LCA's Investigation Reveals How Pregnant Mares' Urine is Obtained
for Manufacture of Premarin
Los Angeles, CA (October 15, 2003) -- This October,
Americans may contribute to breast cancer research by buying the new
pink Beanie Baby, indulging in Elizabeth Arden's new breast cancer
message, a pint of Dreyer's pink-ribboned sherbet or applaud the
Leukemia & Lymphoma Society for awarding $15 million to researchers, but
Last Chance for Animals wants to remind the 9 million women who still
take a drug that increases their risk of breast cancer by 24%, that
Premarin is made by torturing pregnant horses for their precious urine.
LCA's recent investigation documents pregnant mares
being sequestered and their foals being slaughtered solely to collect
the horses' urine for the manufacture of Premarin. Premarin (name
derived from Pregnant Mare Urine) or Prempro (produced by pharmaceutical
behemoth Wyeth-Ayerst).
Chris DeRose, founder of the FBI of Animal Rights, Last
Chance for Animals said, "212,000 women died from breast cancer this
year and 1,000,000 horses have died to make this already proven
dangerous drug. What will it take to get women to stand up for their own
health, never mind passively allow the torture of voiceless animals to
make a drug that only hurts them?"
Premarin is the number one prescribed hormone
replacement therapy drug in the world. Over 36% of the current US
population are women aged 45+, who are entering into or are in menopause
and more than 20 million are women aged 65 and over. This demand
supports the slaughter of approximately 25,000 foals and the torture of
75,000 horses annually to manufacture the drug. The North American
Equine Ranching Council (www.naeric.org) are a group of ranchers who are
contracted by Wyeth Ayerst solely to harvest pregnant mares urine for
the production of Premarin.
LCA's investigation includes video footage, of nursing
foals in the slaughterhouse feedlot; the inside of "pee barns" showing
neglected and abused horses; a still alive mare hanging upside down with
part of her legs cut off; skinned dead mares hanging, bullet casings in
the "kill area" adjacent to where horses are stunned to death, and
images of every type of horse used in the Premarin operation. The
investigation shows that to produce Premarin, pregnant mares are
confined to stalls eight by three-and-a-half feet for 150 day gestation
periods. After giving birth, the foals are taken away from their mothers
and either slaughtered for consumption or used to replace the mares.
"Although Premarin is widely prescribed," said best
selling author on the subject of menopause, Dr. Jesse Hanley, MD, "the
National Institute of Health (NIH) reported last year that Prempro
increases women's risk of breast cancer by 24%, heart attack by 29%,
stroke by 41% and blood clots by 100%. It has never been proven that
providing pre-menopausal levels of estrogen is helpful in alleviating
the symptoms of menopause!
To curb symptoms, there are many safe alternatives to
Premarin such as Dongquai, Red Clover, Black Cohosh, Macca, Vitex and
Dioscorea which have been used successfully and safely for millennia and
are beginning to collect a significant body of research as a much safer,
wiser and certainly more humane choice.
Founded in 1984 by De Rose, Last Chance for Animals
is the "FBI of Animal Rights," a national, nonprofit advocacy
organization dedicated to ending animal exploitation and suffering. More
information can be found at
www.lcanimal.org.
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