A vast majority of horses destined for slaughter will have been treated to some degree with multiple chemical substances that are known to be dangerous to humans, untested on humans, or specifically prohibited for use in animals raised for human consumption.
Horse meat... viande de cheval
How toxic is horse meat? The answer is — very.
There are approximately one hundred and ten (110!) drugs
administered to horses over their lifetimes that are illegal to
administer to animals raised for human consumption. Equines are
medicated with wormers, antibiotics, fly sprays, diuretics and
Phenylbutazone (a pain killer once administered to people and now
banned as a known human carcinogen by the USDA and FDA).
Therefore, a vast majority of horses destined for slaughter will
have been treated to some degree with multiple chemical substances
that are known to be dangerous to humans, untested on humans, or
specifically prohibited for use in animals raised for human
consumption.
Nicholas Dodman, Program Director and Professor of Animal Behavior
at Tufts Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, as well as
co-founder of Veterinarians for Equine Welfare, describes horses as
“walking pharmacies.” Eating them is about as healthful as eating
food contaminated with DDT”.
The number one offending drug? Bute. Bute is used for horses like
aspirin is used for humans.
Forbes tell us:
“Phenylbutazone (or “bute”), is a painkiller used legally by more
than 85% of U.S. horse owners to treat everyday soreness and
inflammation, but banned completely in food-producing animals,
including horses, by the Food and Drug Administration and related
agencies in Canada, the UK, and the EU. Interestingly, in 1949 it
was used to treat gout and rheumatoid arthritis in humans, but was
later banned when its carcinogenic effects were discovered.
In their report, Association of phenylbutazone usage with horses
bought for slaughter: A public health risk, Dr. Nicholas Dodman, Dr.
Nicolas Blondeau and Dr. Ann Marini describe Phenylbutazone’s
adverse effects on humans such as aplastic anemia and leukemia.
Their lengthy 2010 study, which appeared in the journal Food and
Chemical Toxicology, analyzes the presence of bute in slaughter
horses; the government’s inadequate drug testing methodology; and
the USDA’s failure to ensure the removal of the vast majority of
horses treated with banned substances from the food chain, among
other topics.”
Racehorses have the highest exposure to “bute” due to training.
However, according to numerous horse owners — pleasure, sport and
working horses are also regularly administered the drug.
Of course bute is just the tip of the iceberg. Horses are given a
laundry list of drugs that bars their meat from entering the human
food chain. Occasionally alarms are sounded regarding this. It will
hit the headlines for awhile, groups and experts will put in their
two cents’ worth, then it is back to business as usual.
Look at this from a 2012 New York Times article entitled “Drugs
injected at the racetrack put Europe off U.S. horse meat.”
“European food safety officials have notified Mexican and Canadian
slaughterhouses of a growing concern: The meat of American
racehorses may be too toxic to eat safely because the horses have
been injected repeatedly with drugs.”
“Despite the fact that racehorses make up only a fraction of the
trade in horse meat, the European officials have indicated that they
may nonetheless require lifetime medication records for
slaughter-bound horses from Canada and Mexico, and perhaps require
them to be held on feedlots or some other holding area for six
months before they are slaughtered.”
Require them to be held on feedlots or some other holding area for
six months before they are slaughtered? Require lifetime medication
records? Like that is ever going to happen. What a load of rubbish.
The New York Times article from above focuses on racehorses. We
repeat. All types and breeds of horses are slaughtered and end up on
a dinner plates who were given multitudinous drugs throughout their
lifetimes. We even went so far as to wonder if horses outgunned
factory farmed animals in the number and type of drugs given them,
making their meat more dangerous for human consumption.
No, is the short answer. Mercy for Animals reports that “over 450
drugs are administered to farm animals.” The group’s source, Center
for Food Safety, add that —
“To make matters worse, the Center for Food Safety found that drugs posing “significant threats to humans, animals, and the environment are administered to animals. Shockingly, these have been approved by the FDA and are on the market. Of the drugs studied, 12 are banned for use as animal drugs in other countries, but not in the United States.”
In actuality, it would not surprise us at all if racing gave horses “over 450 drugs.” Would it surprise you?