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.
Save the Horses! Three Lawmakers Will Try to Ban Slaughter for Food - ABC News
Save the Horses! Three Lawmakers Will Try to Ban Slaughter for Food
By Chris Good
@c_good
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Mar 12, 2013 7:05pm
gty horse slaughter us nt 130301 wblog Save the Horses! Three Lawmakers Will Try to Ban Slaughter for Food
Image credit: Getty Images
A trio of U.S. lawmakers is saying “no” to horse meat.
The U.S. is set to begin slaughtering horses again for the first time in six years, and recent news of Ikea sausages and British Taco Bell beef containing small amounts of horse has raised horse-meat alarm bells among the meat-consuming public.
Congress originally banned horse slaughter in 2006 by defunding USDA’s horse-meat inspectors. But after the ban lapsed in 2011, a lawsuit and industry pressure has forced USDA to start inspecting again, and a company says it expects to open the first slaughterhouse in Roswell, N.M., within the next month and a half.
“These companies must still complete necessary technical requirements and FSIS [the Agriculture Department's Food Safety and Inspection Service] must still complete its inspector training, but at that point, the Department will legally have no choice but to go forward with inspections, which is why we urge Congress to reinstate the ban,” a USDA spokesperson told ABC News.
Enter Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., and Reps. Patrick Meehan, R-Pa., and Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill.
The three will introduce a bill on Wednesday that would put a stop to the pending horse slaughter.
The Safeguard American Food Exports (SAFE) Act, as the House version is dubbed, would not only ban the slaughter of horses for human consumption in the U.S. but would also prohibit shipping horses outside the U.S. for food slaughter. Unlike the appropriations rider that had prevented horse slaughter until now, the statutory ban would not expire.
The Humane Society of the United States and the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals will hold a press conference on Capitol Hill on Wednesday with the three lawmakers, the two groups announced on Tuesday.
“Horses sent to slaughter are often subject to appalling, brutal treatment,” Schakowsky said in a statement emailed to ABC News by a spokesperson. “We must fight those practices. The Safeguard American Food Exports Act of 2013 will ensure that these majestic animals are treated with the respect they deserve.”
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| Horse meat scandal dominating the front pages (Photo credit: Gene Hunt) |
Horse meat scandal latest: Are you eating frog poison? | UK | News | Daily Express
Horse meat scandal latest: Are you eating frog poison?
A POWERFUL painkiller made from the poison of jungle frogs is feared to have entered the food chain in contaminated horse meat.
By: Stuart Winter
Published: Sun, February 24, 2013
The-painkiller-is-made-from-the-poison-of-jungle-frogs The painkiller is made from the poison of jungle frogs
The drug, extracted from South American tree frogs and used to illegally dope racehorses so they can run when badly injured, joins a host of banned medicines that might be lurking in our food.
Animal welfare campaigners highlighted the threat of dermorphin or “tree frog juice” in the food chain last night when they called for a moratorium on horse meat being shipped into Europe from North America.
More than 100,000 horses are slaughtered there each year and sold to Europe but because of failings in the system there are questions over the meat reaching EU food standards.
Although the EU bans the presence of medicines in animals destined for the meat market, there are concerns that American carcasses contain drug residue because there are no requirements for their veterinary records to be shown at slaughter.
"We now know that criminals have passed off untraceable horse meat into products" Mary Creagh
Sport, working and companion horses from the United States are all killed for the European market. Recent scandals in the racing world, which have seen animals “nobbled” with drugs made from frog juice and even cobra venom, have raised the threat of illicit substances entering the food chain.
Earlier this month, the Sunday Express revealed how a racehorse treated with the painkiller phenylbutazone, known as bute, a drug linked to liver problems, may have been one of six horses that entered the food chain after being slaughtered in Britain.
The horse meat scandal shows no signs of abating, with Birds Eye removing a number of ready meals and a catering giant supplying schools, the Armed Forces and Ascot racecourse also withdrawing its beef.
There are now calls for a new round of checks on products for a wider number of contaminants. Shadow Environment Secretary Mary Creagh said: “We now know that criminals have passed off untraceable horse meat into products that thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of people have eaten over at least several months.
“The Government should order companies to test all products adulterated with horse meat to check that there is no risk to human health from any horse medication.”
The threat that “tree frog juice” has found its way on to the market was highlighted last week by Humane Society International. The animal welfare organisation is campaigning with its American partners for a moratorium on the sale of horse meat from across the North Atlantic.
It says there can be “no doubt that substantial numbers” of American horses sold to Europe have been administered with veterinary drugs, which is at odds with the lifetime ban on these substances for food animals.
There are concerns that American horse carcasses contain residue of the drug
Holly Hazard, of The Humane Society Of The United States, said: “There is virtually no horse racing around an American track or on exhibition in the show ring that has escaped a prescription for pain-masking drugs clearly prohibited for use in food animals under EU regulations.
“In addition, there is no way to track illegal substances such as dermorphin, routinely used by unscrupulous horse trainers to enhance performance, because laboratories wouldn’t even know to test for these drugs.
“Sport, working, companion and performance horses do not belong in the food supply as the meat simply cannot be guaranteed safe.”
The Food Standards Agency said: “We are assessing the need for any further veterinary medicine testing of both horses slaughtered in the UK and of horse meat found in food.”
Disturbing footage: Report prompts recall of labelled horsemeat - swissinfo
DISTURBING FOOTAGE
Report prompts recall of labelled horsemeat
National An emaciated horse heads to the slaughterhouse in footage from the Swiss television programme "Kassensturz" (SRF Kassensturz) Feb 20, 2013 - 14:11 In response to a nationally televised programme showing horrific conditions for horses whose meat ended up on Swiss dinner plates, several of the country’s supermarkets have pulled most labelled horsemeat products off their shelves.
The episode of the investigative programme “Kassensturz” on Swiss television showed footage of horses being beaten, neglected and transported for hours without food or water before being slaughtered.
The revelations came at a time when horsemeat is already in the news for a completely different reason: a Europe-wide scandal involving undeclared horsemeat found in frozen meals labelled as containing only beef.
While horsemeat is much less popular than other meats in Switzerland, it is by no means taboo. The Observatory of the Swiss Horse Branch estimates that between 600 and 700 grams of horse meat is eaten per person per year.
The footage was gathered by workers from the Zurich Animal Protection League who travelled to horse feed lots in Canada, Mexico and Argentina owned by the Bouvry, Camargo and Lamar enterprises.
Most Swisshorsemeat comes from those three countries; only eight per cent is domestically sourced. The Animal Protection League collected most of the footage “a few months ago”, according to Kassensturz, although some excerpts dated from 2010.
Ahead of the programme’s national airing, Swiss supermarkets got wind of its contents and reacted by halting the sale of much of their horsemeat while the investigation continues.
Coop supermarkets kept fresh horsemeat on their shelves, all of which they say comes from Europe, but stopped selling horse charcuterie which contained meat from the places investigated by the Animal Protection League.
While the Denner supermarket chain stopped selling all horsemeat products, its parent company, Migros, told the NZZ newspaper that it believes its Canadian horsemeat handler is treating its animals properly. A Migros spokesperson told the newspaper that the slaughterhouses “were subjected to our independent controls and were checked by a Swiss veterinarian”, the last time in July 2012. According to Kassensturz, the supermarkets Aldi and Lidl pulled all imported horsemeat products from their stores.
Nestlé, the world’s biggest food supplier based in Switzerland, announced Tuesday it was pulling chilled lasagne meals from sale in France and Portugal because it feared they contained traces of horsemeat. For the first time, the recall involved meals distributed to hotels and restaurants in addition to those on supermarket shelves. On Monday, beef-filled tortellini products sold in Spanish and Italian grocery stores were also pulled from supermarkets as the horsemeat inquiries continued. Nestlé had previously said its products did not contain horsemeat.
swissinfo.ch and agencies
Call for EU to immediately ban horse meat from America - News - Horsetalk.co.nz
Call for EU to immediately ban horse meat from America
Call for EU to immediately ban horse meat from America
By Horsetalk.co.nz on Feb 12, 2013 in Just Briefly
Humane Society International is calling on European Union officials to protect consumer health and immediately ban the sale of horsemeat coming from North America.
Its call is in response in response to news reports that up to 100 per cent horsemeat has been found in Findus beef products marketed in France, Sweden and Britain.
“It is alarming to learn that European consumers may have fallen victim to large-scale food fraud, unwittingly consuming horse-meat products incorrectly labelled as beef,” the group’s European Union director, Jo Swabe, said.
“Consumer alarm is understandable as many people would ordinarily avoid eating horse flesh.
“Humane Society International calls on officials to acknowledge the potential risk to public health and safety, as this horsemeat could have originated from anywhere in the world, including from North America, and to immediately ban its sale from North America.”
The group argued there was a strong likelihood that some of the horsemeat had been imported into the EU from either Canada or Mexico. France, it said, was one of the biggest importers of North American horsemeat.
Most horse meat exported to the EU from both Canada and Mexico actually originates from United States horses shipped over the border.
France also receives horse-meat imports from other Member States, a proportion of which are actually re-exports from Canada and Mexico, too. In addition, French statistics show that a total 16,970 horses were slaughtered domestically during the same year.
There were significant concerns about horsemeat of US origin containing residues from veterinary drugs that in the EU are banned for use in animals killed for food, the society said.
It noted that recent audits conducted by the European Commission’s Food and Veterinary Office in Canada and Mexico have concluded that the medical treatment records for US horses are insufficient to guarantee that standards equivalent to those provided for by EU legislation are applied.
"From my earliest memories, I have loved horses with a longing beyond words." ~ Robert Vavra
