A horse is a horse, of course, of course...unless there are too many of them? An estimated 170,000 so-called unwanted horses populate the US annually and a debate is raging over their fate ever since slaughter houses in the US closed down a few years ago. Tens of thousands are sent across the border to Canada and Mexico each year, where many are turned into meat that is exported elsewhere.
What has this got to do with Pfizer? The drugmaker sells the Premarin hormone replacement therapy, which is made from the urine of pregnant mares. And the Equine Welfare Alliance contends the root cause can be traced to overbreeding, and charges that Pfizer's Wyeth unit contributes to the problem by contracting with ranchers to provide urine needed to make its medication.
As it so happens, Tom Lenz, who is the immediate past chair of the Unwanted Horse Coalition and the senior director of equine veterinary services at Pfizer Animal Health, hosted a phone call last night to discuss a new report from the US General Accountability Office, which found more horses have been abandoned since US slaughterhouses closed and the economy soured. Pfizer is also sponsoring the call.
"The UHC, supposedly founded to propose solutions to the excess horse problem, has instead concentrated on promoting the phrase 'unwanted horse' to take the focus off of overproduction, which slaughter actually encourages, and imply slaughter horses are somehow unusable except as meat," the EWA says in a statement.
"The phrase 'unwanted horse' is actually a clever invention," EWA president John Holland tell us. "What we have are excess horses, because of overbreeding." He goes on to cite a 1998 study by researchers at the Department of Animal Sciences at Colorado State University that was commissioned by the US Department of Agriculture to determine where horses were harmed while being transported to slaughter. The results - 92 percent actually arrived in good condition (read here). Of course, this was more than a decade ago, before US slaughterhouses closed and the economy nosedived.
A Pfizer spokesman disagrees that the drugmaker is contributing to overbreeding. However, he did write us that Pfizer collected pregnant mare urine from about 5,100 mares in 2009 and 2010, but was unable to provide the number of ranches contracted to supply the ingredient, other than to say these are located "primarily" in Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
Erica Caslin, who now chairs the UHC, tells us that her group has not taken a position on slaughtering, but believes the increase in abandoned or unwanted horses can be traced to the reasons cited in the GAO report. However, she adds that indiscriminate breeding also contributes to the problem. "But no one wants horses to suffer," she says.
Meanwhile, the American Association of Equine Practitioners says that a "small percentage of horses are ultimately unwanted because they are no longer serviceable, are infirm, dangerous, or their owners are no longer able to care for them" and that " processing" unwanted horses is "a necessary aspect of the equine industry, and provides a humane alternative to allowing the horse to continue a life of discomfort and pain, and possibly inadequate care or abandonment." The AAEP, by the way, is a founding member of the Unwanted Horse Coalition and continues as a contributor, a spokeswoman tells us.
horse pic thx to nathanmac87 on flickr
Hat tip to Placebo Effect
17 Comments
Our economy will not support another US foreign owned slaugherhouse for horses, burro's and mules. These animals can and do have drugs in them. A race horse gets drugs on race day automatically, and many of them are sent to auction and slaughtered within a week of their last race. The Belgians paid 5.00 in taxes in 2000 for 5 million in profit, they ruined a town and they ran up fines they didn't pay. I don't want my tax money to support this bloody business ever. Save the horses Stop the breeding Stop the slaughter! No "foal milling" will my tax money support, no subsidies, no tax breaks!
Horse meat is unfit for humans to eat. Food and Chemical Toxicology, Volume 48, Issue 5, May 2010, Pages 1270-1274 Association of phenylbutazone usage with horses bought for slaughter: A public health risk Nicholas Dodman, Nicolas Blondeau, Ann M. Marini http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T6P-4YF5RB0-1&_user=10&_coverDate=05%2F31%2F2010&_alid=1317753422&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_cdi=5036&_sort=r&_docanchor=&view=c&_ct=4&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=2f8a2c55a559e5963d0f1e02b682319c Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs - prohibited as well Phenylbutazone, known as "bute," is a veterinary drug only label-approved by the Food & Drug Administration for use by veterinarians in dogs and horses. It has been associated with debilitating conditions in humans and it is absolutely not permitted for use in food-producing animals. USDA/FSIS has conducted a special project to for this drug in selected bovine slaughter plants under federal inspection. An earlier pilot project by FSIS found traces less than 3% of the livestock selected for testing, sufficient cause for this special project. There is no tolerance for this drug in food-producing livestock, and they and their by-products are condemned when it is detected. Dairy producers must not use this drug in food-producing livestock and if it is found, those producers will be subject to FDA investigation and possible prosecution. http://www.saanendoah.com/prohibiteddrugs.html Horse Owner Survey Shows NSAID Use Trends In a recent survey, 96% of respondents said they used nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) to control the joint pain and inflammation in horses, and 82% administer them without always consulting their veterinarian. More than 1,400 horse owners and trainers were surveyed to better understand attitudes toward NSAIDs, in a project sponsored by Merial, the maker of Equioxx (firocoxib). http://www.thehorse.com/ViewArticle.aspx?ID=14073 99 percent of horses that started in California last year raced on bute, according to Daily Racing Form. Bute is banned in the United States and Canada for horses intended for the food chain. That’s a permanent ban. Nonsteroidal Medication (NSAID’s) Phenylbutazone (Bute), flunixin meglamine (Banamine), and ketoprofen (Ketofen) are the most common NSAID’s used in horses while aspirin and ibuprofen are the most commonly used NSAID’s in humans. These are very effective in eliminating discomfort and are usually the first line of therapy in minor musculoskeletal pain. http://www.aaep.org/health_articles_view.php?id=253 NSAIDs The systemic NSAID group includes phenylbutazone (Butazolidin) and flunixin meglumine (Banamine), which are 2 of the most widely prescribed drugs in equine medicine. Volume 25, Issue 3, Pages 98-102 (March 2005) Dr Anthony Blikslager, DVM, PhD, DACVS (Associate Professor)a, Dr Sam Jones, DVM, PhD, DACVIM (Associate Professor)b http://www.j-evs.com/article/S0737-0806%2805%2900061-4/abstract
Slaughtering animals for food or any other purpose will someday be a thing of the past. Join the consortium for in vitro meat. Someday your steak will be grown in a Petri dish (mine will be a very large Petri dish).
http://invitromeat.org/
These may be of interest. Then again, they may not be of no interest at all.
1. Red Oak Premium Meat Processors, LLC (Springfield, Missouri Area) 2. Painted Creek Farm 3. Kentucky Bioprocessing, LLC 4. Bella Vista Equestrian Center
Godspeed to those that do what you do. But please, whatever you do, do not trust men (or women) in tunics.
In good faith, BS
I thought Wyeth came up with a "chemically manufactured" alternative, that didn't require the use of pre-mare urine?
Does anyone really know what the hell these companies have done in the past 10 to 15 years? Are they still insisting on keeping their records linking this drug with cancer sealed? If so, how is it that they are not pried open with a Federal crowbar?
Insider,
One day, your steak won't be made of horse.
timothy
Just a note to those who may be interested in my last post. If this is important to you, you may want to put your shoes on and get moving. One never knows who may be listening to the same music.
BS
Tom,
Bravo. Great info. Is there a chance that "Bute" was in the systems of the horses that were sources of the API (via their urine) for this class of hormone replacement therapy (the Prempro's, Premarin's, etc) dating back as early as the 90's in your opinion?
Double, you are pretty close. Thanks to a crack team of outside lawyers and the complicity of the FDA, for many years Wyeth and its predecessors American Home products and Ayerst Laboratories were able to successfully keep synthetic copies of Premarin off the market. The multibillion dollar Premarian franchise was protected in no small part by AHP's co-conspirators at FDA, namely Dr. Janet Woodcock.
See 1997 memorandum from FDA's Dr. Woodcock rejecting any and all attempts at marketing synthetic generic Premarin based on that fact that at the time the active components of Premarin had not been "sufficiently well defined".
http://www.fda.gov/Drugs/DrugSafety/InformationbyDrugClass/ucm168836.htm
I read all of Woodcock's memo. Complexity by design.
So, it seems that synthetic forms of Premarin are less safe than from pre-mare urine, yes?
And prior to 1997, there is no assurance that synthetic forms were not used in Premarin, yes?
What a mess.
Several years ago there was a big protest in Austin, Tx to get a bill passed that would cease the slaughter and selling of horse meat to Europe. Unfortunately, it was not passed (thank you Kay Bailey Hutchinson and like minded colleagues), and it was disturbing to know how these amazing animals were being treated!
Double, I used the same law firm that was involved with the Premarin defense strategy. It was on a completely different matter, but I can assure you that these folks are VERY good at what they do. Some of them are former FDA attorneys themselves, and they would therefore be able to be on a first name basis with Dr. Woodcock.
I had understood that the synthetic forms were safer than Premarin, particularly for women with estrogen driven cancer. But, what do I know?
Suz, in an industry where they tell us whatever they want, and could afford the means to not worry about being accountable, no one knows anything when it really comes down to it.
aspy
I have a rescue pmu horse he was in the trailers and auction pens as a foal from premarin farm. He was injured by thpe larger horses and will never bpe rideable. This does not mean he is unwanted. I cannot ride my cat or dog either. . .i have been Reo's person for 8 yrs,and would not trade him for twenty "usable" horses. I wish the industry would be banned so beautiful horses are not injured and exploited for the almighty dollar, it is like something out of "The Matrix"!!! To keep the mares confined to harvest urine and flush the babies like trash into the slaughter pens.
The AVMA and AAEP organizations (members were not polled and most oppose it)should be ashamed for supporting horse slaughter as there is no way it is humane. Vets are supposed to prevent animal suffering --not cause it.Visit www.vetsforequinewelfare.org to read the White paper and www.kaufmanzoning.net to see the FOIA from USDA proving how cruel the auctions, transportation and slaughter were in the USA when plants were open here. 80% of the American public oppose horse slaughter. Horse meat is toxic due to bute, dewormers, etc used on horses but thsi fact is not being told.
from the play, "Macbeth"....