Story by Steven Long – Editor/Publisher of Horseback Magazine

HOUSTON, (Horseback Magazine) – If stealth legislation attached to a catch-all senate bill passes in the Missouri legislature, Europeans should beware. Poison tainted meat could be heading their way.

Agricultural interests attached the stealth provisions after claiming legislation legalizing horse slaughter had been was dead. However, an eleventh hour effort to slide a new law in under animal welfare advocates radar hit the spotlight despite the effort to hide legalization of new horse abattoirs in the show me state.

The bill was introduced despite findings in a recently published paper in the “Journal of Food and Chemical Toxicology.” It was titled: Association of phenylbutazone usage with horses bought for slaughter: A public health risk.

The peer reviewed work was authored by Drs. Nicholas Dodman, Nicolas Blondeau and Ann M. Marini.

The prime market for American horse meat is Europe and some Latin American countries.

In the study, the authors charge that:

The FDA bans phenylbutazone in all food-producing animals including horses

There is no mechanism to remove horses given banned substances from the slaughter pipeline

When bute was on the market for human use, dangerous and deadly side effects developed including permanent bone marrow suppression leading to death in over 90% of the cases

The metabolite that bute is converted to in the body can also cause bone marrow suppression with a mortality rate of 71%. This deadly metabolite remains in the bloodstream of the horses for at least 3 days.

Canada, EU and the UK ban bute in any animal sent to slaughter for human consumption just like the United States

Bute is also a carcinogen and we don’t know what exposure level is required to mutate DNA and cause cancer

If MO passes this law, they would be defying the FDA order and allowing people to eat contaminated horse meat without their knowledge.

The omnibus catch-all bill was originally sponsored by state Sen. Rob Mayer.

Rep. James Viebrock slid in his legislation, which would legalize horse slaughter, into S.B. 795. Meanwhile, Viebrock did not withdraw
his bill, however, the chair of the Sen Ag committee said HB 1747 was dead giving the Missouri politician cover and leading the public to believe the issue was DOA. But in the meantime Viebrock had already slipped the language into Mayer’s bill.

It is highly unlikely there will be a public hearing. The committee handling the bill is overwhelmingly made up of animal agriculture interests who have consistently ignored the dangers of “bute” tainted meat.
The slaughter of horses for human consumption is illegal in the United States. Congress has not funded federal meat inspectors in U.S. slaughterhouses that would kill horses for export in years.

Canada will soon ban American horses crossing the border to for slaughter because of the extremely widespread use of bute and other common dangerous drugs in this country.

The drug is commonly known among horse owners as “horse aspirin.” A loophole provides an out if exporters can satisfy stringent restrictions showing the absence of dangerous drugs and chemicals. Not many American horses would satisfy that provision.