APPENDIX 49
Supplementary memorandum submitted by
the Association of Veterinary Teachers and Research Workers
Unfortunately, at a time when careful and constructive
political attention is being devoted to science in general, veterinary
science, which although small, is being marginalised despite the
fact that it attracts the very highest calibre of our science-motivated
school leavers and features among our areas of international scientific
strength.
1. The key issue identified in our earlier
submission was the position of veterinary science within the Foresight
programme. Our fears have been amply confirmed by the launch of
the Healthcare Panel's 2020 Report and the discussion at the launch
meeting at the DTI on 5 December. The Report makes no mention
of either veterinary science or comparative medicine and when
a member of our Council asked the Chairman about this his reply
was "to be honest, I don't think we discussed it". This
is particularly disappointing in light of the 1995 Report of the
Health & Life Sciences Panel which stated that "Judged
against the UK's average activity in all disciplines, we have
a particularly strong presence in pharmacology, immunology, genetics
and veterinary science" and the particular importance which
was attached to "comparative medicine and veterinary pathology".
Veterinary pathology has been in crisis for
the last decade and comparative medicine is now at a moment of
unique opportunity, through the MRC's initiative in establishing
a Comparative Clinical Science Panel, subject to satisfactory
funding. The attached Editorial from the Veterinary Record of
December 16 is self explanatory[24].
The White Paper [p10, paragraph 35] rightly emphasises the importance
of "getting the best ideas from Foresight 2000 put into action
fast". Yet veterinary science seems to have been orphaned
from this key instrument of strategic planning to maximise the
public benefits accruing from scientific research—benefits
to human health and animal health which would flow from reinforcement
of our national strengths in veterinary science and comparative
medicine. In this specific area, "priorities identified in
the first Foresight reports in 1995" [paragraph 3, p26] have
slipped out of sight and as a result we will not capitalise on
one of our areas of genuine international competitiveness [paragraph
20, p18].
2. Paragraph 3 [p26] emphasises the central
role of Foresight in integrating different aspects of our national
skills-research, industry, policy making etc to increase national
competitiveness. A key area of our national enterprise is to maximise
the success of Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs). The veterinary
healthcare network is precisely this—a chain of successful
SMEs built upon a rapidly evolving set of exportable technologies.
Both the expansion of the internet and relaxation of movement
controls on animals present growing opportunities for international
collaboration. Each veterinary graduate is the basis for job opportunities
for a range of support staff, and each veterinary practice is
part of the market for a wide range of support industries in diagnostic
imaging, automated analysis, information technology, pharmaceuticals,
surgical equipment etc. Indeed, the best veterinary practices
set an example of healthcare delivery at local level which the
NHS has yet to emulate. The White Paper [p4, paragraph 11] rightly
emphasises the key role for Government in ensuring that there
is the climate for innovation to flourish and for progress to
be sustained. However nothing in the White Paper even glimpses
the need to cultivate our strengths in veterinary science and
to engage them in our national strategy, for the benefits of humans
as well as animals, for welfare and for commercial success. Veterinary
science is precisely one of the areas in which this country has
"a remarkable record of world class research" [pi, paragraph
4] but in the subsequent words of the Secretary of State's introduction
"excellence is only the start. It is not enough to generate
research—we also have to make the most of it".
3. The Selborne Report of 1997 rightly identified
one of the problems of veterinary research as being the lack of
a strategic funding focus, especially for clinical research. The
MRC was identified as one logical means of meeting this need,
a view shared by this Association and the British Veterinary Association
in its submissions to the Selborne Committee of Enquiry. We are
pleased to report progress on this front with the agreement of
the Council of the MRC (subject to satisfactory funding) to establish
a "Comparative Clinical Science Panel" which will serve
to:
(a) Maximise collaborative research between
medical and veterinary clinical scientists.
(b) To exploit the opportunities to draw
lessons concerning the causes, diagnosis and prevention or treatment
of human diseases by studying the equivalent diseases among veterinary
patients; these opportunities are especially important with multifactorial
diseases (which are inherently difficult to model), also with
diseases of shared environments, and with zoonoses.
(c ) Raise the quality of veterinary clinical
science and strengthen the evidence base for veterinary medicine.
(d) Directly involve practitioners, alongside
laboratory scientists, in the planning and conduct of the research,
and attract some of the brightest veterinary graduates to engage
in research, alongside their clinical careers.
This initiative relates directly, therefore,
to the Government's objective in minimising the distance between
identification of need, implementation of necessary research and
delivery of benefit.
At the moment the activation of the Panel rests
on the ability of the veterinary enterprise to raise the requisite
funding for an initial trial period of five years [£10 million
pa]. The reason for this was to prevent public or political criticism
of the initiative on the grounds that it "diverted funds
from humans to animals" whereas the intention is to benefit
both. It would enormously accelerate the implementation of this
excellent scheme if the costs could be met by an additional allocation
to the MRC budget for this purpose, alongside the other additional
allocations [Science Budget, p17]. It is a prime example of an
initiative to foster interdisciplinary research [paragraph 22,
p19].
4. We welcome the emphasis on the need for
academic careers to be rewarding if we are to attract and retain
the brightest and the best [p12, paragraph 3]. While salary improvements
are important [p9, paragraph 32] a veterinary graduate who follows
a career in good quality practice, may, after five years, achieve
a salary above the professional average, let alone the stipend
for a post doctoral Fellow. It is essential therefore to ensure
that research careers are "rewarding" [p12, paragraph
3] in a broader sense. In particular there must be some sort of
career structure and reasonable security for those who perform
well, as emphasised in paragraph 34, p23.
5. Turning to some broader issues, we welcome
the affirmation [paragraph 38, p11] that "the market alone
will not generate the basic investment in research". This
is true of clinical investigations where no one company necessarily
has a product benefit—eg nutritional change may be more
beneficial than drugs, or multiple interventions may be needed
for prevention. But it is also true of developing countries which
may have enormous needs but slender resources to do the necessary
research or purchase the requisite outcomes. A key factor in both
health and wellbeing remains the ability to produce sufficient
food of sufficient quality. In particular, there are areas, for
example in Africa, where the environment is such that food production
is always likely to be costly and require inputs which are ultimately
environmentally damaging, compared with regions where the same
food can readily be produced more efficiently. This requires a
global view of the balance between production and need of the
research required to optimise it; the necessary progress will
not be achieved if it is left to market forces alone, nor if we
are constrained by a purely EU view of supply and demand. While
it is vital to maximise our opportunities to generate business
from our science base [paragraph 20, p6] we have ethical as well
as commercial responsibilities in harnessing our scientific expertise.
"We need to make certain that all regions benefit from the
development of new products and processes", we have global
responsibilities, as well as being "in a global competition".
[paragraph 23, 25, p8].
6. The issue of public confidence and political
judgement of risk [paragraph 16, p5] is fraught with difficulty
and quite different standards seem to apply to food scares or
zoonoses, compared with mobile phones or component failures in
widely used aero engines or aircraft. Evidence-based reassurance
of consumers [paragraph 16, p50] is not helped by the fact that
scientific employees engaged in non-military research based in
Government establishments are bound by the Official Secrets Act.
Indeed it is perhaps fortunate that few members of the public
realise this constraint. Regarding the vital role of the media
[paragraph 17] objectivity is not helped by having a growing proportion
of TV output from independent commercial programme makers; their
paramount interest for survival, like that of newspapers, has
to be for what sells and what does not offend important advertisers.
As a result there is an appetite for oversimplification, at best,
to sensationalism at worst. Neither helps with issues which frequently
turn on the balance of probabilities. A particular example of
these difficulties is the contrast between the tight regulatory
requirements to substantiate claims of efficacy and safety for
conventional medicines and the lack of comparable safeguards with
regard to complementary remedies—or of the necessary research.
The current faith in these remedies is mostly based on anecdotal
evidence and media enthusiasm, rather than evidence of the quality
demanded of conventional medicine. This is true of both human
and especially veterinary medicine. Who should be responsible
for such research is a moot point, granted that the likelihood
of negative outcomes is high.
7. The need for universities and others
to learn from one another [paragraph 39, p44] is properly emphasised
and the closer links between the Veterinary Laboratories Agency
and the veterinary schools are consistent with this objective
as is the initiative outlined in paragraph 3 above.
8. Paragraph 35 et seq, p24. There
is no better example of a scientific career in which women have
flourished than veterinary medicine, with the huge majority of
students and recent graduates now female, and the tendency to
remain professionally active even after assuming responsibility
for children.
9. Paragraph 8 p14. The need to promote
science to children is paramount as is the need to enable them
to realise that research is the engine of progress, not a threat
to future generations, or to the environment or to animals. There
is no area of applied science which attracts the public, particularly
children, more powerfully than veterinary medicine. It provides
the ideal opportunity to build on an instinctive affinity, rather
than instinctive suspicion, and to emphasise the link between
scientific progress and benefit to future patients, both human
and animal. But to do so, it has to continue to advance and we
have reservations, as already expressed, that at present there
is insufficient concern to sustain its momentum within the national
science strategy.
8 January 2001
24 Not printed. Back
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