a shortage exists. 

Our prior work has identified the need for OPM to use its leadership 

position to provide assistance to departments and agencies efforts to 

recruit and retain a capable and committed workforce.16

OPM officials told us the agency has taken some steps that could improve 

veterinarian recruitment and retention. During the course of our review, 

 14E.g. 38 U.S.C. § 7405; 42 U.S.C. § 209(f). 

1537 U.S.C. § 303. 

16See GAO-08-762T. 

Page 27 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
 

OPM created a Personnel Action Team to determine whether a 

governmentwide direct-hire authority should be granted for all 

veterinarians. OPM did not provide further details other than to state that 

a decision is expected in early 2009. In addition, OPM recently changed the 

federal classification of veterinarians. OPM raised the entry grade level for 

newly hired veterinarians from GS-9 to GS-11 and expanded the 

description of the federal veterinarian occupation to include areas of 

specialization, such as toxicology and pathology. OPM officials believe this

will help attract more veterinarians into federal service. Agency officials 

also told us that they meet periodically with departments to ensure 

occupation classifications meet department needs. This was the first 

change of the veterinarian classification in over 20 years and was initiated 

at USDA’s request. 

The Congress has taken steps that address the broader, national 

veterinarian shortage, but its efforts thus far have had minimal impact. The 

National Veterinary Medical Services Act enacted in 2003, directs the 

Secretary of Agriculture to carry out a program to help veterinarians repay 

their school loans when they agree to work in areas of need. Although 

USDA is responsible for implementing the act, it has been delayed in doing

so. USDA’s Undersecretary for Research, Education, and Economics 

testified before the Congress that this was because the Cooperative State

Research, Education, and Extension Service (CSREES)—the USDA 

agency in charge of implementation—does not have experience with 

complex loan repayment programs. The Congress provided initial funding 

for the act in fiscal year 2006. In August 2008, CSREES began holding 

public hearings to solicit stakeholder input. Officials from USDA and 

veterinary associations told us that the $1.8 million allocated thus far for 

the program is insufficient and would have minimal impact on the 

shortage. With veterinary student debt averaging $106,000 upon 

graduation, $1.8 million would cover about 17 students with loans. 

Moreover, the program targets veterinarians who already have their degree 

and may not have the skill set the federal government is seeking. To be

effective, officials from professional veterinary associations told us, the 

program would have to provide guarantees and target students early in 

veterinary school. The Congress also enacted the Higher Education 

Opportunity Act in August 2008, which has provisions intended to increase 

the number of veterinarians in the workforce through a competitive grant 

program that can increase capacity at veterinary colleges. According to the 

American Veterinary Medical Association, however, these grants will be 

capped at $500,000 per school, which will not be enough to increase 

capacity to meet veterinarian demands. 

Page 28 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
 

Four of the five key agencies we reviewed—APHIS, FSIS, ARS, and FDA—

have plans intended to detail how essential functions and services, 

including those that veterinarians perform, would continue during a 

pandemic that has the potential to severely reduce the workforce. 

However, each lacks elements that FEMA considers important for 

effective planning. The Army is still in the process of getting its plan 

approved and, therefore, we have not evaluated it. In addition, DHS’s 

efforts to identify the veterinarian workforce needed to address a 

catastrophic nationwide outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease are based on

an unrealistic assumption and limited information. 

FEMA’s pandemic guidance assists agencies in identifying special 

considerations for maintaining essential functions and services during a 

pandemic outbreak that may cause absenteeism to reach 40 percent. For

example, the guidance directs agencies to identify in their pandemic plans 

how operations will be sustained until normal business activity can be 

reconstituted, which may be longer than the 30 days usually planned for 

other types of emergencies. Agency plans are also to identify the essential

functions that must be continued on-site and those that can be conducted

from a remote location. They also should take into consideration the need

for logistical support, services, and infrastructure that help an agency 

achieve and maintain essential functions and services. To account for the 

expected high rate of absenteeism at the peak of a pandemic, FEMA 

guidance also directs agencies to identify at least three people who can 

carry out each responsibility and identify how the agency will continue to

operate if leadership and essential staff are unavailable. Finally, agencies 

are directed to test their pandemic plans, including the impacts of reduced

staffing on facilities and essential functions and services. 

Efforts to Identify the 

Veterinarian 

Workforce Needed 

during a Pandemic 

and Large-Scale 

Animal Disease 

Outbreak Are 

Insufficient 

Agency Planning to Ensure 

Continuity of Essential 

Veterinary Functions 

during a Pandemic Is 

Incomplete 

APHIS has developed pandemic plans for its headquarters, regional 

offices, and three laboratories that employ veterinarians, but these plans 

are missing elements in FEMA’s guidance and are not well-organized. For 

example, they do not explain how animal care, disease investigation, and 

other essential functions and services would continue if leadership and 

essential staff are unavailable. Moreover, pieces of these pandemic plans 

are spread throughout a large number of documents and are not well 

linked. For example, APHIS officials provided us with an undated 

pandemic plan that they told us was an appendix to the headquarters 

continuity of operations plan. But this continuity of operations plan made 

no reference to such an appendix, and officials were never able to provide 

Page 29 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
 

us with a document that made reference to such an appendix. USDA 

recently hired a new emergency preparedness director to revise APHIS’s 

pandemic plans, among other things. The director told us that APHIS 

recognizes the importance of easily locating the plans and quickly 

implementing them in the event of a pandemic, and he acknowledged that

the current documents are not an effective plan. APHIS is now combining 

its plans into one comprehensive document that will cover APHIS 

headquarters, regional offices, and laboratories. In addition, the director 

told us the new plan, to be completed by early 2009, will better adhere to 

FEMA guidance. 

FSIS has developed a pandemic plan that addresses many of the elements

in FEMA’s guidance, but it lacks some crucial details. Importantly, the plan 

takes into account the work that veterinarians do at private slaughter 

plants. However, it does not address the logistics of how FSIS will work 

with industry to ensure veterinarians and other employees are available in

the event of a pandemic so that food production can continue. FSIS 

officials told us that they have discussed this logistic with industry and 

expect, based on these discussions, that some plants would not be able to

operate during a pandemic, as a result of FSIS or plant personnel 

absenteeism. The agency would maintain close communication with 

industry during a pandemic in order to determine how best to allocate 

available veterinarians and other FSIS inspection personnel so that 

slaughter plants could continue to operate. Veterinarians would be 

allocated to plants based on considerations such as the location of the 

outbreak and the type of slaughter plant affected. For instance, poultry 

plants may receive priority consideration because birds can only be 

slaughtered at a very specific weight. That is, the equipment for processing 

birds is designed for birds of a very specific size, and industry would not 

be able to process them if they were permitted to grow too large. 

However, such logisitcs are absent from FSIS’s plan, effectively 

postponing any decisions until the middle of a crisis. Similarly, the plan

does not mention how FSIS would work with APHIS, even though the 

agencies have formally agreed to jointly plan for critical activities related 

to surveillance of animal diseases. In addition, the plan does not consider 

the impact of local quarantines on access to plants. 

ARS has developed pandemic plans for all of its 12 laboratories where 

veterinarians work. We reviewed plans for the two laboratories that 

employ the most veterinarians: the Southeast Poultry Research Laboratory 

and the National Animal Disease Center (NADC). These plans are 

important because they spell out the site-specific details needed to ensure

that essential functions at each laboratory can continue. However, the

Page 30 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
 

plans lack crucial details, such as how the laboratories will continue 

operations if absenteeism reaches 40 percent. Specifically, neither of the

plans take into account how the laboratories would continue to conduct 

essential functions and services if leadership and essential staff are 

unavailable. Agency officials told us they would temporarily suspend 

projects to account for increased absenteeism, but there is no mention of 

this in the plans; nor is there mention of how the agency will select 

projects for suspension or what would trigger suspension. Ensuring a 

sufficient veterinarian workforce at these laboratories during a pandemic 

is important because veterinarians carry out critical research and must be 

available to ensure the proper care of research animals. In addition, NADC 

is part of a USDA research complex that is transitioning to joint ARS and 

APHIS support services, including veterinary care for research animals. 

However, ARS and APHIS have yet to jointly plan for continuity of 

operations for any type of emergency. 

FDA has also developed a pandemic plan, but it is high-level plan that does 

not address several of FEMA’s elements, leaving it unclear if consideration 

has been given to how veterinarians would carry out any essential 

functions and services during a pandemic. For example, it does not 

identify which essential functions—whether they be the responsibility of 

the veterinarian or others—must be performed on-site and which can be 

performed remotely. Nor does it explain how veterinarians, or others, will 

continue operations if absenteeism reaches 40 percent by, for example, 

delegating authority to three individuals capable of carrying out each of 

the agency’s essential functions. The plan omits other important details, 

such as contact information for individuals who could assume authority 

should essential staff and leadership become unavailable. FDA officials 

told us they will take these gaps into consideration when they update their 

plan in 2009.

The Army is still in the process of getting its pandemic plan approved and, 

therefore, we have not evaluated it. According to Army officials, the 

agency has developed a pandemic plan that has been validated by the U.S. 

Army Northern Command, but it has not yet been formally referred for 

approval to the Army’s senior leadership, and it does not contain details of

how essential functions would continue. According to DOD officials, 

subordinate divisions within the Army intend to develop detailed plans, 

but the division responsible for veterinary services (Veterinary Command) 

has yet to do so. However, DOD officials told us that the Army has been 

instrumental in helping the United States plan for an outbreak of highly 

pathogenic avian influenza in birds. Controlling the outbreak in birds 

Page 31 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
 

reduces the opportunity for the virus to mutate into a strain that could 

cause a pandemic in humans. 

FEMA guidance also directs agencies to test how well their pandemic 

plans might maintain essential functions and services given reduced 

staffing levels. FSIS and FDA are the only agencies we reviewed that have

done so. In March 2007, FSIS conducted a “tabletop” pandemic exercise 

where key personnel discuss simulated scenarios in an informal setting in 

order to test their plans, policies, and procedures. In a summary report, 

FSIS officials noted that, among other things, additional exercises were 

needed to improve coordination with industry. FSIS subsequently 

conducted a similar tabletop exercise with industry in November 2008, but 

the summary report on lessons learned has yet to be published. FDA 

conducted an operational exercise in October 2008—a drill to test how 

well it could continue operations under a staffing shortage. As part of this 

exercise, FDA tested its ability to reassign tasks, but it is not clear if tasks

performed by veterinarians were among those reassigned. FDA officials 

told us that they plan to issue a report with lessons learned from the 

exercise in early 2009 and will incorporate that information into FDA’s 

pandemic plan. ARS and APHIS have not tested their plans to see how well 

their agencies might maintain essential functions and services in the event

of reduced staffing levels, but officials told us they intend to do so. 

An Infeasible Assumption 

and Limited Information 

Hinder Veterinarian 

Workforce Planning 

Efforts for a Catastrophic 

Outbreak of Foot-andMouth Disease 

DHS has two efforts under way that involve identifying the veterinarian 

workforce needed to quickly perform rapid diagnoses and other essential

activities during a large-scale outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, but 

both efforts have shortcomings. The first is a long-term national effort that 

DHS is coordinating to assess the nation’s preparedness for multiple, 

intentional introductions of foot-and-mouth disease. This effort includes 

identifying the veterinarian workforce and other capabilities that would be 

needed to best respond to such an outbreak. For example, it has identified 

the need for 750 veterinarians nationwide to conduct animal health 

epidemiological investigations and surveillance. It has also identified the 

need for teams of six livestock and six companion animal veterinarians in 

each affected state and local jurisdiction to implement disease 

containment measures, provide animal welfare, and euthanize and dispose 

of animals. 

However, this effort is based on a national planning scenario that USDA 

and DHS officials’ say includes an infeasible assumption. The scenario, 

developed by a White House Homeland Security Council working group in 

2006, involves the mass slaughter of all potentially exposed animals. This 

Page 32 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
 

“stamping out” method is the same one the United States has used in the 

past for eradicating smaller outbreaks of foreign animal diseases, but 

under this scenario, it would result in the slaughter of almost half the 

nation’s beef, dairy, and swine. DHS and USDA officials, as well as state 

officials who have conducted large-scale foot-and-mouth disease 

exercises, consider this stamping out method infeasible because, among 

other things, it would lead to serious logistical and environmental 

concerns, would not be tolerated by the public, and could wipe out a 

viable livestock industry. As a result, DHS and USDA officials told us, any 

workforce estimates produced from this effort are not relevant. However, 

these officials told us it has helped them better understand the enormity of

the workforce response and the coordination that would be required for 

such a catastrophic event. 

DHS and USDA officials told us that to arrive at more relevant workforce 

estimates, the United States would have to consider alternatives to 

stamping out for outbreaks as large as the one depicted in the national 

planning scenario. For example, some countries protect against and 

control foot-and-mouth disease using vaccines. There are numerous 

reasons the United States has not used this approach, including limitations 

to vaccine technology.17 However USDA, DHS, and state officials recognize 

that newer, more promising vaccines may play an important role in 

controlling a catastrophic outbreak. DHS officials also told us that they are 

looking into revising the Homeland Security Council’s planning scenario to 

make it a more useful planning tool.

For its second effort to identify the veterinarian workforce needed during 

a foot-and-mouth disease outbreak, DHS has contracted with the 

Department of Energy’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to 

create a decision support system that models various foot-and-mouth 

disease outbreak scenarios. This effort includes estimating the number 

and type of workforce needed for responding to outbreaks, both with and 

without vaccination. However, according to the project leader, modeling 

efforts could be improved if certain information were available. For 

example, in order to model workforce needs for a response that includes 

the use of vaccines without subsequent stamping out, known as “vaccinate

to live,” it is important to know what segments of the livestock industry 

might use such a strategy, and under what circumstances, and how 

animals and animal products would be identified and their movement 

 17For more information on why the United States has not used vaccines, see GAO-05-214. 

Page 33 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
 

tracked. Because the concept of vaccinate to live is new in the United 

States, USDA has yet to detail in contingency response plans how it would 

employ this concept, according to agency officials. In the absence of such

plans, the project leader, a veterinarian who took part in the response to 

the 2001 United Kingdom foot-and-mouth disease outbreak, told us that 

she is left to base her modeling assumptions on personal knowledge and

experience, as well as conversations with agency subject matter experts. 

Moreover, data limitations make it difficult for any computer modeling 

effort to accurately predict the spread of the disease. Specifically, 

modelers must estimate the number and location of animals, as well as 

their interaction with other segments of industry, because the United 

States does not have a mandatory, national system that identifies the 

location and tracks the movement of livestock.18 Instead, modelers 

currently use outdated county-level data from USDA’s National 

Agricultural Statistical Survey census, reducing the accuracy of 

predictions about the spread of foot-and-mouth disease. Also, without 

knowing the exact location of livestock, it is difficult to understand the 

interaction between livestock and wildlife. Limited data and information 

on the number and movement of wildlife and the susceptibility of wildlife 

populations to the virus further complicates matters, according to agency 

officials. This is an important gap, since foot-and-mouth disease has been

known to spread from livestock to wildlife in past outbreaks. In fact, the 

last time the United States had an outbreak was in California in the 1920s,

when the virus spread from pigs to cattle and black-tailed deer. It took 2 

years and the slaughter of 22,000 deer to eradicate the disease from a local 

deer population in one national park. In areas where livestock graze 

extensively, there is potential for interaction with susceptible species, 

such as deer and feral pigs. According to the project leader, as well as 

USDA and DHS officials, control and eradication strategies would be 

greatly complicated if wildlife became infected and could require more 

veterinarians and different expertise. Given the important role wildlife can 

play in disease outbreak, officials agree it is important to better 

understand the interaction between livestock and wildlife. In fact, new 

technologies, such as global positioning systems, have been developed 

that can, for example, help determine the number and movement of 

animals, making it possible to gather this type of data, according to a 

 18To understand the issues and our recommendations for helping the United States 

implement an animal identification system, see GAO, National Animal Identification

System: USDA Needs to Resolve Several Key Implementation Issues to Achieve Rapid and

Effective Disease Traceback, GAO-07-592 (Washington, D.C.: July 6, 2007). 

Page 34 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
 

USDA Wildlife Services official. A DHS official told us that, as a first step, 

it would be important for those agencies with responsibility for overseeing

the health of humans, wildlife, and livestock to discuss how wildlife data 

can be gathered to most accurately model the spread of disease in wildlife. 

During four recent zoonotic disease outbreaks, the veterinarian workforce 

challenge cited most often by federal and state officials was having too 

few veterinarians to control the outbreak while also adequately carrying

out other routine activities. Specifically, officials from 3 of 4 federal 

agencies—APHIS, CDC, and Interior’s U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)—

and 9 of 13 state agencies cited this challenge. See table 2 for the 17 

agencies that were identified as playing an important role, those that cited

insufficient veterinarian capacity as a challenge, and other details about 

these outbreaks. 

Federal and State 

Agencies Are Missing 

Important 

Opportunities to 

Ensure Efficient Use 

of Veterinarians

During Disease 

Outbreaks 

Page 35 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
 

Table 2: Four Recent Zoonotic Outbreaks We Analyzed 

Disease Location

Date 

outbreak 

began 

Date 

outbreak 

ended 

Animals 

infected

Number of 

human

cases in

the 

identified 

location

Number of 

veterinarians 

involved in

outbreaka

Total size 

of 

workforce 

involved

in 

outbreaka

Federal and state 

agencies involved in

outbreak (agencies in

bold cited insufficient 

veterinarian capacity 

as a challenge)

b

Bovine 

tuberculosis 

Michigan Fall 1994 Outbreak is 

ongoing 

Wildlife, 

cattle 

2c218d412 APHIS 

Michigan Department

of Agriculture

Michigan Department of 

Community Health 

Michigan Department of 

Natural Resources 

Michigan State

University 

Exotic 

Newcastle 

disease 

California October

2002 

September 

2003 

Poultry and 

other 

susceptible 

avian 

species 

2c1,250d6,039 APHIS 

California Animal

Health and Food 

Safety Laboratory

California Department 

of Food and 

Agriculture 

California Department 

of Public Health

Monkeypox Wisconsin May 2003 August

2003 

Prairie 

dogs, 

Gambian 

giant rats, 

dormice, 

rope 

squirrels 

27c

39 560 APHIS

CDC 

FDA 

USGS 

Wisconsin Department 

of Agriculture, Trade 

and Consumer

Protection 

Wisconsin Division of

Public Health

West Nile 

virus 

Colorado June 2003 November

2003e

Birds, 

horses 

2,947f27 150 APHIS 

CDC 

Colorado Department 

of Agriculture

Colorado Department 

of Public Health and 

the Environment 

Colorado Division of 

Wildlife 

Colorado State 

University 

Page 36 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
 

Source: GAO.

Bovine tuberculosis

Bovine tuberculosis is a contagious disease 

that can be transmitted from livestock to 

humans and all other warm-blooded 

vertebrates. It is a chronic disease, and 

symptoms are often not apparent until it has

reached an advanced stage. Inhalation is the 

most common route of infection for farm and 

ranch workers and veterinarians who work 

with diseased livestock. Calves, hogs, and 

humans can also contract bovine tuberculosis

when they drink unpasteurized milk from 

infected cows. Livestock are more likely to 

infect each other when they share a common 

watering place. The disease’s presence in 

humans has been reduced as a result of a

national eradication program, advances in 

sanitation and hygiene, the discovery of 

effective drugs, and pasteurization of milk.

Source: USDA.

Source: USDA.

a

Estimates provided by agency officials. Includes veterinarians across agencies. 

b

The agencies listed are those identified as playing an important role in the outbreak, although 

additional agencies were involved. 

c

Number of confirmed human cases, as provided by state departments of public health. 

d

These estimates include private-sector veterinarians who worked on the outbreaks as contractors or

temporary employees. 

e

West Nile virus is endemic to the United States. There have been seasonal outbreaks across the 

country every year since 1999. 

f

Number of CDC confirmed human cases. CDC also reports that the number of confirmed nationwide

human cases in 2003 for monkeypox and West Nile virus was 51 and 9,862, respectively. 

Two primary reasons emerged for this insufficient capacity. First, 

according to federal and state officials, veterinarian capacity was 

insufficient because most of the agencies involved in the four outbreaks 

had difficulty recruiting and retaining veterinarians in general. For 

example, officials at many of the public health agencies and diagnostic 

laboratories we spoke with said that it has been challenging to hire or 

retain veterinarians with the specialized qualifications they need—public 

health and pathology skills, respectively. According to 2008 survey results 

from the American Association of Veterinary Laboratory Diagnosticians, it 

takes most diagnostic laboratories more than 6 months to fill vacancies for 

veterinary pathologists. In addition, numerous state agency officials told 

us that the salaries they offer are not competitive with those of the federal 

or private sectors. Moreover, officials told us that it has been particularly 

challenging recruiting veterinarians to work in remote areas or in areas 

with a high cost of living. 

Second, in 2002 and 2003 many veterinarians went to California to address 

a particularly demanding outbreak of exotic Newcastle disease, limiting 

the number of veterinarians available to respond to other outbreaks. The 

exotic Newcastle disease outbreak quickly exhausted California’s supply 

of veterinarians, both at state agencies and APHIS, because so many 

backyard birds—which are kept as a hobby or for personal consumption—

were affected. Responders had to spend valuable time going door-to-door 

trying to locate potentially infected birds in densely populated urban 

areas. APHIS called in over 1,000 federal, state, and private-sector 

veterinarians from outside California to help with the response. But, even

with a task force of over 6,000, it took almost a year to control the 

outbreak. Moreover, because so many veterinarians converged on 

California, the number available to work on the other three outbreaks—

located in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Colorado—was insufficient, 

according to federal and state agency officials. In part because of the 

strain on veterinarian resources during the four outbreaks, officials from 

Page 37 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
 

16 federal and state agencies expressed concern that they will not have

sufficient veterinarian capacity for multiple outbreaks in the future. FDA 

assisted in one of the four outbreaks and was the only agency not to 

express concerns about veterinarian capacity. Some federal officials said 

that the United States has never been tested with two major outbreaks 

occurring at once, such as simultaneous outbreaks of foot-and-mouth 

disease and highly pathogenic avian influenza—two highly infectious 

foreign animal diseases. They said that should this happen, the effects on 

animal and public health could be devastating. 

Exotic Newcastle disease

Exotic Newcastle disease is caused by a

highly contagious virus affecting birds of all 

species. The virus is spread primarily through 

direct contact with birds and their bodily 

discharges. It can also be transmitted through 

contact with certain objects contaminated 

with the disease such as vehicles, equipment, 

shoes, and clothing. It spreads rapidly among 

birds kept in confinement, such as

commercially raised chickens. Many birds die 

without showing any signs of the disease; 

however, there are symptoms including, 

among other things, nasal discharge, 

coughing, depression, drop in egg production, 

and swelling around the eyes and neck. 

Exotic Newcastle disease is only mildly 

zoonotic in humans, with conjunctivitis being 

the most common symptom. Other human 

symptoms include headache, discomfort, and 

slight chills. 

Source: USDA.

Federal and state agency officials reported several consequences of this 

insufficient veterinarian capacity. Examples are as follows: 

• Michigan state agency officials told us they had trouble testing enough

cattle during the bovine tuberculosis outbreak. Over a 6-1/2 year period, 

veterinarians struggled to test more than a million cows—an average of 

more than 3,500 a week—but the state has yet to eradicate the disease.

• Some Michigan officials told us that APHIS and the Michigan Department 

of Agriculture did not have enough veterinarians to both respond to bovine 

tuberculosis and address other animal diseases, such as E. coli. In fact, 

during all four outbreaks, veterinarians at some point had to delay 

important work on other diseases, in part because there were not enough

veterinarians.

19

• During the 2003 West Nile virus outbreak in Colorado, a lack of sufficient 

veterinarians to track and control the disease, among other things, may 

have allowed the virus to infect more people and animals than it otherwise 

would have.20

• The volume of work required to control and eventually eradicate exotic 

Newcastle disease in California physically and emotionally exhausted 

 19Insufficient laboratory resources also affected veterinarians’ and other responders’ 

abilities to control outbreaks in a timely manner, according to numerous federal and state 

agency officials. 

20CDC officials told us that additional veterinarians may have been beneficial in getting

more horses vaccinated. In addition, they said difficulties implementing effective mosquito 

control programs and getting residents to adopt effective personal protection could also 

have contributed to a higher number of animal and human infections. 

Page 38 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
 

veterinarians to the extent that, once the outbreak was over, they needed 

significant time off to recover, further delaying work on routine activities. Monkeypox

Monkeypox is a rare viral disease that first 

appeared in the United States in 2003 when a

shipment of exotic, wild animals from Ghana, 

including infected Gambian rats, dormice, and 

rope squirrels, entered the country. The 

infected animals then transmitted the virus to 

prairie dogs when they were collocated at an 

animal distributor. The prairie dogs were later 

sold as exotic pets and, in turn, transmitted 

the disease to humans. People can get 

monkeypox through a bite or direct contact 

with the infected animal’s blood, body fluids, 

or lesions. It is thought to be spread personto-person through large respiratory droplets

during direct and prolonged face-to-face 

contact. In addition, monkeypox can be 

spread by direct contact with body fluids of an 

infected person or with virus-contaminated 

objects, such as bedding or clothing. In 

humans, the signs and symptoms of 

monkeypox are similar to those of smallpox 

and include rash, fever, headache, muscle 

aches, backache, swollen lymph nodes, a

general feeling of discomfort, and exhaustion. 

Source: CDC.

Source: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

• The demanding nature of the exotic Newcastle disease and bovine 

tuberculosis outbreaks may have caused some veterinarians to seek 

employment elsewhere. 

Despite reports of insufficient veterinarian capacity during these four 

outbreaks, the agencies have not taken full advantage of two important 

opportunities to learn from past experience. First, 10 of the 17 agencies 

have not assessed how well their own veterinarian workforces responded 

to individual outbreaks. Our prior work has shown that agencies can 

improve response by conducting postoutbreak assessments.21 One 

outcome of such an assessment might be a better understanding of how to 

most efficiently use veterinarians. For example, APHIS—one of the 

agencies that has performed postoutbreak assessments—found that it had 

difficulty locating veterinarians with the specialized expertise needed for 

addressing the exotic Newcastle disease outbreak. As a result, APHIS is 

developing a national list identifying veterinarians and their credentials to

call upon in the future. In addition, federal and state agencies working on 

bovine tuberculosis in Michigan meet periodically to assess what 

strategies are working and what they need to change in order to better 

control the disease. APHIS also conducts periodic reviews of its efforts 

and the state’s efforts to address bovine tuberculosis. 

 21See GAO-06-467T. 

Page 39 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
 

West Nile virus

West Nile virus was recently introduced in 

wild birds and poses a potentially serious

threat to people and horses. The virus spread 

quickly across the United States between 

1999 and 2003. Experts believe it is now 

established as a seasonal epidemic in North 

America, flaring up in the summer and 

continuing into the fall. The virus is most 

often spread when mosquitoes bite infected 

birds (such as house sparrows or robins), 

acquire the virus, and then pass it on to other 

animals or to humans. However, West Nile 

virus is fatal to many species of wild birds, 

such as crows, which are then only minimally 

involved in the spread of the infection. Many 

people infected with the virus do not become 

ill. Some experience mild symptoms, 

including fever, headache, body aches, 

nausea, vomiting, swollen lymph nodes, or a

skin rash. About 1 in 150 develop severe 

illness and have symptoms that include high 

fever, headaches, neck stiffness, stupor, 

disorientation, coma, tremors, convulsions, 

muscle weakness, vision loss, numbness, 

and paralysis.

Source: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Source: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Moreover, none of the 17 agencies have come together to share their 

experiences across the outbreaks in order to identify workforce 

challenges that they may have had in common, including veterinarian 

workforce challenges. Consequently, the agencies are missing the 

opportunity to identify and address challenges they are likely to face in the 

future. The majority of the federal and state agency officials we spoke with 

agreed that it would be useful for agencies not only to conduct 

assessments of their own workforce response but also to periodically meet 

to identify common workforce challenges across multiple outbreaks and 

discuss strategies for overcoming these challenges. However, some 

agencies told us that their veterinarian workforce is already facing heavy 

workload demands that make it difficult for them to meet their existing 

responsibilities, and thus they have not had time to conduct postoutbreak 

assessments.

Page 40 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
 

Veterinarians are a small but vital part of the federal workforce, playing 

important roles in protecting people from zoonotic and foodborne 

diseases, ensuring the health and humane treatment of food animals, and 

helping to keep America’s food system safe. The nation is facing a growing 

shortage of veterinarians, and component agencies and other federal 

entities have already identified insufficiencies in their veterinarian 

workforces. At FSIS, for example, the veterinarian workforce is finding it 

difficult to adequately carry out its responsibilities for ensuring food safety

and the humane treatment of animals. In 2004, we recommended that FSIS

periodically assess whether it has enough inspection resources, including 

veterinarians, dedicated to humane handling and slaughter activities, but 

the agency has yet to demonstrate that they have done so. Nor has the 

federal government conducted the broader assessments and planning 

activities necessary to address veterinarian workforce problems at FSIS 

and beyond. Unless USDA and HHS conduct departmentwide assessments 

of their veterinarian workforces, they will not fully understand the size 

and nature of the challenges they face in recruiting and retaining 

veterinarians with the appropriate skills. This will leave their component 

agencies without a high-level solution to problems they have so far been 

unable to solve on their own. Moreover, without a governmentwide effort 

to identify shortcomings in veterinarian capabilities, the federal 

government may be missing opportunities to find common solutions for 

attracting veterinarians into federal service. 

In addition, unless component agencies complete and test their pandemic 

plans in keeping with FEMA guidance, they will not be fully prepared to 

carry out essential veterinarian functions in the face of high rates of 

absenteeism. Until USDA details how responders would control a footand-mouth disease outbreak using vaccines, the nation will not have a 

complete understanding of the veterinarian workforce needed to control 

such an outbreak. Similarly, until more information is gathered on the 

spread of foot-and-mouth disease in wildlife, agencies will not be able to 

more accurately model the number and type of veterinarians that would be 

needed if the disease were to spread beyond livestock. Failure to 

understand the workforce needed during a catastrophic event—whether a 

pandemic or an attack on the food supply—could unnecessarily increase 

the scope and severity of the crisis. Finally, unless component agencies 

involved in responding to outbreaks of zoonotic disease regularly review 

their own performance and collectively assess opportunities for 

improvement, they cannot be assured they are using veterinarians as 

efficiently as possible. They are, therefore, more likely to face an 

insufficient veterinarian workforce capacity during future outbreaks, 

Conclusions 

Page 41 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
 

which may cause an unnecessary increase in the severity of the outbreaks 

and worsen the threat to public health. 

We are making nine recommendations to improve the ability of the federal

veterinarian workforce to carry out routine activities, prepare for a 

catastrophic event, and respond to zoonotic disease outbreaks. 

To help ensure the federal veterinarian workforce is sufficient to meet the 

critical responsibilities it carries out on a routine basis, we recommend 

that 

Recommendations for 

Executive Action 

1. the Secretary of Agriculture direct FSIS to periodically assess whether 

its level of inspection resources dedicated to food safety and humane 

slaughter activities is sufficient, and 

2. the Secretary of Agriculture conduct a departmentwide assessment of 

USDA’s veterinarian workforce—based, for example, on workforce 

assessments by its component agencies—to identify current and future 

workforce needs (including training and employee development) and 

departmentwide solutions to problems shared by its agencies. When 

the Secretary completes the assessment, the results should be 

forwarded to the Director of the Office of Personnel Management. 

3. We also recommend that the Secretary of Health and Human Services 

direct the department’s component agencies that employ veterinarians 

to conduct regular workforce assessments and that the Secretary then 

conduct a departmentwide assessment of HHS’s veterinarian 

workforce to identify current and future workforce needs (including 

training and employee development) and solutions to problems shared 

by its agencies. When the Secretary completes the assessment, the 

results should be forwarded to the Director of the Office of Personnel 

Management. 

4. Finally, we recommend that the Director of the Office of Personnel 

Management determine, based on USDA’s and HHS’s departmentwide 

veterinarian workforce evaluations, whether a governmentwide effort 

is needed to address shortcomings in the sufficiency of the current and 

future veterinarian workforce. 

To help the veterinarian workforce continue essential functions during a 

pandemic, we recommend that 

Page 42 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
 

5. the Secretaries of Agriculture, Defense, and Health and Human 

Services ensure that their component agencies that employ 

veterinarians complete pandemic plans that contain the necessary 

elements put forth in DHS’s continuity of operations pandemic 

guidance, including periodically testing, training, and exercising plans. 

To improve estimates of the veterinarian workforce needed to respond to 

a large-scale foot-and-mouth disease outbreak, we recommend that 

6. the Secretary of Agriculture detail in a contingency response plan how 

a response using vaccines would be implemented, and 

7. the Secretary of Homeland Security coordinate an interagency effort to 

identify the data necessary to model the spread of disease in wildlife 

and how best to gather these data. 

To improve the ability of the federal veterinarian workforce to respond to 

zoonotic outbreaks in the future while also effectively carrying out routine 

activities, we recommend that the Secretaries of those departments most 

likely to be involved in response efforts—such as USDA, HHS, and 

Interior—ensure that their agencies: 

8. conduct postoutbreak assessments of workforce management; and 

9. in coordination with relevant federal, state, and local agencies, 

periodically review the postoutbreak assessments to identify common 

workforce challenges and strategies for addressing them. 

We provided a draft of this report to USDA, DOD, HHS, OPM, DHS, and 

Interior for their review and comment. USDA, DOD, OPM, DHS, and 

Interior generally agreed with the recommendations. HHS generally 

concurred with the report but not with one finding we reported regarding 

FDA’s veterinarian workforce. Also, all departments provided technical 

comments, which we incorporated as appropriate. 

USDA agreed that it should periodically assess whether its level of 

inspection resources dedicated to food safety and humane slaughter 

activities is sufficient and believes that FSIS is already doing this 

assessment as a part of its budget formulation process. However, we made 

this recommendation in 2004, and are repeating it now, because FSIS has 

yet to demonstrate that they have done this assessment. USDA also 

reported that because APHIS and FSIS employ the majority of 

Agency Comments 

and Our Evaluation 

Page 43 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
 

veterinarians within the department, these component agencies will work 

together, with departmental consultation, as needed, to develop solutions 

to shared problems. We continue to believe that a departmentwide 

assessment is necessary. In addition, the department commented that it 

will track veterinarian workforce trends and devise strategies to train, 

recruit, and retain veterinarians in order to mitigate attrition and maintain 

progress toward the department’s mission to protect the public health.

Furthermore, USDA reported that APHIS and FSIS are already taking steps 

to revise their pandemic plans to overcome many of the gaps we identified 

to help ensure the USDA veterinarian workforce can carry out essential 

functions during a pandemic. USDA’s written comments and our 

evaluation appear in appendix III. 

DOD stated that efforts are under way to finalize the Army’s pandemic 

influenza plan and that the implementation date will be determined based 

on current mission priorities. DOD’s written comments and our evaluation

appear in appendix IV. 

HHS reported that veterinarians are essential to protecting the health of 

the American people. In addition, the department commented that 

veterinarians are a valuable resource at CDC and conducting workforce 

assessments, as recommended in our report, will ensure that HHS 

maintains a sufficient capacity for outbreak response. HHS further 

reported that all operating staff division heads are required to have 

workforce plans in place for their organizations by September 2009. Once 

the plans are completed, the HHS Office of Human Resources will look 

across the plans to identify opportunities for collaboration with regard to 

strategic recruitment, development, and retention. The department also 

plans to strengthen its oversight of the operating divisions to ensure that 

they are implementing their workforce plans, focusing on those 

occupations critical to the success of their missions. While veterinarians 

are not currently identified as a department-level Mission Critical 

Occupation, largely because they represent less than 1 percent of the HHS 

workforce, the department plans to review its Mission Critical 

Occupations in the coming year using criteria that are more risk-based. 

However, HHS did not agree with a statement in our report that references 

a 2007 FDA Advisory Committee report claiming that CVM is in a state of 

crisis. The department stated that, given the broad nature of the 2007 

Advisory Committee report, it is not applicable to veterinarians. However, 

we reported information pertaining directly to veterinarians—information 

we obtained from an interview with an author of the Advisory Committee 

report. Furthermore, HHS stated that CVM has made great strides in the 

past few years assessing its workforce needs and that the 2007 report is 

Page 44 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
 

outdated. Our report identifies many of the efforts CVM has recently

undertaken, such as hiring additional veterinarians and beginning an effort 

to analyze the gap between current resources and needs. It also notes that, 

according to FDA officials, the agency is undertaking significant reforms 

to address fundamental concerns in the 2007 report. However, as our 

report also states, FDA did not tell us how these efforts address the 

identified veterinarian skill gap specifically. HHS’s written comments and 

our evaluation appear in appendix V.

OPM informed us that it has established a team to research and analyze

data to determine the feasibility of issuing a governmentwide direct-hire 

authority for veterinarians under its statutory and regulatory authority. 

OPM did not provide further details except to say that a decision is 

expected early in 2009. Until this study is completed, OPM relies on 

individual agencies to make such requests when they have encountered a 

severe shortage of candidates or a critical hiring need for veterinarians. In

addition, OPM informed us that on November 25, 2008, it approved USDA’s 

request for direct-hire authority. OPM also commented that, in 2003, the

agency approved direct-hire authority for temporary and term positions, 

including veterinarians, to help protect the health or safety of the U.S. food

supply during a pandemic or other declared emergency situation. OPM’s 

written comments and our evaluation appear in appendix VI.

DHS recommended that the federal government enhance efforts to identify 

the veterinarian workforce needed during catastrophic events. They stated

that this could be achieved through an OPM pursuit of a multidepartment 

assessment of veterinary manpower requirements. They further 

recommended that agencies develop plans that identify how veterinarians

will continue essential functions during additional catastrophic events, 

taking into consideration the potential for absenteeism that exceeds the 

level of 40 percent estimated for a pandemic. In addition, DHS stated that, 

once a governmentwide veterinarian workforce need is determined, 

effective recruitment and retention programs should be developed that are 

consistent across all agencies. However, DHS disagreed with our finding 

that the estimate produced from one of its efforts to identify the workforce 

needed during a catastrophic outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease is not 

relevant. We continue to believe, as does DHS, that this effort is based on 

an infeasible assumption. Therefore, we do not agree that this estimate is 

relevant to any response that could reasonably be implemented during 

such an outbreak. DHS’s written comments and our evaluation appear in

appendix VII. 

Page 45 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
 

Interior commended GAO for conducting a well-researched examination

of the federal veterinarian workforce. The department emphasized the 

importance of including wildlife disease expertise in a strategy for 

protecting human and animal health. The department also identified the

importance of detecting and preventing non-native invasive infectious 

diseases from entering U.S. borders via imported wildlife as important to 

protecting human and animal health. Interior’s written comments and our

evaluation appear in appendix VIII. 

As agreed with your offices, unless you publicly announce the contents of

this report earlier, we plan no further distribution until 22 days from the 

report date. At that time, we will send copies to the Secretaries of 

Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Energy, Health and Human Services, 

Homeland Security, Interior, Justice, Smithsonian Institution, and Veterans 

Affairs; the Director of the Office of Personnel Management; the 

Administrators of the Environmental Protection Agency, National 

Aeronautics and Space Administration, and U.S. Agency for International

Development; appropriate congressional committees; and other interested

parties. The report also will be available at no charge on the GAO Web site 

at http://www.gao.gov. 

If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please contact me 

at (202) 512-3841 or shamesl@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of 

Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page 

of this report. GAO staff who made contributions to this report are listed 

in appendix IX. 

Sincerely yours, 

Director, Natural Resources 

nment

Lisa Shames

 and Enviro

Page 46 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
Appendix I: Location and Responsibilities of 

Veterinarians in the Federal Government 

Number of 

veterinarians by

department 

Number of veterinarians by

component agency 

or other entitya

Examples of veterinarian responsibilities

Department of 

Agriculture 

1,771 Animal and Plant 

Health Inspection 

Service 

667 Protect American livestock and poultry health through diagnosis, 

control and eradication of animal diseases, and partnering with 

state officials to manage and eradicate disease outbreaks. Some 

are employed overseas. 

Food Safety and 

Inspection Service 

1,043bInspect livestock and poultry at slaughter plants to identify and 

examine diseased animals, and prevent their entry into the 

nation’s food supply; determine the significance of disease 

conditions and their potential hazard to public health; and may 

oversee total inspection operations. 

Agricultural Research

Service 

57 Conduct critical research to develop solutions for high-priority 

agricultural problems, such as highly pathogenic avian influenza. 

Cooperative State

Research, Education, 

and Extension 

Service 

4 Plan, develop, organize, and manage animal health related

research, education, and extension programs in coordination with 

other federal agencies and national and international efforts.

Department of Defense 841 Armyc753 Ensure food safety at Department of Defense locations; develop 

medical defenses against chemical and biological warfare threat 

agents; conduct intelligence work; and care for service animals. 

Air Force 88 Track infectious diseases among Air Force personnel, oversee the 

health of Air Force personnel for deployment, and ensure food 

safety at Air Force bases. 

Department of Health 

and Human Servicesd

316 Food and Drug

Administration

152 Ensure that animal food and drugs are safe and effective; that 

food from medically treated animals is safe to eat; and help ensure 

the safety of food, drugs, and cosmetics, among other things. 

National Institutes of 

Health 

85 Support all animal aspects of its intramural research program by 

providing regulatory oversight of research animals, providing 

disease surveillance and diagnostics, managing the agency 

compliance office, and conducting basic scientific and translational 

research. 

Centers for Disease 

Control and 

Prevention 

77 Work to identify, prevent, and control public health threats through 

applied epidemiology, laboratory animal medicine and toxicology, 

technical assistance and consultation, surveillance, field and

clinical investigations, and human-animal interface research; 

support public health training and activities among state, local, 

tribal, and global health programs; provide expertise in public 

health emergency preparedness and provide surge capacity 

following public health disasters, global disease outbreaks, and 

terrorist attacks; and prevent importation at ports of entry of 

animals/animal products that pose human health risks. 

Office of the Assistant 

Secretary for 

Preparedness and 

Response 

2 Identifies, coordinates, and provides qualified veterinary medical

personnel for events requiring emergency and disaster-related 

veterinary medical care services to impacted animal populations 

(including household pets and service animals) in or outside of 

shelter locations until local infrastructures are reestablished. 

Appendix I: Location and Responsibilities of 

Veterinarians in the Federal Government 

Page 47 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
Appendix I: Location and Responsibilities of 

Veterinarians in the Federal Government 

Number of 

veterinarians by

department 

Number of veterinarians by

component agency 

or other entitya

Examples of veterinarian responsibilities

Department of 

Veterans Affairs 

37 Office of Research 

and Development 

37 Conduct research to improve the health of veterans and oversee 

the health and welfare of animals used in research. 

Department of the 

Interior 

24 U.S. Geological

Survey 

16 Investigate, diagnose, develop control methods, and develop

databases for wildlife diseases; provide training to wildlife 

biologists and resource managers in wildlife disease identification 

and control; conduct clinical veterinary research on wildlife 

diseases; and oversee the health and welfare of experimental and 

wild animals used in research, including research on wildlife

diseases. 

U.S. Fish and Wildlife 

Service 

4 Perform fish health management and diagnostic activities; conduct 

wildlife disease surveillance, diagnostics, and outbreak 

investigations; provide technical expertise; and draft policy, 

regulation, and management action plans. 

National Park Service 4 Prepare surveillance and contingency response plans for 

addressing important wildlife diseases in the park system; 

formulate policies for management of wildlife diseases. 

Department of 

Homeland Security 

16 Office of Health 

Affairs 

8 Provide professional veterinary expertise and leadership to defend 

human and animal health and the nation’s agriculture and food 

supply against terrorist attacks, major disasters, and other 

emergencies. 

Directorate for

Science and 

Technology 

6 Utilize knowledge and skills of disease movement, risk, and

economic impacts of diseases to oversee programs regarding the 

safety of U.S. agriculture and food supply. 

Directorate for

National Protection 

and Programs

2 Identify technologies and capabilities that can be used to help

assure the protection of the nation’s agriculture and food supply 

from a terrorist attack. 

Smithsonian 16 National Zoo 16 Protect the health of endangered species under the auspices of 

the National Zoo and oversee the health of animals housed at the 

National Zoo; study disease dynamics and pathology of disease in

endangered species; conduct research in endangered species 

conservation and propagation, and surveillance and research in 

emerging diseases of nondomestic animals including wildlife; train 

veterinarians and advance veterinary medical knowledge 

regarding zoo and wild animal species in the United States and 

abroad; administer International Veterinary Training program. 

Environmental

Protection Agency 

13 13 Assess the risks of pesticide use to humans and domestic 

animals, research the cancer risk of environmental chemicals, and 

improve the process for managing potential environmental 

carcinogens. 

U.S. Agency for 

International 

Development 

8 Bureaus for Economic 

Growth, Agriculture 

and Trade; for Global 

Health; and for Africa 

8 Provide guidance on issues related to management of highly

pathogenic avian influenza outbreaks and recovery; identify 

opportunities to share and leverage resources for avian influenza 

response efforts with international and domestic health agencies 

and universities. 

Page 48 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
Appendix I: Location and Responsibilities of 

Veterinarians in the Federal Government 

Number of 

veterinarians by

department 

Number of veterinarians by

component agency 

or other entitya

Examples of veterinarian responsibilities

Department of 

Commerce 

9 National Oceanic and 

Atmospheric 

Administration

9 Conduct audits of seafood plants and products as part of the 

Seafood Inspection Program; provide guidelines and oversight of 

the Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program, 

Aquatic Animal Health Program, disease surveillance, health 

monitoring, outbreak investigations, and 

contaminants/pathogen/toxin/health research. 

National Aeronautics 

and Space 

Administration

5 Office of the Chief 

Health and Medical 

Officer 

5 Provide and coordinate animal care at agency research facilities; 

one veterinarian is an astronaut. 

Department of Energy 1 Lawrence Livermore 

National Laboratory 

1 Oversees the laboratories’ Food and Agricultural Security 

program, which includes the work on modeling animal disease to 

determine workforce resources that will be needed for response to 

outbreaks. 

Department of Justice 1 Federal Bureau of 

Investigation 

1 Provide veterinary expertise in the investigation of an intentional 

disease outbreak. 

Source: GAO analysis of agency survey responses and interviews. 

a

We relied on federal agency officials to identify all veterinarians employed—civil and military service

employees, contractors, and other—regardless of job title. The number of veterinarians reported for 

all agencies are as of June 30, 2008, except for the following: The Food Safety Inspection Service 

(FSIS) and the Army veterinary reserve corps are current as of the end of fiscal year 2008 and 

November 2008, respectively. 

b

The number of veterinarians listed for FSIS include 968 veterinary medical officers, the majority of 

whom work at slaughter plants, as well as approximately 75 veterinarians who work in other 

occupations. 

c

The Army veterinarian workforce consists of 446 active duty; 173 reserve corps; and 134 other. 

d

The number of veterinarians listed for the Department of Health and Human Services does not 

include those United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps veterinarians working at the 

FSIS and the Environmental Protection Agency because they are counted as employees of those 

agencies. 

Page 49 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
Appendix II: Scope and Methodology Appendix II: Scope and Methodology 

To determine the extent to which the federal government has assessed the 

sufficiency of its veterinarian workforce for routine activities, we 

interviewed officials and collected documents from the American 

Veterinary Medical Association, the National Association of Federal 

Veterinarians (NAFV), and the Association of American Veterinary Medical 

Colleges to identify general concerns about the federal veterinarian 

workforce. NAFV also provided a review it had conducted in 1996 that 

identified federal departments and agencies that employ veterinarians. We 

expanded this list of departments and component agencies based on 

referrals and experience from our past reports, resulting in a list of 24 

component agencies and other federal entities. We then surveyed these 24 

entities to obtain information on the federal veterinarian workforce—

including the number of veterinarians employed, their grade level, salaries, 

roles and responsibilities, number of vacancies, and sufficiency of the 

workforce. We conducted this self-administered electronic survey in 

October 2007 and then requested an update of this survey information in 

July 2008. We achieved a 100 percent response rate both times. However, 

one entity was unable to provide some of the specific salary information 

we requested, and we noted this in our report. 

Because this was not a sample survey, but rather a survey of the universe

of respondents, it has no sampling errors. However, the practical 

difficulties of conducting any survey may introduce errors, commonly 

referred to as nonsampling errors. For example, respondents may have 

difficulty interpreting a particular question, the sources of information 

available to respondents may introduce errors or variability, and analysts 

may introduce errors when entering data into a database or analyzing 

these data. We took steps in developing the questionnaire, collecting the 

data, and analyzing them to minimize such nonsampling error. For 

example, we pretested the survey to ensure that the questions were 

relevant, clearly stated, and easy to understand. 

To obtain salary information for Department of Agriculture (USDA) 

agencies over the past 5 years, we used data from the Office of Personnel 

Management’s (OPM) Central Personnel Data File. We did not 

independently verify these data for the years we reviewed; however, in a 

1998 report, we found that governmentwide data from this file for the key 

variables in this study (agency, birth date, service computation date, 

occupation, and retirement plan) were 99 percent accurate or better.1

 1

GAO, OPM’s Central Personnel Data File: Data Appear Sufficiently Reliable to Meet Most

Customer Needs, GAO/GGD-98-199 (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 30, 1998). 

Page 50 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
Appendix II: Scope and Methodology 

Therefore, we feel these data were sufficiently reliable for the purposes of 

this review. 

On the basis of information we received in our survey of these component 

agencies and other entities, we then analyzed the workforce assessment 

efforts of USDA, the Department of Defense (DOD), and the Department 

of Health and Human Services (HHS). We selected these departments 

because they employ the majority of federal veterinarians (96 percent) 

identified in our survey. Within these three departments, we further 

focused our review on five component agencies—the Animal and Plant 

Health Inspection Service (APHIS), FSIS, Army, and the Food and Drug 

Administration (FDA)—to determine the extent to which they assessed 

the sufficiency of their veterinarian workforce. We also selected the 

Agricultural Research Service (ARS) for further review because it is 

USDA’s chief scientific research agency and conducts research to solve 

agricultural problems of high national priority. We conducted our 

assessment by reviewing department and agency documents, such as 

workforce plans, human capital management reports, workforce models, 

and gap assessments. We then compared workforce assessment efforts of 

the three departments and five component agencies with GAO workforce

planning guidance. We also conducted semistructured interviews with 

workforce planning and veterinarian program officials. In addition, we 

interviewed an author of the report FDA Science and Mission at Risk

regarding the report’s findings and their relation to FDA veterinarian skill 

gaps. Further, we visited one poultry and two beef slaughter plants of 

varying sizes to observe conditions and interview veterinarians and other 

FSIS officials. We also interviewed FSIS officials working at the slaughter

plant that was the subject of the nation’s largest beef recall. We selected

these plants on the basis of proximity to the sites of the four recent 

zoonotic disease outbreaks we reviewed, and recommendations from FSIS 

officials. Moreover, other veterinarians contacted us to relay concerns 

about the sufficiency of the FSIS veterinarian workforce. We interviewed 

officials from the OPM to determine the agency’s role in workforce 

planning for federal veterinarians and to identify recruitment and retention 

authorities available to agencies and departments. Finally, we interviewed 

experts from the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists, the 

National Association of State Public Health Veterinarians, the American 

College of Veterinary Pathologists, the American Association of Wildlife 

Veterinarians, the American Association of Veterinary Laboratory 

Diagnosticians, and the National Academy of Sciences to identify 

workforce needs for veterinary specialties including public health, wildlife 

veterinarians, veterinary laboratory diagnostics, and veterinary pathology. 

Page 51 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
Appendix II: Scope and Methodology 

To determine the extent to which the federal government has identified

the veterinarian workforce needed during a catastrophic event, we 

analyzed workforce planning efforts for two potential large-scale national 

incidents that the White House Homeland Security Council deemed critical 

for planning purposes: a pandemic and a foot-and-mouth disease outbreak. 

For the first, we compared pandemic plans from APHIS, FSIS, ARS, Army, 

and FDA to guidance the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) 

Federal Emergency Management Agency provided to departments and 

agencies for identifying special considerations for maintaining essential 

functions and services under such conditions.2,3

 These agencies were 

selected for the reasons described above. We interviewed agency officials 

to discuss identified gaps and determine the extent to which the plans 

were being updated and tested. Furthermore, we interviewed HHS officials 

to understand their review of state pandemic plans, which are under 

development to ensure continuity of the food supply system and the ability 

to respond to agriculture emergencies. For the second, we reviewed 

veterinarian workforce outcomes from DHS’s nationwide effort to assess 

the nation’s preparedness for multiple, intentional introductions of footand-mouth disease. In addition to interviewing the DHS official 

responsible for coordinating the animal health emergency capability, we 

also interviewed state officials who have conducted large-scale exercises 

simulating a response to foot-and-mouth disease, as well as USDA officials 

with responsibility for such an event, to determine the feasibility of the 

response depicted in the scenario. Because vaccine use was suggested as 

an alternative strategy to the slaughter of animals infected with foot-andmouth disease, we also interviewed USDA’s Chief Veterinary Officer, and 

DHS and USDA officials at Plum Island Animal Disease Center to 

determine the status of foot-and-mouth disease vaccine development and 

the feasibility, as well as practicality, of their use. Finally, at the 

recommendation of DHS, we interviewed the Department of Energy 

official responsible for overseeing the development of a decision support 

system that models various foot-and-mouth disease outbreak scenarios in

order to estimate the number and type of workforce needed for 

responding to outbreaks. The Department of Energy is performing this 

work under contract for DHS. We also interviewed USDA, DHS, and 

Department of the Interior (Interior) officials to determine the extent to 

 2

To learn more about federal guidance for pandemic planning, see 

http://www.pandemicflu.gov/plan/federal/index.html.

3

GAO has a separate review under way that is looking at federal agency plans for protecting

the workforce while maintaining their essential functions during a pandemic. 

Page 52 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
Appendix II: Scope and Methodology 

which agencies are including the possible spread of foot-and-mouth 

disease in wildlife in their planning efforts. 

To determine the extent to which federal and state agencies encountered 

veterinarian workforce challenges during four recent zoonotic outbreaks, 

we conducted semistructured interviews with 17 federal and state 

agencies involved in these outbreaks. We relied on federal and state 

officials to identify those agencies that played an important role in 

outbreak response. Based on this information, we then interviewed 

officials from USDA, HHS, Interior, state public health departments, state 

agriculture and wildlife agencies, state diagnostic laboratories, and one 

county public health agency. We also interviewed other individuals 

involved in the outbreaks, including researchers from Northwestern 

University, the University of California at Davis, and Western University of 

Health Sciences. We selected the four outbreaks in our review—bovine 

tuberculosis in Michigan, exotic Newcastle disease in California, 

monkeypox in Wisconsin, and West Nile virus in Colorado—because these 

outbreaks were most frequently recommended by federal officials as 

examples of recent zoonotic diseases; are ongoing or have occurred since

2001; and have affected various types of animals, including livestock, 

wildlife, pets, and exotic animals. In addition, we chose these four 

outbreaks for review because of the unique nature of the outbreaks in 

these states. Specifically, we selected Michigan as the state for the bovine 

tuberculosis review because the ongoing outbreak is the longest outbreak 

of this disease in the United States in recent history. We chose California 

because it experienced the greatest number of animal infections for the 

exotic Newcastle disease outbreak. We selected Wisconsin because it 

experienced the most human monkeypox infections. We selected 

Colorado for West Nile virus because the number of human infections in 

Colorado in 2003 was the highest for a single state. In addition to the 

interviews, we also analyzed federal, state, and county documents, such as 

after action reports, in order to (1) understand the extent to which 

agencies formally assessed the management of their veterinarian 

workforces during these outbreaks and (2) identify any workforce-related 

challenges and steps agencies took to address these challenges. 

Page 53 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
Appendix III: Comments from the Department Appendix III: Comments from the of Agriculture 

Department of Agriculture 

Note: GAO comments 

supplementing those in 

the report text appear at 

the end of this appendix. 

See comment 1. 

Page 54 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
Appendix III: Comments from the Department 

of Agriculture 

See comment 2. 

Page 55 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
Appendix III: Comments from the Department 

of Agriculture 

See comment 3. 

Page 56 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
Appendix III: Comments from the Department 

of Agriculture 

Page 57 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
Appendix III: Comments from the Department 

of Agriculture 

See comment 4. 

See comment 5. 

Page 58 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
Appendix III: Comments from the Department 

of Agriculture 

See comment 6. 

See comment 7. 

Page 59 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
Appendix III: Comments from the Department 

of Agriculture 

See comment 8. 

See comment 9. 

Page 60 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
Appendix III: Comments from the Department 

of Agriculture 

Page 61 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
Appendix III: Comments from the Department 

of Agriculture 

Page 62 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
Appendix III: Comments from the Department 

of Agriculture 

The following are GAO’s comments on the Department of Agriculture’s 

letter dated January 16, 2009. 

1. USDA commented that FSIS already regularly assesses the level of 

inspection resources it needs, as we recommended in 2004. However, 

as our report states, FSIS has yet to demonstrate that they have done 

so. We regularly follow up to request evidence that agencies have 

implemented our recommendations, and FSIS has not provided such 

evidence. 

GAO Comments 

2. USDA reported the majority of its veterinarian workforce is located 

within two agencies, APHIS and FSIS, and each has the staff and 

expertise to conduct veterinarian workforce analyses for their 

respective agencies. Therefore, these two agencies will work together, 

with departmental consultation, as needed, to develop solutions to 

problems shared by both agencies. We continue to believe that a 

departmental assessment, not a consultation, is necessary, particularly 

in light of the competition between the two agencies. As we reported, 

APHIS is attracting veterinarians away from FSIS because the work at 

APHIS is more appealing, there are more opportunities for 

advancement, and the salaries are higher. Furthermore, ARS continues 

to experience difficulties recruiting and retaining highly qualified 

veterinarians to carry out critical research of national importance, yet 

there is no mention of ARS in USDA’s comments. 

3. USDA commented that it has contingency plans and a decision tree for 

use of foot-and-mouth disease vaccine from the North American Footand-Mouth Disease Vaccine Bank. We acknowledge that USDA has 

these plans. In fact, we reviewed a draft plan titled, Response to the 

Detection of Foot-and-Mouth Disease in the United States, dated 

October 2007, that USDA officials told us was their new response plan 

that considered alternative response strategies, including “vaccinate to 

live.” However, this plan does not detail how a policy of this nature 

would be implemented. USDA further commented that policy 

decisions as to who may administer the vaccine will be made based on 

the circumstances of the outbreak. While we recognize that each 

outbreak is unique, this should not preclude USDA from identifying a 

plausible scenario or scenarios and detailing how a vaccinate to live 

strategy would be carried out in order to enhance preparation, 

response, and recovery in a time of crises. 

Page 63 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
Appendix III: Comments from the Department 

of Agriculture 

4. We modified our report to reflect that USDA would like to change their 

statement from FSIS has “never” had a sufficient number of 

veterinarians to “over the past decade.” USDA also asserts that our 

report says that FSIS has been able to reallocate veterinary resources 

sufficient to meet its statutory mandates for food safety and humane 

handling of livestock. However, our report only presents this as the 

view of FSIS headquarters officials. We raise this point to illustrate 

that FSIS headquarters officials and veterinarians working in slaughter 

plants differ on the impact of this shortage. 

5. We modified our report to reflect more clearly the relationship 

between the events at a Chino, California, plant and the February 2008 

beef recall. 

6. USDA commented that that our report emphasizes the incident at a 

plant in Chino, California. We raise the point because some 

veterinarians told us they did not have time to ensure the humane 

treatment of livestock, and this example illustrates inhumane 

treatment occurred despite the presence of FSIS inspectors. USDA 

further commented that we attribute this incident to having only one 

veterinarian. We do not state this in our report. We use this and other 

statements about resources to illustrate the need for FSIS to 

periodically assess whether the level of resources dedicated to humane 

handling and slaughter activities is sufficient. They have yet to do so. 

In addition, USDA commented that the USDA Inspector General did 

not find systematic problems associated with oversight of humane 

handling at slaughter facilities that process cull cows. However, the 

Inspector General did conclude that there is inherent vulnerability at 

the other plants in the scope of its audit, and that inhumane handling 

could occur and not be detected by FSIS inspectors due to lack of 

continuous surveillance.

7. USDA commented that GAO has closed the 2004 recommendation that 

FSIS periodically assess whether the level of resources dedicated to 

humane handling and slaughter activities is sufficient. We recognize 

that FSIS has taken actions in response to a number of 

recommendations made in the 2004 report and have documented 

implementation of these recommendations. However, with regard to 

periodic assessment, we closed this recommendation because enough

time had passed that we considered it unlikely to be implemented. As 

our report states, FSIS has yet to demonstrate that it has been

implemented. Based on our current work, we continue to believe that 

Page 64 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
Appendix III: Comments from the Department 

of Agriculture 

periodic assessment is needed, and we make a recommendation to that

effect. 

8. We modified our report to include the recent approval of USDA’s 

direct-hire authority and noted that USDA has raised some concerns. 

9. We modified our report to include the concern about veterinary 

schools and enhanced the chart to include the concern for salary. 

Page 65 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
Appendix IV: Comments from the Department of Defense Appendix IV: Comments from the 

Department of Defense 

Page 66 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
Appendix IV: Comments from the Department of Defense 

Page 67 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
Appendix V: Comments from the Department Appendix V of Health and Human Services : Comments from the Department 

of Health and Human Services 

Note: GAO comments 

supplementing those in 

the report text appear at 

the end of this appendix. 

Page 68 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
Appendix V: Comments from the Department 

of Health and Human Services 

See comment 1. 

See comment 2. 

Page 69 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
Appendix V: Comments from the Department 

of Health and Human Services 

See comment 3. 

See comment 4. 

Page 70 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
Appendix V: Comments from the Department 

of Health and Human Services 

Page 71 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
Appendix V: Comments from the Department 

of Health and Human Services 

See comment 5. 

Page 72 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
Appendix V: Comments from the Department 

of Health and Human Services 

Page 73 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
Appendix V: Comments from the Department 

of Health and Human Services 

Page 74 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
Appendix V: Comments from the Department 

of Health and Human Services 

The following are GAO’s comments on the Department of Health and 

Human Services’ letter dated January 14, 2009. 

1. HHS commented that a premise of our report is that the control of 

zoonotic diseases is solely dependent on the capacity of the 

veterinarian workforce. Our report does not state this. The scope of 

this report, as described in the introduction, was to review the 

sufficiency of the federal veterinarian workforce. 

GAO Comments 

2. Our report does not identify the Centers for Disease Control and 

Prevention (CDC) as having too few veterinarians to control the 2003 

West Nile virus outbreak while also adequately carrying out other 

routine activities. However, CDC officials we interviewed who were 

involved with the 2003 monkeypox outbreak in Wisconsin told us there 

were too few veterinarians during this outbreak. 

3. We modified our report to reflect the new information about the 

difficulty the National Institutes of Health has recruiting veterinarians. 

4. Our report states conclusions from the FDA Advisory Committee 

report: that FDA “cannot fulfill its mission” because its scientific 

workforce has remained static while its workload has increased, and 

that FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM) is “in a state of 

crisis.” We discussed with an author of the Advisory Committee report 

how that report’s findings specifically related to veterinarians. 

Consequently, our report also states that an author of the FDA 

Advisory Committee report told us that veterinarians enter FDA 

employment lacking necessary skills and experience to examine the 

wide variety of veterinary products that require FDA approval and that 

FDA needs to better train its veterinarians to review the many diverse 

products under its jurisdiction. HHS further stated that CVM has made 

great strides in the past few years in assessing its workforce needs and 

that the conclusions of the Advisory Committee report are out of date. 

Our report identifies several of the efforts CVM has recently 

undertaken, such as hiring additional veterinarians and beginning 

efforts to analyze the gap between current resources and needs. It also 

notes that, according to FDA officials, the agency is undertaking 

significant reforms to address fundamental concerns in the 2007 

report. However, as our report states, FDA did not tell us how these 

efforts address the identified veterinarian skill gap specifically. 

Page 75 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
Appendix V: Comments from the Department 

of Health and Human Services 

5. We modified our report to add a statement that the increase observed 

in CVM’s veterinarian workforce was primarily in response to new 

obligations.

Page 76 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
Appendix VI: Comments from the Office of Appendix VI: Comments from the Office of Personnel Management 

Personnel Management 

Note: GAO comments 

supplementing those in 

the report text appear at 

the end of this appendix. 

See comment 1. 

See comment 2. 

Page 77 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
Appendix VI: Comments from the Office of

Personnel Management 

Page 78 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
Appendix VI: Comments from the Office of

Personnel Management 

The following are GAO’s comments on the Office of Personnel 

Management’s letter dated January 15, 2009. 

1. We modified our report to reflect OPM’s establishment of a team to 

determine the feasibility of issuing a governmentwide direct-hire 

authority for veterinarians. 

GAO Comments 

2. We modified our report to include OPM’s recent approval of USDA’s 

direct-hire authority request. 

Page 79 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
Appendix VII: Comments from the Appendix VII: Comments from the Department of Homeland Security 

Department of Homeland Security 

Note: GAO comments 

supplementing those in 

the report text appear at 

the end of this appendix. 

Page 80 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
Appendix VII: Comments from the 

Department of Homeland Security 

See comment 1. 

See comment 2. 

Page 81 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
Appendix VII: Comments from the 

Department of Homeland Security 

Page 82 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
Appendix VII: Comments from the 

Department of Homeland Security 

The following are GAO’s comments on the Department of Homeland 

Security’s letter dated January 14, 2009. 

1. DHS stated that current policy requires slaughter of all potentially 

exposed animals and, therefore, the projected manpower requirement 

is relevant. We agree that this estimate is relevant to this method. As 

our report notes, the United States has used this “stamping out” 

method in the past for eradicating smaller outbreaks of foreign animal 

diseases. However, DHS and USDA officials told us, and DHS 

reiterates in its comments, that stamping out is infeasible for a largescale outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease. Therefore, we do not agree 

that this estimate is relevant to a catastrophic outbreak, which was the 

scope of this section of our report. Indeed, as we note, DHS and USDA 

officials we interviewed during the course of our review told us that 

the estimate was not relevant. 

GAO Comments 

2. We modified our report to clarify the Office of Health Affairs’ concerns 

about the sufficiency of its veterinarian workforce. 

Page 83 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
Appendix VIII: Comments from the Appendix VIII: Comments from the Department of the Interior 

Department of the Interior 

Page 84 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
Appendix VIII: Comments from the 

Department of the Interior 

Page 85 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
Appendix VIII: Comments from the 

Department of the Interior 

Page 86 GAO-09-178 Veterinarian Workforce
Appendix IX: 

A

GAO Contact and Staff 

cknowledgments 

Page 87 GAO-09-178

Appendix IX: GAO Contact and Staff 

Acknowledgments 

Lisa Shames, (202) 512-3841, or shamesl@gao.gov

In addition to the individual named above, Charles Adams, Assistant 

Director; Mary Denigan-Macauley; Jennifer Gregory; Terry Richardson; 

Benjamin Shouse; and Michelle K. Treistman made key contributions to 

this report. 

Other important contributors included Kevin Bray; Candace Carpenter; 

Nancy Crothers; William Doherty; Joyce Evans; Brian Friedman; Katheryn 

Hubbell; Judith Kordahl; Jena Sinkfield; and Gloria Sutton. 

Veterinarian Workforce

GAO Contact 

Staff 

Acknowledgments 

(360855) 
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