A NORTH-EAST expert has expressed concern that too many vets are concentrating on treating pets at the expense of public health.

Philip Lowe, from the Centre for Rural Economy at Newcastle University, argued that a shift in practice from treating animals used for food on farms to looking after pets in urban communities, is largely to blame.

According to Professor Lowe, writing in The Veterinary Record, the proportion of time vets in private practice spent treating animals used for food halved between 1998 and 2006.

Most vets run their own businesses, and pet owners have proved a more sustainable and lucrative source of income than farmers.

Prof Lowe, a social scientist specialising in rural issues, sympathised with the need to make money, but he laments this drift towards the profession turning into "another private sector service industry."

This fails to make use of vets' considerable and wide ranging expertise, he wrote, adding: "I would argue that it also diminishes the public standing of the whole profession. I certainly couldn't imagine the medical establishment in this country accepting a role that marginalised public health, even if the NHS did not exist.

"More seriously for all of us, I believe that not involving vets in this important area also puts food safety in the UK at risk," he continues.

"At the same time we live in an age when there is real and widespread public concern about welfare standards for farm animals, threats from animal diseases old and new (such as blue tongue, bird flu and swine flu), and food safety."

The profession needs to rethink its role and the direction in which it is travelling, he urged.