NAVEC - North American Veterinary Ethics Council

08/13/2026

https://navec.org/illegal-to-help

The rules that price families out of animal care were written by one lobby, in its own interest. Eight closed markets, one campaign wallet, and the families, animals, and independent clinics that pay. NAVEC Report No. 5.

07/31/2026

Your trash pickup gets inspected. The exam that decides who gets to be a veterinarian in America has never been inspected once. Ever.

Restaurant kitchens, elevators, the addition on your house: all checked. But no government agency is allowed to look at the questions, the scoring, or the fairness of the one exam that controls the supply of vets.

The veterinary profession's own press just investigated. Our plain-English guide, every claim linked to its source:

The government inspects trash pickup, restaurant kitchens, and elevators. No government agency inspects the exam that decides who becomes a veterinarian. A plain-English guide to the VIN News investigation.

07/26/2026

Your vet is booked out for weeks. The emergency clinic closed its overnight shift. And a third of American pets won't see a vet at all this year.

Here's what nobody tells you: right now, more than 2,000 fully trained veterinarians — many of them American citizens — are waiting for permission to work. One of them passed the national licensing exam two years ago. She checked the exam-seat portal three times a day, morning, lunch, and night, for two years. There was never an opening. Today she works as a veterinary assistant — a job that requires no degree — while your community goes without care.

The gate she's stuck behind isn't run by the government. It's run by a private association, one that has spent fifty years insisting America has too many vets, and no one is allowed to audit it.

We spent months building the full investigation from public records — most of them the association's own documents. Read it, share it with someone who loves an animal, and join us. This only changes if we change it together.

America is short 37,000 vets. Two thousand trained veterinarians are begging to work. The gate they must pass is owned by a private club nobody elected — one that has spent fifty years insisting America has too many veterinarians.

07/19/2026

https://navec.org/the-planning-of-the-veterinarian-shortage

Fifty years of “surplus” forecasts. Twenty years with zero new veterinary schools. NAVEC Head of Research Edward Timmons, PhD, on how the veterinarian shortage was planned — and the two reforms that would ease it.

07/03/2026

If corporations caused the veterinary shortage, why can’t they hire enough vets?

That question matters because many pet owners are angry for understandable reasons. Bills are higher. Appointments are harder to get. Clinics feel less personal. Corporate ownership is more visible than ever.

But the shortage itself does not behave like a problem caused by corporations having too much control over veterinarians.

If veterinary labor were plentiful, corporate groups would not need to offer huge sign-on bonuses. Clinics would not sit understaffed. Rural communities would not be left with no veterinarian at all.

Corporate groups can outbid small clinics, shelters, and rural practices for the limited supply of veterinarians. But that does not explain why the supply is limited in the first place.

To understand the shortage, follow the gates: veterinary schools, the national exam, and the pathway for foreign-trained veterinarians.

Read the article:
https://navec.org/high-vet-bills-veterinary-shortage-gatekeepers.html

Six-figure bonuses, closed clinics, and rural care deserts point to a deeper problem: who controls entry into the veterinary profession.

06/30/2026

The veterinary shortage in America has reached a crisis point. How did we get here? How do we solve it? Visit our crisis page to learn more: https://navec.org/crisis

06/29/2026

Ask any shelter operator: the crisis is real.
Shelters cannot save animals without veterinary care.

NAVEC is building a national coalition to fix the veterinary bottleneck behind delayed surgeries, closed intake, longer shelter stays, and animals left without care.

Follow NAVEC for data, reform updates, and action steps.

06/29/2026

https://navec.org/animals-running-out-of-time

Shelters and nonprofit clinics cannot hire veterinarians, and for the animals most at risk that has become a preventable-deaths crisis. The structural cause is now part of the federal antitrust record.