Source: POLITICO'S MORNING AGRICULTURE, 11/19/19

Speaking of federal funding... if Congress eventually passes a full-year fiscal 2020 spending package, the legislation should include a $4 million boost to USDA's center that oversees the safety and effectiveness of products for diagnosing, preventing and treating animal diseases, including vaccines, according to the Animal Health Institute.

The group, which represents drug companies like Elanco, Bayer and Merck, has been warning House and Senate appropriators that the funding increase is needed to avert potential shortages of important vaccines for foot and mouth disease, African swine fever — which has decimated hog herds in China — or other diseases. Vaccines are also key to reducing the use of medically important antibiotics on farms, said Will McCauley, AHI's director of veterinary biologics. (ICYMI, it's World Antibiotic Awareness Week.)

A perfect storm: USDA's Center for Veterinary Biologics has operated on a flat budget of about $16.5 million annually for at least a decade, AHI said. The center has done more with less for too long, McCauley said, citing a backlog of maintenance on laboratories and other infrastructure, as well as staff vacancies in part because of the increasing cost of salaries. These employees play a role in approving every animal vaccine in the U.S. that's produced domestically or is imported, he added, and a slowdown in that process could limit the availability of vaccines.

The House Agriculture-FDA spending bill included a spending boost of $2 million for the center, while the Senate version would hike funding by $1 million. Lawmakers have yet to reach a compromise on fiscal 2020 appropriations.