I 
109TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION H. R. 2206
To amend the Public Health Service Act to establish a competitive grant 
program to build capacity in veterinary medical education and expand 
the workforce of veterinarians engaged in public health practice and 
biomedical research. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
MAY 9, 2005
Mr. PICKERING introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
Committee on Energy and Commerce 
A BILL 
To amend the Public Health Service Act to establish a com-
petitive grant program to build capacity in veterinary 
medical education and expand the workforce of veterinar-
ians engaged in public health practice and biomedical 
research.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Veterinary Workforce 
Expansion Act of 2005’’. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
Congress makes the following findings:
(1) Veterinary medicine is an integral and in-
dispensable component of the Nation’s public health 
system. Veterinarians protect human health by pre-
venting and controlling infectious diseases, ensuring 
the safety and security of the nation’s food supply, 
promoting healthy environments, and providing 
health care for animals. 
(2) Veterinarians are essential for early detec-
tion and response to unusual disease events that 
could be linked to newly emerging infectious dis-
eases, such as monkeypox, SARS, and West Nile 
Virus, or other biothreat agents of concern. 
(3) There is a need to build national capacity 
in research and training in the prevention, surveil-
lance, diagnosis, and control of newly emerging and 
re-emerging infectious diseases. 
(4) Veterinarians are uniquely qualified to ad-
dress these high priority public health issues because 
of their extensive professional training in basic bio-
medical sciences, population medicine, and broad, 
multi-species, comparative medical approach to dis-
ease prevention and control. 
(5) There is a shortage of veterinarians working 
in public health practice. As used in the preceding 
sentence, the term ‘‘public health practice’’ includes
bioterrorism and emergency preparedness, environ-
mental health, food safety and food security, regu-
latory medicine, diagnostic laboratory medicine, and 
biomedical research. 
(6) The Bureau of Labor Statistics expects 
there to be 28,000 job openings in the veterinary 
medical profession by 2012 due to growth and net 
replacements, a turnover of nearly 38 percent. 
(7) The Nation’s veterinary medical colleges do 
not have the capacity to satisfy the current and fu-
ture demand for veterinarians and veterinary exper-
tise that is vital to maintain public health prepared-
ness. 
SEC. 3. COMPETITIVE GRANTS PROGRAM. 
Part E of title VII of the Public Health Service Act 
(42 U.S.C. 294n et seq.) is amended by adding at the end 
the following: 
‘‘Subpart 3—Veterinary Medicine 
‘‘SEC. 771. COMPETITIVE GRANT PROGRAM. 
‘‘(a) IN GENERAL.—The Secretary shall award com-
petitive grants to eligible entities for the purpose of im-
proving public health preparedness through increasing the 
number of veterinarians in the workforce. 
‘‘(b) ELIGIBLE ENTITIES.—To be eligible to receive 
a grant under subsection (a), an entity shall—