Veterinary laboratory testing: a viable alternative?

On the surface, the veterinary clinical-laboratory industry looks very much like that of its human counterpart. Two giant national corporations with regional laboratories strategically located across the United States control the lion’s share of the market. Yet, smaller regional laboratories and a host of local laboratory providers still successfully compete for their smaller share of business. Twenty-eight veterinary colleges in 26 states drive prolific research programs and act as referral sources for a host of critical-need and esoteric-laboratory testing. Together, they provide an incredibly wide range of laboratory services to nearly 19,000 veterinary hospitals and clinics in every corner of the United States. Modern laboratory instrumentation and technologies used in human medicine are nearly all utilized in the veterinary-laboratory marketplace. For all of the similarities between human and veterinary clinical laboratories, however, the challenges posed by the veterinary laboratory market can be daunting. Although no licensure or certification are required to operate a veterinary clinical laboratory, there is a voluntary program for accreditation through the American Association of Veterinary Laboratory Diagnosticians that may be a prestigious and valuable feather in the cap of a new veterinary laboratory. While regulatory issues may seem minimal because of the lack of direct regulation, federal and state restrictions may pose a credible threat to the success of a new veterinary laboratory. For example, equine infectious anemia (EIA) — that has been incredibly well-controlled in the United States as a result of aggressive testing and disease-eradication programs — is a highly contagious, often lethal, infection of a horse. A current, simple agar-gel immunodiffusion test, historically known as the Coggins Test, is required by virtually all states for horses crossing state boundaries. EIA is one example of 10 livestock diseases for which the United States Department of Agriculture must give approval to a veterinary lab to perform one of 13 tests. A new laboratory cannot even purchase reagents for these tests without having that USDA certification. The National Veterinary Services Laboratory in Ames, IA, provides the training to certify a laboratory to perform this test, but current policies restrict this training to laboratories recommended by the state veterinarian for the state in which the new laboratory is located. Despite the facts that a) nearly 1 million very mobile horses of the 9 million horses in the United States are stabled in California and, b) of the 490 laboratories in the United States approved by the USDA to perform EIA testing, only three commercial veterinary laboratories are currently approved in California, new laboratories are unable to secure that certification because the Office of the California State Veterinarian has deemed that there are “already sufficient testing resources” for EIA testing in California. This presents a political dilemma that has no solution; and without this very important testing capability to the show horse population in the state, a new laboratory’s chances for success are drastically limited.