Straight from the Horse's Heart

Source: Front Range Equine Rescue

Animal Protection Groups Demonstrate Potentially Toxic Nature of Horse Meat and Ask for Legal Declaration of Adulteration

Phenylbutazone, a human carcinogen, is prevalent in U.S. horse meat, along with numerous other drugs banned by the FDA in food animals. (photo: Animal Rescue Unit)

(May 14, 2013) — Front Range Equine Rescue and The Humane Society of the United States filed a legal petition with the Iowa Department of Inspection and Appeals requesting that it adopt a rule that renders horse meat “adulterated” as a matter of law, which would ban the sale of horsemeat for human consumption. The petition explains that horses are different than other animals we eat because Americans do not raise horses as food animals, and American horses are treated routinely with many drugs and harmful chemicals prohibited from use in animals who will be eaten, and because of that their meat is unsafe for consumers.

These substances to which virtually all American horses have been exposed create the potential for great danger to humans if they are eaten, including cancer, life-threatening autoimmune diseases, and other illnesses of significant proportion.  The petition establishes that the only way to protect the food supply and the consuming public is for the Department to declare horse meat to be adulterated, unless the horse meat producers can prove that the horses never received substances prohibited for use in food animals.  This is of great concern since the chance for cross-contamination of beef with horse meat has been a regular topic of news in Europe, where horses are currently consumed for food.

Hilary Wood, President of Front Range Equine Rescue, states:  “The array of drugs that we give our horses while caring for them also makes their meat unfit for consumption.  Horse slaughter not only floods the market with dangerous meat but it directly causes horrendous cruelty and perpetuates the problems of horse abuse, problems for which we have workable and humane solutions.  The killer-buyers and horse slaughterhouses have no care about the danger of the meat, or the suffering of the animals.  On food safety and every other level, it is a bad business.”

Carol Griglione, Iowa state director for The HSUS, said: “Slaughtering horses for human consumption is inhumane for horses and creates an unacceptable public health risk. The only way to safeguard the food supply is to prevent this grisly practice from resuming in the United States.”

The request to the Iowa Department comes in the wake of the federal government’s announcement that it is considering applications from horse slaughterhouses anxious to open, including Responsible Transportation in Sigourney, Iowa.

Businesses interested in killing horses have been pushing their agenda despite the multiple levels of danger to consumers, the public, and the environment.  Even though they know  that every American horse has consumed drugs which prevent them from legally becoming edible meat, the horse slaughter interests have been lobbying to begin this unwanted, unsafe, and unhealthy process.

FRER is represented by lawyers at Schiff Hardin LLP.

Facts:

• More than 100,000 American horses are sent to slaughter each year, mainly for consumption in Europe and Asia.

• The slaughter pipeline is horribly cruel, with many of the horses suffering immensely during transport and by the often repeated attempts to render them unconscious. USDA has documented the abuse and misery horses suffered at former U.S. slaughterhouses.

• Virtually all the horses used for meat spend most of their lives as work, competition or sport horses, companion animals, or wild horses.

• During their lives, horses who end up at slaughter are given a constant regimen of drugs and other substances which are either illegal for food animals, or are potentially dangerous to people who eat them.

• Under the current rules and regulations, there is no safeguard in place that can protect against the consumption of unsafe toxins in horse meat.

• Consumers do not know of the inherent dangers because there is no control over the drug residues.

Related Articles

• Oklahoma Lawmakers Ramming Horse Slaughter Bill Down Constituent’s Throats (rtfitchauthor.com)
• Sharp drop in US horses going to slaughter in Mexico (horsetalk.co.nz)
• Horse slaughter trade a dubious bet – HSUS boss (horsetalk.co.nz)