Horse Meat Scandal Illustrates Need for Federal Action

Michael Markarian: Animals & Politics: Horsemeat Scandal Illustrates Need for Federal Action

Horse meat Scandal Illustrates Need for Federal Action

A food scandal has rocked Europe, where products labeled as beef—everything from frozen lasagna to Swedish meatballs—have tested positive for horsemeat. But it’s not just in Europe where government officials should take notice; the controversy affects the United States, too. More than 100,000 American horses are killed each year for their meat, and the main market for this product is Europe.

Former racehorses, carriage horses, family ponies, and other equines are scooped up at auctions by predatory “killer buyers,” who often outbid horse rescue groups and families that want to give the horses a new, loving home. The majestic creatures are crammed tightly into cattle trucks, and shipped hundreds or thousands of miles to slaughter plants across the border in Canada or Mexico.

They are butchered, shrink-wrapped, and air-freighted to Belgium, France, Italy, or other countries. It’s a grisly end for an American icon. And it’s generally reserved for the strongest, healthiest horses, with the most meat on their bones to fetch the most profit—not the sick and homeless as the horse slaughter boosters would have us believe.

Stopping the cruelty of long-distance transport and slaughter of our cherished companions should be enough to spur action. But there’s another major reason our lawmakers should act: We are dumping unsafe and contaminated horsemeat on European dinner plates and supermarket shelves.

The European Union forbids imports of American chicken because the carcasses are bathed in chlorine, and bans pork imports because American producers treat the animals with ractopomine. But tens of thousands of drugged-up American horses are entering the marketplace, even though they are routinely given medicines throughout their lives not intended for human consumption.

Clenbuterol, a bronchodilator with anabolic steroid properties, and Phenylbutazone, known as bute or horse aspirin, are among many commonly prescribed medications for treating ailing or lame horses—but banned for use in animals slaughtered for human consumption. The U.S. has no system in place to track the medications that are given to horses over their lifetimes, and therefore, there’s no reliable way to remove horses from the food chain once they have been given prohibited substances. It’s no surprise that bute was found last summer in horsemeat shipped from Canada to Belgium, and continues to turn up in random testing.

While horse slaughter apologists such as those in the Oklahoma legislature are rallying for a return to equine abattoirs on U.S. soil, it’s becoming uncertain whether they will have any remaining markets to sell their product—especially if the European Union decides to crack down on sales of horsemeat from North America in light of the recent scandal.

It’s time for the U.S. Congress to take a hard look at the serious and far-reaching food safety concerns associated with slaughtering American horses. Lawmakers should reintroduce federal legislation to prevent the slaughter and export of our horses for human consumption, and send a message that the global trade of U.S. horsemeat is simply unsuitable for the dinner table.

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New EU Regs Spell Likely End to Euro Markets for American Horse Meat

New EU Regs Spell Likely End to Euro Markets for American Horse Meat | Horse Back Magazine

July 31, 2012

By Steven Long

HOUSTON, (Horseback) – Despite claims by pro-horse slaughter activists who would seemingly put a slaughterhouse on every rural main street, the market for American horse meat just dwindled to almost nothing. The European Union released its 2013 regulations for meat imported into the 27 countries.

Under the new regulations, all horses and burros destined for slaughter and export to Europe must have a passport that shows they are free from substances such as phenylbutazone (bute), and clenbuterol. Such substances never leave an animal’s body and are carcinogens. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration bans their use in all food animals.

Almost all U.S. horses have been administered a dose of bute during their lifetime.

“These new rules would appear to make the entire issue of horse slaughter in America moot. If these guidelines are enforced, virtually every horse in America will become ineligible for slaughter,” said John Holland, president of the Chicago based Equine Welfare Alliance, the most prominent among the groups fighting to ban slaughter in the United States.

Holland said the issue of horse slaughter to benefit a relative few American breeders and horse owners is forcing unexpected problems for the overwhelming majority of horse owners from coast to coast who have nothing to do with the meat trade.

“There has been a lot of postulating about the “unintended consequences” of the 2007 inspections ban. Now the American horse industry will realize the unforeseen consequences if we are to continue to ship our excess horses to slaughter. It will require tracking of every drug given to a horse, the loss of our most effective and inexpensive medications and hugely increased veterinary costs overall. The days of that tube of bute being stashed in the grain room will be over,” Holland said.

The EU is putting teeth into strict enforcement of regulations that began in 2010 when the European nations warned horses coming to those countries from abroad must be in full compliance within three years. That time span has nearly lapsed.

The strict new passport regulations are contained in a European Commission document titled Imports of Animals and Food of Animal Origins From Non-EU Countries.

Horse slaughter activists such as Wyoming State Rep. Sue Wallis have been ignoring the European recommendations. That will now be impossible.

As is usually the case, Wallis has not returned emails or phone calls from Horseback seeking comment on the EU developments.

In an additional blow to the budding U.S. horse meat industry, it was leaned today that the Europeans have also have found Bute and Clenbuterol in Canadian horse product exported to Europe.

“It appears the Europeans have finally awoken to the abject reality of our many warnings that they are being fed unsafe horse meat. Their recent finding of phenylbutazone in samples of frozen Canadian horse meat shows that they are beginning to perform real tests, but if they routinely tested kidneys they would be in for a real shock!” Holland said.

Note ~ These are the EU regs we have been warning everyone about for the last two years. No one listened, not even in Washington. Well, here they are. It's the passport system or nothing. We told 'em so.
 
If any trolls read this, I did not write these rules. Neither did Steven Long or R.T. Fitch - you might want to apologize to R.T. for calling him a "turd" for "making this up" which he did not do. He was just reporting the facts, just like Steven and myself. Now, I don't blame you horse eating slugs for being upset at finding out we haven't been making all this stuff up after all, but, geez, have a little class! Well, maybe that is too much to ask after all.

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The Art of Deception

EDITORIAL | The Art of Deception

by Vicki Tobin 2012.06.10

Sue Wallis [or whoever pens her ramblings] has mastered the art of writing fictitious statements and making them sound feasible.

In a cover letter to the release of her latest piece of fiction, she states her paper is a representation of the horse industry. Where is the data to back that statement? She is well known for making baseless statements and then when challenged, she cuts and runs.

She wants to kill horses. Period. How is that going to help the beleaguered horse industry that makes its billions from live horses? The answer is obvious. It won't.

Wallis speaks for a foreign meat industry. When did the horse industry ever produce meat? They produce athletes and performance horses, not horse meat.

The first section is nothing more than an attempt to build a market that doesn't exist and never will exist in America. If Americans ate horses and there was a buck to be made, horse meat would be in our grocery stores. There was nothing stopping the selling of horse meat in the U.S. during all the years slaughtered existed on our soil and never a mention of wanting to sell horse meat.

She babbles on and on about the foreign countries consuming meat. Really, now. Who cares? Every country has its own culture and is free to eat and do what they please. In our country, in our culture, we do not eat our horses. She claims she'll feed the hungry. Do we really want the U.S. to be known for wiping out world hunger by feeding the hungry toxic meat?

We agree with her comment that journalists don't always fact check but this is a positive for

Wallis, not a negative. If journalists did check facts, none of her nonsense would be published.

She claims horse slaughter is humane but hasn't provided any evidence. There are mounds of evidence to the contrary. Continually citing Humane Methods of Slaughter, she fails to state that having regulations and enforcing them are not the same. There aren't enough inspectors and yet, she wants to expand their workload to horse slaughter plants that will further compromise our food supply. Government authenticated undercover footage has proved over and over again just how inhumane horse slaughter really is. Not being able to explain away the cruelty, she simply states they are all fabricated. If she pulled FOIAs from the former U.S. plants, she would realize just how baseless her statements really are.

All we hear is humane and regulated horse slaughter plants. This is coming from someone who thought it was good clean fun to crawl around in the bloodied carcass of a horse. Someone that defends a livestock plant owner wanting to open a horse slaughter plant that was shut down by the USDA for inhumane treatment of slaughter animals and someone that defends a feedlot owner that has been cited over and over again for violations. Listen to her carefully. She defends the cruelty and attacks the individuals that expose it.

Next, we move on to food safety. She makes the statement that horse meat is safe. Horse meat from horses in other countries may be safe but it certainly isn't from horses raised in America. U.S. horses are not raised or regulated as food animals. We race horses; we raise horses to perform, to work, for law enforcement, as therapy animals, for sport, for pleasure and as companions. The foreign countries that consume horse meat raise horses as food animals. They do not raise their horses for other purposes and then send them to the butcher. They have passport systems requiring a veterinarian record every medication given to the horse from birth. They do not allow a horse to obtain a passport over 6 months of age. The passport systems are national systems to ensure food safety, not a home grown system devised by those who will profit from horse slaughter.

Once again, she reaches out to equine scientists and veterinarians to give her ammo to get around food safety regulations. Medical doctors determine the levels of medications that are safe for human consumption and what medications are banned in food animals. Food safety is to protect humans, not animals. Equine scientists and veterinarians are not medical doctors.

Stating that horse meat is nutritious and including pictures of plates of horse meat does not portray meat from American horses. Add a little Phenylbutazone (Bute) to the meat and the nutrition is outweighed by the risk of developing cancer. Included in her paper is a letter from [again] non medial doctors that unsuccessfully attempted to refute a paper published on Bute in the Food and Chemical Toxicology Journal. In typical Wallis fashion, she failed to print the response to the letter that was published in the same journal that validated the original study.¹ A comprehensive study was also published by a group of veterinarians in Ireland on the effects of Bute in humans and the consequences for violating the passport system.²

One constant with Wallis is that you can always count on her rabidly trying to find a way around food safety laws-in particular, with Bute. The reason she is so irrational on food safety is that if food safety regulations were enforced with U.S. horses, there would be no horses to slaughter. So she does what she does best; explains it away with irrelevant documents and statements from individuals [or herself] that have no training or qualifications to speak to food safety.

One of her favorite tricks is to include a link to prove something, counting on the reader never actually reading the document. As one example, she cites a 2008 European Union (E.U.) report as proof that drug residues have never been found in U.S. horses. The report she cites has nothing to do with results - it was about establishing protocols concerning drug residues.

In December of 2010, the E.U. released a report on how well the slaughter plants were implementing the recommendations of the 2008 audit and this one did include drug residues in U.S. horses. Not only did they find several banned substances but also discovered that the accompanying paperwork was falsified.³ Of course, she ignores the report because it blows her argument out of the water.

She disregards the documents that disprove her statements and when challenged, there is never a response other than to start name calling. How dare those tree hugging, vegan, radical animal activists provide facts.

In another example, Wallis talks about the rate at which Phenylbutazone disappears from the blood stream, implying that it simply goes away in a few days. In fact, the drug does two things Wallis doesn't mention. First, it metabolizes into Oxyphenylbutazone, a compound with a much longer rate of decay and the same toxic properties. Secondly, it takes up in injured tissue. This accounts for its extreme effectiveness, but it also makes it reappear in the blood later. The bottom line is that Bute is banned in all meat animals for very good scientific reasons.

¹ http://www.equinewelfarealliance.org/uploads/Henneke_and_Marini.pdf

² http://www.equinewelfarealliance.org/uploads/Ireland_-_bute.pdf

³ http://www.animalsangels.org/images/stories/pdf/fvo%20inspection%20at%20mexic... mber%202010.pdf

Bute is known as the aspirin of horse world. It is as common as the bottle of aspirin in your medicine cabinet. Walk into any barn in the U.S. and you will find a form of Bute or Bute compounds. Bute is banned in all food producing animals and is banned by the FDA and the E.U. that consumes the meat from U.S. horses.

The GAO report that Wallis frequently quotes is primarily anecdotal comments and she validates this with the comments in her paper. Comments and interviews are not data.4 As one example, veterinarians from the meat industry were interviewed regarding abandoned horses instead of the state agencies that receive and record the reports. When EWA requested the underlying data that formulated the assumptions, our request was denied; a further indication that data did not exist. Wallis completely ignores the GAO recommendation that horse slaughter be banned permanently.

Wallis blames the closure of the U.S. horse slaughter plants for the decrease in horse values and all the woes of the horse industry. Not only did horse slaughter not end but it increased. Nothing changed other than where they were being butchered. Anyone possessing even a rudimentary knowledge of cause and effect would understand what a ridiculous conclusion that is. One year after the plants closed, our country experienced an economic crisis that has been compared to the Great Depression. Every industry in this country experienced declines. Does she honestly expect anyone to believe that if the plants had remained opened, that only the value of horses wouldn't have declined?

A recent poll by the prestigious pollsters, Lake Associates, revealed that 80% of Americans are against horse slaughter. Wallis can continue starting new organizations, changing the names and aligning with foreign meat businesses. She can continue making unsubstantiated statements and claims of support but in the end, she will be run out of town as she has been every time she tried to shove a slaughter plant down the throats of communities in America.

And that, my friends, speaks volumes of the opposition to horse slaughter in our country.

4 http://www.equinewelfarealliance.org/uploads/GAO_Response-final.pdf

The Equine Welfare Alliance is a dues-free 501c4, umbrella organization with over 245 member organizations and hundreds of individual members worldwide in 18 countries. The organization focuses its efforts on the welfare of all equines and the preservation of wild equids. www.equinewelfarealliance.org

 

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Why The Issue With Bute?

EATING HORSES Int'l Fund for Horses EU Drug Regulations, Phenylbutazone and the Disquieting Truth about Toxic Horse Meat

Part 2: Why the Issue with Bute?

“BUTE” is by no means the only drug under scrutiny in the sport horse and racing industry however its metabolic activity and "decay life" in animal tissue is in direct contrast to many other legally permissible medications which are transient in nature and are biologically eliminated from the system over established intervals.

Of particular note however is the fact that “bute” is the most widespread anti-inflammatory in the global horse racing industry today. It is estimated that 98% of NA professional sport and pleasure horses have received phenylbutazone at some point in their lives and is widely used in other horse industry jurisdictions around the globe.

The kinetics and drug activity of phenylbutazone and its metabolites (e.g. oxyphenbutazone) are characteristic of a bi-exponential decay rate (the sum of two single exponential decays) meaning, in theory, that regardless of the elapsed time there will always be residuals present in blood plasma (i.e. the concept of infinite division). [1]

An exponential decay rate can be expressed in terms of "half-life" where one half-life represents the amount of time it takes for the substance undergoing "decay" to decrease by one half of the original concentration. Half-lives remain constant over the decay period and as the concentration approaches zero, the time to eliminate any residuals remaining in the system approaches infinity. In other words, there will always be some residuals present regardless of the passage of time.

Table 1 and Figure 1 together illustrate a simple model of exponential decay.

Of particular note is that regardless of the number of half-lives denoted by "n", the fraction or percentage of the original concentration of the substance under analysis will always be greater than zero.

Table 1: Exponential Decay Concept

Number of Half-Lives Elapsed	Fraction of Original Concentration Remaining	Percentage of Original Concentration Remaining
0	1	100
1	1/2	50
2	1/4	25
3	1/8	12.5
4	1/16	6.25
5	1/32	3.125
...	...	...
n	1/(2n)	100/(2n)

Where n = number of half-lives

Figure 1: Exponential Decay Curve Showing Persistence of Residues

Decades ago phenylbutazone, a compound originally used in Europe as a solubilizing agent for various analgesics given by intramuscular injection, was introduced to the drug compendium in the US for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis and gout, nonetheless with fateful brevity.
Admitted in 1949, and shortly thereafter banned by the FDA for human use, by the year 2003 the ban extended to animals intended for human consumption given that investigation by FDA and State regulatory counterparts determined that phenylbutazone residues were discovered in culled dairy cattle. [2] [3]

At the time this did not include horses or dogs as in North America neither are considered food animals.

"Phenylbutazone (PBZ) was marketed in the United States for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis and gout in 1952. Serious and often fatal adverse effects such as aplastic anemia and agranulocytosis appeared in the literature within three years of its use . . . . . The serious adverse effects of PBZ culminated in its unavailability for human use in the United States."
[4]

Apart from aplastic anemia (bone marrow suppression) and agranulocytosis (reduction in infection fighting white blood cells), phenylbutazone and its principal metabolite oxyphenbutazone have also been implicated in thrombocytopenia (low platelet count), leucopenia (decreased white blood cells), pancytopenia (reduced red and white blood cells and platelets), hemolytic anemia (abnormal breakdown of red blood cells) and can cause hypersensitivity reactions in the liver leading to death. [5]  Moreover, phenylbutazone is a carcinogen, as determined by the National Toxicology Program. [6]

Clearly there is apt rationale for banning phenylbutazone for human use as well as animals intended for human consumption both as a function of its toxicity and the causal certainty that residues will always be present to some extent in the blood and hence tissues of animals slaughtered for food.  Additionally, what is most disconcerting is that the lethal adverse effects in humans are not always dose-dependent and demonstrate unique outcomes contingent on a particular individual’s susceptibility. In essence what this implies is that even in small quantities phenylbutazone and its metabolites can have deleterious effects on human health. [7]

To this end, the FDA has banned the use of phenylbutazone in horses destined for slaughter.
Moreover, there are no farming associations that raise horses for food in North America (unless the AQHA can be considered eligible). And despite the fact that horse slaughter in the US has been outlawed since 2007, there is no pretense about what happens to more than 100,000 horses sold annually at auction who are shipped to Canada and Mexico. Once butchered, their meat is exported to European and Asian locales where it fetches top dollar and is considered a delicacy.

The fact is that the majority of these horses will be administered phenylbutazone during some point in their lives to relieve musculoskeletal pain and inflammation.
This in itself is not entirely inappropriate as there are valid reasons for its use in the treatment of lameness providing the recommended dosage is abided by, as there are also potential life-threatening side-effects to the horse (e.g. severe gastric ulceration).

Instead, the glaring inconsistency is the unmistakable fact that these horses enter the food chain; perhaps not in North America but elsewhere through export to foreign countries nonetheless. What’s more, since the residues of phenylbutazone and its metabolites reside primarily in the blood plasma of the tissues there is the complicating factor of the inherent differences between slaughtered cattle and horse carcasses.

"As stated above, almost all of the PBZ remains in the bloodstream. . . . To provide a point of comparison, a 1400 lb cow has 60 ml/kg body weight or almost 10 gallons or 0.71 gallons per 100 lbs of cow. The ratio is 1.25/.71 = 1.76:1. Thus, a horse has 1.76 times as much blood per pound of body weight compared to a cow." [8]

Potentially this means that there is a calculated measure of risk of the presence of higher concentrations of toxic residues in horse meat than in beef. In actual fact there is no "risk" of higher concentrations in horse meat in light of the fact that the drug has been banned in other animals, such as cattle for example, intended for human consumption since 2003:  the residues are undeniably higher in horse meat. Still the quandary exists.

"The FDA, like the EU and UK, specifically bans the use of PBZ in any horse destined for slaughter for human consumption. Yet, this ban is being circumvented because there is no pre-slaughter mechanism to determine and remove horses that receive PBZ during their lifetime. This is because horses are not regarded as or treated as food-producing animals in the United States and there are no USDA regulations to prevent them from being given banned substances like PBZ." [9]

Horses may not be perceived as food-producing animals in the US, but they are certainly treated as if they are in the same appalling manner.
Continue reading >>

_______________________________

[1]  www.beautysequinerescue.org/images/bute_contamination.pdf
[2]  http://web.me.com/stevescrutton/Failure_ConMed/Apdx._Banned,_withdrawn_pharmacological_drugs.html
[3]  http://www.fda.gov/AnimalVeterinary/NewsEvents/CVMUpdates/ucm124078.htm
[4]  Ibid at 1.

[5]  Ibid at 1.
[6]  http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/sis/search/a?dbs+hsdb:@term+@DOCNO+3159
[7]  Ibid at 1.
[8]  Ibid at 1.
[9]  Ibid at 1.


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Experts Calling for Slaughter Ban In Wake of United Horsemen Summit Cancellation

Experts Calling for Slaughter Ban In Wake of United Horsemen Summit Cancellation | Horse Back Magazine

March 27, 2012

CHATHAM, N.Y., (Equine Advocates) — Horse experts from across the country will converge on Equine Advocates Rescue & Sanctuary http://www.equineadvocates.org/ in Chatham, NY for the 2012 American Equine Summit on Saturday, March 31st and Sunday, April 1st with one objective — to reverse the damage done by Congress in Nov. 2011 by mobilizing an effective grassroots movement to end the slaughter of America’s horses in the US and abroad. The attendees will be comprised of press, lawmakers and those involved with equine welfare and the horse industry. Interested parties are encouraged to “like” Equine Advocates on Facebook, follow us on Twitter @EquineAdvocates, and for live updates during the Summit, use the following hash tag: #AES2012.

“It’s just plain wrong when lobbies for the Agriculture and Quarter Horse industries can influence members of Congress to supersede the will of the more than 80% of Americans who want a federal ban on horse slaughter,” said Susan Wagner, President of Equine Advocates. “The ‘eighty percenters’ deserve to be heard. Instead, lawmakers controlled by special interests prevailed and gave horse slaughter proponents exactly what they wanted. It’s not only egregious, it’s downright un-American.”

The Summit will be opened by legendary concert promoter and horse lover, Ron Delsener. Two new speakers have been added – Dr. Caroline Betts, who will discuss the discrepancies in the 2011 GAO report on the closings of horse slaughterhouses in the US, and former US Congressman John Sweeney (R-NY), who was the primary sponsor for the successful passage of H.R. 503, the House version of the 2006 American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act.

Other speakers include Cathleen Doyle, former head of the California Equine Council and Save the Horses, John Holland, President Equine Welfare Alliance, Dr. Kraig J. Kulikowski, D.V.M., Katia Louise, director of the film, “Saving America’s Horses,” Victoria McCullough who helped pass Florida’s “Equine Protection Act of 2010,” Jo Anne Normile of Saving Baby Equine Charity and founder of CANTER and Paula Bacon, former Mayor of Kaufman, Texas who led the fight to close Dallas Crown, a horse slaughterhouse operating in Kaufman.

Said Bacon, “I believe a horse slaughter plant is among the very least desirable things a community would want.  It ranks with a lead smelter plant and strip clubs, the dead opposite of economic development. A horse slaughter plant creates big, expensive environmental problems for taxpayers and stigmatizes the community as ‘that place where they slaughter horses’ — and good development goes elsewhere.”

States currently trying to revive and reopen horse slaughter plants include Oregon, Missouri and Tennessee.

Founded in 1996, Equine Advocates is a non-profit equine protection organization and Horse Sanctuary based in Chatham, NY.  Its mission is to rescue, protect and prevent the abuse of equines, especially through banning the slaughter of American horses, through education, investigation, rescue operations and public education. Email info@equineadvocates.org or call 518-245-1599 for more information.

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Investigation on Horse Meat Entering Europe From America

Italian Horse Protection Association

Investigation on horse meat entering Europe from America

In the USA there is no differentiation between FPA (Food Producing Animal) and non-FPA equidae; horses are simply not considered as part of the food chain. US' horses are slaughtered in Canada and Mexico (and perhaps in the USA re-starting in 2012). Horse meat is exported primarily to Europe (France, Belgium, Italy and Germany are the main horse-meat eating countries). The significant point here is therefore that any horse, not being considered part of the food chain, can be treated with any and all drugs which the vet - or indeed simply the owner - considers necessary, with no formal requirements to observe or fulfil.

The European Union, quite rightly severe (although in our opinion not sufficiently) with its own producers, from whom it demands a strict record of all drugs administered to animals destined for human consumption in the name of the health and safety of the consumer, accepts a mere declaration by the owner of the horse that no drug which is inadmissible in Europe has been administered to the animal, or that due time has elapsed between the administration of drugs, and slaughter. This document should also contain all the necessary information for identification of the equine.

Volunteers from the Equine Welfare Alliance (an alliance of animal rights associations, with members in 18 countries among which Italy, represented by IHP) travelled to New Holland in Pennsylvania, USA to a market for horses destined for slaughter in Canada, to see just how these declarations worked. The volunteers photographed as many declarations as they could manage to get their hands on for a moment: they were all actually blank with just a signature and then just stuck onto any horse, indiscriminately. In one case, there are two pages, one with just a signature and no further details about the horse, the other a blank piece of paper with the name and address of the vendor, plus a comment on how strong and healthy the horse is, and the phrase ‘no drugs'. The practice begs the question, even if the forms were filled in correctly, as to what guarantee there is that the vendor is telling the truth? The Equine Welfare Alliance immediately sent their photos to the competent authority in the EU but has to date received no reply.

Take a look at the certificates.

Given the situation, some university researchers (Nicholas Dodman, Tufts University, Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, Massachussets; Nicolas Blondeau University of NIce “Sophia Antipolis”, Institute of Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology , France, and Ann M. Marini, University of Bethesda, Department of Neurology, Maryland) put to the test a theory, cross checking the data of some of the animals sent for slaughter with the data banks from racecourses where the horses had run. Those data bases contain the records, required by anti-doping laws, of treatments with phenylbutazone (commercial name: Bute), a non-steroid anti-inflammatory drug commonly used on horses but which is prohibited in Europe for horses destined for human consumption.

By means of a complex procedure, the researchers uncovered information about the data of races of 16 horses out of 50 of those under study. The result of the study is that all the horses whose data was located had been treated with Bute, some of them only one week before slaughter. However the data uncovered was relative to race dates, while not all treatments administered are logged if they are not close to the date of a race. Horse meat exported to Europe, therefore, is very likely indeed to contain traces of prohibited substances, and not only of fenilbutazone.

Read here the full text of the article by Dodman, N., et al. Association of phenylbutazone usage with horses bought for slaughter: A public health risk. Food Chem. Toxicol. (2010), (doi:10.1016/j.fct.2010.02.021)

After having read the results of this research, we looked further and found a shocking list of drugs and hormones, in every day use on horses in America but severely restricted (or indeed actually prohibited) in Europe because they are dangerous, some very dangerous, to human health. Some hormones permitted in the USA but prohibited, or at any rate strictly regulated in the EU, can be considered so dangerous that some transatlantic health organisations advise, for example: "It is recommended that pregnant women do not handle this product and that the person carrying the container for the oral administration of the product should wear at least two pairs of disposable gloves and be assisted by someone who can open the doors for them, in order to avoid the risk of contamination”.

Digging even deeper we came across something that we would never have wanted to find. Two inspection reports of the EU dated autumn 2010, one in Canada, one in Mexico, following an EU inspection to ensure that horse meat produced there reached an acceptable standard for European public health.

The results of the two inspections are chilling: two slaughter houses in Mexico are completely inadequate, yet anyhow authorised to export meat to the EU. The Mexican authorities “promised” the inspectors that they will not issue export certificates for meat from those two abattoirs. Other slaughter houses “ONLY” had the problem of non-drinkable water, hygiene issues, and, naturally, no check on the veracity of the certificates about drugs. The inspection concluded that the slaughter houses, even though authorised to export to Europe, are not in line with the set standards. Imports to date have not ceased. The situation in Canada is slightly better but even there, apart from some hygiene problems there is absolutely no check on the presence of drugs, apart from the ridiculously inadequate declaration of the vendor.

Read the Canadian inspection report.
Read the Mexican inspection report.

This situation is not only very serious from the point of view of public health, due to the amount of dangerous or very dangerous drugs the consumer is ingesting, but is it totally scandalous, if we think that the authorities who are supposed to watch over these things are perfectly aware of what has been going on since autumn 2010, quite likely even earlier, and who not only have photographs showing how the ‘certificates' are produced, but also have the word of their very own inspectors, who declare in writing that there can be no guarantee for the public health.

As if this was not enough , it is a common myth in some Countries that horse meat should be given often to children and pregnant women, and to cure anaemia. In other words to all those who should be the object of increased health protection. Health protection that the EU fails to give.

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• Author of Bute Article Blasts Wallis' Letter as "Nonsense" | Horse Back Magazine (goldendays-suzanne.blogspot.com)

Author of Bute Article Blasts Wallis’ Letter as “Nonsense” | Horse Back Magazine

As promised, here is Dr. Marini with her response to the ridiculous article from Slaughterhouse Sue Wallis and her merry band of horse eaters. If I were Dr. Marini, I would sue. I mean, enough is enough, and this is off the charts.

Pursuing a political agenda is one thing, but having "experts" with no relevant credentials at all challenge not only Dr. Marini and her co-authors, but the FDA, USDA and the European Union Commission on Food Safety is quite another. This is a very serious subject, and one that should end any speculation on the ethics - or lack thereof - of Sue Wallis and the "United Horsemen." I don't know if they are truly "united," but they certainly are not Horsemen.

Author of Bute Article Blasts Wallis’ Letter as “Nonsense”

October 5, 2011

By Steven Long  
HOUSTON, (Horseback) – The chief author of a landmark paper published in a prestigious medical journal has spoken out offering a definitive defense of the document. Dr. Ann Marini, PhD., M.D. called a letter published by a pro horse slaughter group, United Horsemen, “nonsense.”
At issues is paper titled, “Association of Phenylbutazone (Bute) Usage with Horses Bought for Slaughter” and was published in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology authored by Marini and Nicolas Dodman, a veterinary anesthesiologist at Tufts University, Nicolas Blondeau, The Institute of Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology (France) and Dr. Marini, of the faculty of the Bethesda, MD. based Department of Neurology, Uniformed University of the Health Sciences, operated by the U.S. Department of Defense.
The critics are all equine science instructors from the agriculture departments of three small colleges and universities. They are William Day, PhD of Morristown State College, Sheryl King PhD, PAS, of Southern Illinois State University, Don Henneke, PhD of Tarlton State University, and Pat Evans EdD of Scottsdale Community College.
The letter was distributed by a second term state representative from a rural village who claims to represent the entire horse industry. Rep. Sue Wallis (R) of Recluse, WY (pop 13), is the nation’s most outspoken proponent of reopening U.S. horse slaughter plants, shut down after Congress refused to fund federal meat inspectors in such facilities, and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear challenges to state laws in Texas and Illinois outlawing them.
“None of them have a medical background, and it seems clear they don’t understand drug disposition, metabolism and excretion ,” Dr. Marini said in an exclusive interview with Horseback Magazine. “There is a certain amount of every drug that is ingested that remains in the body.”
Marini cited long ago research that led to a total ban of the use of phenylbutazone (bute) in all food animals. The findings showed that “patients were taking phenylbutazone and developed agranulocytosis and aplastic anemia and died,” Marini said. “This is the basis of why the FDA banned pnenylbutazone in all food animals including horses.”
“It is a carcinogen that causes cancer in lab animals and also causes a liver hypersensitivity syndrome that’s fatal,” she told Horseback. “Bute is shown to produce serum sickness like syndrome that results in fever, fatigue, malaise, and inflammation of the kidney, swollen glands, and an enlarged spleen. A person can end up on dialysis for the rest of their life.”
“Drug residues in horsemeat that is ingested may be enough for people to develop these illnesses,” Marini said.
The physician also pointed to a recent article in an Irish journal showing a relationship to the development of aplastic anemia in children.
“This is an idiosyncratic disorder,” she said. “No one can predict who is going to develop the disease. The letter is really nonsense. That is the reason the FDA bans bute in all food producing animals including horses.”

via horsebackmagazine.com

Bute_and_Slaughter_Horses_Toxicology_Study.pdf Download this file

Bute_and_the_Passport_System.pdf Download this file

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Wyoming Politician Challenges Bute Findings by Medical and Veterinary Experts | Horse Back Magazine

I really don't know what else I can add to this. Every day I marvel anew at the depth Sue Wallis and her sock puppets will sink to in order to be able to brutally slaughter our horses for Europeans to eat.

Of course this ridiculous drivel from so-called "experts" who are not medical nor veterinary experts will be laughed off by anyone who knows anything. As it turns out just a little background research on two of the equine “scientists” and their objectivity in regard to the safety of bute in horses slaughtered for human consumption…

Dr. (of Education) Pat Evans is a founding member - along with Ms Wallis -  of United Organizations of the Horse (see http://whohateshorses.wordpress.com/2010/12/17/boycott-the-leaders-of-horse-slaughter-summit-organizers-a-little-history/). While teaching at Utah State, she co-wrote a paper titled “The State of the Horse Industry Since the Closing of the Horse Harvesting (sic) Facilities” (see http://www.animalwelfarecouncil.com/html/pdf/utahstate.pdf).
Dr. (of what subject, I can’t determine) Sheryl King was named head of the Illinois Horse Council in Feb. 2011 (http://www.horsemenscouncil.org/HCI/NewsReleases/11Feb04.php) and defends slaughter as beneficial to horses and the horse industry. For instance, see page 15 of “Equine Monthly”, Apr. 2007 (http://www.equinemonthly.com/web/ha_2arc407.pdf), for King’s statement on Illinois HB 1711 amending the Illinois Horse Meat Act. In “The Lincoln Trail Riders Newsletter”, June 2004, Dr. King was quoted as writing the following:
“Dianne,
“The Senate Executive Committee voted for the anti-slaughter legislation by a wide margin. It immediately went to the floor of the Senate where it was also voted for by a large margin. Next it goes to the House floor for concurrence, and then to the governor for signature. I think both of these will happen.
“Unfortunately, the powerful and wealthy animal rights groups and the pet owners and city dwellers who do not understand the first thing about where their food comes from never mind the reality of animal agriculture or raising horses were very vocal and forceful.
“I fear that it will be the horses and the Illinois horse industry that will suffer. I really hope this is a wakeup call to horsemen to begin learning how to band together to fight against issues that will
be harmful to their interests. Unfortunately, we horsemen tend to be a very independent lot – I have my doubts whether we will ever be able to stick up for ourselves.
“Sheryl S. King, Ph.D.
Professor
Director of Equine Studies
Animal Science Department
Southern Illinois University
Carbondale, IL 62901″
And they had the nerve to claim the anti-slaughter advocates have a political agenda!
Don't go away. Dr, Marini has now made a comment, and it's a doozy. Next post.

Wyoming Politician Challenges Bute Findings by Medical and Veterinary Experts

October 5, 2011

By Steven Long
HOUSTON, (Horseback) – A second term state representative from a rural village who claims to represent the entire horse industry has challenged a peer reviewed article in a distinguished scientific journal citing a letter from three agricultural school equine science professors.
Rep. Sue Wallis (R) of Recluse, WY (pop 13), is the nation’s most outspoken proponent of reopening U.S. horse slaughter plants, shut down after Congress refused to fund federal meat inspectors in such facilities, and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear challenges to state laws in Texas and Illinois outlawing them.
The paper titled, “Association of phenylbutazone (Bute) usage with horses bought for slaughter”: a public health risk states in its abstract:
“Sixty-seven million pounds of horsemeat derived from American horses were sent abroad for human consumption last year. Horses are not raised as food animals in the United States, and mechanisms to ensure the removal of horses treated with banned substances from the food chain are inadequate at best. Phenylbutazone (PBZ) is the most commonly used non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) in equine practice. Thoroughbred (TB) race horses like other horse breeds are slaughtered for human consumption. Phenylbutazone is banned for use in any animal intended for human consumption because it causes serious and lethal idiosyncratic adverse effects in humans. The number of horses that have received phenylbutazone prior to being sent to slaughter for human consumption is unknown but its presence in some is highly likely. We identified eighteen TB race horses that were given PBZ on race day and sent for intended slaughter by matching their registered name to their race track drug record over a five year period. Sixteen rescued TB race horses were given PBZ on race day. Thus, PBZ residues may be present in some horsemeat derived from American horses. The permissive allowance of such horsemeat used for human consumption poses a serious public health risk.”
Wallis, in a press release cited a letter to the article’s publisher, Food and Chemical Toxicology by four agricultural school professors challenging the findings of its authors, Drs.
Nicolas Dodman, a veterinary anesthesiologist at Tufts University, Nicolas Blondeau, The Institute of Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology (France), and Ann Marini, MD, PhD, of the Department of Neurology, Uniformed University of the Health Sciences.
The three experts changing the findings of Dodman, Blondeau, and Marini, are William Day, PhD of Morristown State College, Sheryl King PhD, PAS, of Southern Illinois State University, Don Henneke, PhD of Tarlton State University, and Pat Evans EdD of Scottsdale Community College. All are equine science instructors with no medical or veterinary training.
Marini was unavailable for comment.
The study’s critic also wrote a lengthy note to Congress blasting the study failed to mention that bute is prohibited by the federal Food and Drug Administration for use in all food animals.
Asked by Horseback Online how the three United Horsemen experts could challenge the paper with no medical training, Wallis replied, “By that reasoning the original article authors weren’t qualified to write it.”
Horseback then asked Wallis, “Why does England and the rest of Europe require horse passports and only horses raised for their meat enter the food chain for human consumption?”
There has been no response.
“They really cherry picked their facts,” said John Holland, president of the Chicago Based Equine Welfare Alliance which completed a three day Washington D.C. conference last week featuring some of the nation’s top equine welfare scientists, academics, and advocates including Dr. Marini.
“For example, they stated that ninety percent of PBZ disappears from the blood in just over a day,” Holland said. “They neglected to mention its metabolite oxyphenylbutazone which is just as dangerous and lasts much longer.”
More recently in an Irish veterinary journal, the metabolite issue is addressed as well.
“Sue’s experts also omitted the fact that PBZ takes up in injured tissue,” Holland said in a written response to Horseback Online. “And then they cited an industry recommendation that was never adopted as if it had some special credibility: The 2004 Proceedings of The United States Pharmacopeial Convention reported that evidence had been compiled by the Canadian FARAD leading to the recommendation of a withdrawal time of 60 days following administration of phenylbutazone paste to beef animals and a withholding time of 10 days in milk would be sufficient to avoid residues.”
Holland countered misrepresentation saying, “they claimed I am ‘associated with HSUS and linked to PETA.’ I have no linkage to PETA what-so-ever, and only a loose association with HSUS (as if that were a crime).”
“They ignored the standing rule that PBZ is banned in all meat animals with no withdrawal period and that it is only allowed in diary animals under six months of age in a few countries. In other words, they are trying to spin things to create doubt where there really isn’t any,” Holland said.

via horsebackmagazine.com

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from the Humane Society of the United States

We have been waiting for this for years. Here is our best chance of finally getting the horror of horse slaughter outlawed for good.

The pro-slaughter factions - especially well funded and organized groups like the so-called "United Horsemen" have misled not only our law makers, but many well meaning members of the public as well. They have claimed that the "unwanted" horses such as the old, sick, crippled and otherwise "useless" horses will be left to suffer because their owners "cannot afford" to pay for veterinarian administered euthanasia.

They have said that slaughter is "euthanasia" or even more disgusting, "humane harvesting." and that in the U.S. slaughter was well regulated and humane.

They have even gone so far as to deny the food safety issues in American horses despite the undeniable fact that American horses are not raised like food animals and that slaughter in this country is not intended for food production anyway. The only reason horse slaughter exists here is so the large breeders can breed indiscriminately and have a dumping ground for "culls" that don't meet their expectations, aren't the "right" color or don't have the conformation to excel in whatever sport they were bred for. Slaughter makes it easy for irresponsible, heartless owners to get rid of horses they no longer want for whatever reason.

But now, with the appearance of this Irish Veterinary Paper which clearly describes the lengths the European Union is going to in order to protect its citizens from the drug that is probably the most commonly prescribed drug in American Veterinary Medicine: Phenylbutazone - bute. It is an NSAID, a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory, and is used in horses the way aspirin/ibuprofen is used in human medicine.

This paper clearly states what we have been trying to tell our legislators for years: Even minute amounts of bute in horse meat can cause aplastic anemia in children, and even a single dose in a horse's lifetime requires mandatory, permanent removal from the human food chain.
The United States simply cannot continue to knowingly export horse meat containing this dangerous drug - as well as many other banned substances.- for consumption of unsuspecting consumers overseas. It is despicable as well as illegal.

Please contact your own Senators and Representatives and ask them to co-sponsor S.1176/H.R. 2966 The American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act of 2011.

September 19, 2011

U.S. Representatives Praised for Introducing Bill to End Horse Slaughter

The HSUS applauds U.S. Reps. Dan Burton, R-Ind., and Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., for introducing H.R. 2966, the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act of 2011.

The Humane Society of the United States applauds U.S. Reps. Dan Burton, R-Ind., and Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., for introducing H.R. 2966, the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act of 2011, a bipartisan measure that will end the export and inhumane killing of American horses for human consumption across our borders. The bill was introduced in the House with 57 original co-sponsors.
“Although horse slaughter plants no longer operate in the United States, many thousands of American horses still endure the long journey to Canada and Mexico to be killed in cruel and unacceptable ways,” said Wayne Pacelle, president and CEO of The HSUS. “Americans don’t eat horses, and we don’t have to be the nation that is the pipeline for horse meat to satisfy the demand for a small group of high-end foreign consumers in Belgium and Japan.”

“I personally believe in the importance of treating all horses as humanely and respectfully as possible,” said Rep. Burton. “I look forward to working with Representative Schakowsky to end the cruelty after decades of effort to stop these practices.”
 
“I am proud to join Representative Burton in supporting this bill to put a stop to the cruel practice of shipping horses abroad for slaughter,” said Rep. Schakowsky. “As a strong supporter of animal rights and a horse lover, I recognize the need to protect animals that aren’t able to protect themselves. Protecting animals ought to be a bipartisan issue, and this bill is a strong step in the right direction.”

Approximately 100,000 American horses are sent across U.S. borders to slaughter each year. This represents 1 percent of the total population of American horses, as the vast majority of horse owners choose humane euthanasia—not long-distance transport and slaughter—as an end-of-life option for their beloved companions. States have acted to stop horse slaughter, shuttering the last remaining horse slaughter plants in the United States in 2007, and federal courts have upheld these state laws. Now Congress must act to stop the export of live horses for slaughter in Canada and Mexico.

The horrendous end for these American icons sold for slaughter begins at an auction. The journey to and across a border can mean confinement in a trailer at temperatures in excess of 100 degrees for thousands of miles without access to food or water. Once unloaded, the exhausted, dehydrated and often battered horses are recklessly shoved into kill boxes where they suffer abuse as workers’ attempts to render the panic-stricken animals unconscious cause additional suffering.

A recently released GAO report also recommends that “Congress may wish to consider instituting an explicit ban on the domestic slaughter of horses and exports of U.S. horses intended for slaughter in foreign countries.” National polls show that 70 percent of Americans favor a ban on the slaughter of these animals, which hold an iconic place in the nation’s history and its self-image. The HSUS joins Reps. Burton and Schakowsky, along with the vast majority of Americans, in support of this bill to protect our treasured equine companions from this cruelty by banning their slaughter for human consumption.

A Senate bill, S. 1176, was introduced in June by U.S. Sens. Mary Landrieu, D-La, and Lindsey Graham, R.S.C., and now has 24 co-sponsors.

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