Landmark Paper Links Bute to Chemical Contamination

Scientific Study Released in Full

Story Breaking World Wide

Health Risk Cited in Harness Link

Story and Photo by Steven Long

HOUSTON, (Horseback) – Decades of USDA studies asserting U.S. and Canadian horse meat as chemically harmless have been branded as bogus by a new peer reviewed scientific study.

The paper, titled "Association of Phenylbutazone Usage With Horses Bought for slaughter: A Public Health Risk" appeared in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology.

It questions USDA (US Department of Agriculture) and CFIA (Canadian Food Inspection Agency) testing programs. The programs have consistently given bute and scores of other dangerous chemicals a clean bill of health in U.S. horsemeat exported for human consumption in the dining rooms of iting 14 prior scientific studies..

“Phenylbutazone (PBZ) was marketed in the United States for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis and gout in 1952. Serious and often fatal adverse effects such as aplastic anemia and agranulocytosis appeared in the literature within three years of its use ( Benjamin et al., 1981; Böttiger and Westerhom, 1973; Cameron et al., 1966; Chaplin, 1986; Deaths due to butazolidin, 1952; Dunn, 1972; Etess and Jacobson, 1953; Hale and DeGruchy, 1960; Leonard, 1953; Mauer, 1995; McCombs, 1958; Nelson et al., 1995; Ramsey and Golde, 1976; Risks of agranulocytosis and aplastic anemia, 1986; Steinberg et al., 1953 ). The serious adverse effects of PBZ culminated in its unavailability for human use in the United States.”

Agricultural interests have long touted the USDA studies as valid proof supporting the assertion that domestic horsemeat is harmless for human consumption.’

The European Union last year banned the import of U.S., and Canadian horsemeat citing the use of bute and scores of other dangerous and carcinogenic chemicals.

Agricultural interests in at least five states have mounted serious legislative efforts to again legalize the slaughter of horses for the export of their meat for human consumption abroad.

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EWA Praises Bute Study

CHICAGO, (EWA) - A peer reviewed scientific study tracing race horses sent to slaughter for human consumption has found that 100% of the horses in the study group had been administered phenylbutazone, a banned carcinogen that can also fatally damage the bone marrow of humans. The findings appear to validate the European Union’s recent tightening of traceability requirements on horse meat from third countries. 

The paper, titled Association of phenylbutazone usage with horses bought for slaughter: A public health risk, appeared in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology and calls into question the reliability of the USDA (US Department of Agriculture) and CFIA (Canadian Food Inspection Agency) testing programs which have consistently failed to detect the substance.

The manuscript(1), which was authored by Drs. Nicholas Dodman(2), Nicolas Blondeau(3) and Ann M. Marini(4), followed eighteen Thoroughbred (TB) race horses that were identified by matching their registered name to their race track drug record over a five year period and were given phenylbutazone (PBZ, Bute) on race day and were subsequently sent to slaughter for human consumption.

The study also traced records on sixteen TB race horses that were given PBZ on race day and would have also entered the food chain had they not been rescued. The study was limited to race horses because of the availability of drug records, but phenylbutazone is one of the most common drugs used in the treatment of musculoskeletal injuries in horses.

Because of the bone marrow toxicity caused by PBZ in humans, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has set no safe levels of PBZ and bans its use food producing animals, including horses. While PBZ is but one of the numerous banned substances that are routinely given to US horses, it is one of the most dangerous.

Defenders of horse slaughter have long pointed to USDA testing records which consistently showed no positive results for PBZ. The new study shows that the USDA testing could not have been accurate. Indeed, the study uncovered a pilot test performed by the USDA in 2004 and 2005 that used a different testing technique and found 8.3% of the meat to be contaminated with PBZ. The pilot program had been subsequently discontinued.

The study estimates that sixty seven million pounds of horse meat derived from US horses were sent overseas for human consumption in 2008. If 8.3% of this meat contained phenylbutazone residues, it would translate to over 5 million pounds of contaminated meat.

Opponents of horse slaughter have long warned that US horses are not raised as food animals and mechanisms to ensure the removal of horses treated with banned substances from the food chain are inadequate at best.

Equine Welfare Alliance recently issued a discussion paper with their partners, Canadian Horse Defence Coalition on the serious drug issue concerning North American horses. The comprehensive paper covers concerns over the ability to meet compliance with European Commission regulations on food safety.

(1) Article is cited as, Dodman, N., Blondeau, N., Marini, A.M., Association of phenylbutazone usage with horses bought for slaughter: A public health risk, Food and Chemical Toxicology (2010), doi: 10.1016/j.fct. 2010.02.021
(2) Tufts University, Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, North Grafton, MA
(3) Institut de Pharmacologie Moléculaire et Cellulaire - I.P.M.C, UMR 6097,
C.N.R.S/Université de Nice Sophia Antipolis, 660 route des Lucioles, Sophia Antipolis
06560 Valbonne, FRANCE 
(4) Department of Neurology and Program in Neuroscience, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, MD.

Human WNV Infection Reported Following Equine Necropsy

A veterinary student was diagnosed with West Nile virus (WNV) in May 2009 after performing a necropsy on a 4-month-old Welsh pony from Gauteng, South Africa.

Six days after performing the necropsy, the student developed fever, malaise, myalgia (muscle pain), stiff neck, and a severe headache. A rash appeared two days later and symptoms persisted for approximately 10 days. RNA (genetic material) extracted from the student and the pony identified lineage 2 WNV--a fatal form of the virus previously diagnosed in horses in South Africa in 2008.

WNV is a mosquito-borne flavivirus that circulates primarily in birds and mosquitoes. Humans and horses are considered incidental, dead-end hosts for WNV. An infected horse does not normally pose a risk for infecting humans with WNV since the virus is present at very low levels in the blood, insufficient to infect mosquitoes.

"The student used a bone saw and was the one that removed the brain from the horse and would have had much more exposure to droplets," said Marietjie Venter, PhD, associate professor at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. "At the time, the veterinarians did not take extra precaution besides wearing gloves when doing horse autopsies since they did not see them as being high risk for zoonotic diseases in Africa."

Since no other humans in contact with the pony became ill or developed antibodies against WNV, Venter and colleagues suspect WNV levels could be higher in nerve tissues.

"Veterinarians should therefore be wearing eye protection, gloves, and masks when doing postmortems on animals with fatal encephalitis," advised Venter. The student recovered and is now a practicing veterinarian.

This case report was described in a Letter to the Editor of the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases published in March 2010. More information on WNV in South Africa is available in Venter's article, "Lineage 2 West Nile virus as cause of fatal neurologic disease in horses, South Africa." The article is available online.

S. 727, The Prevention of Equine Cruelty Act of 2009

S. 727 would amend title 18, United States Code, to prohibit certain conduct relating to the use of horses for human consumption.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
The idiom "turning a blind eye" is used to describe the process of ignoring inconvenient facts or activities.

Among all the many things we are really good at in America, few come close to our profound ability to turn a blind eye to what we don't want to know or see. There are more horses in America per capita than anywhere else in the world. We love horses. Horses, we proclaim with patriotic pride, are part of our national heritage. We so love and revere horses that we've made it illegal to slaughter them or sell horsemeat in America.


When advancing equine rights, we must be careful not to offend people with the truth. They will become angry for showing them things they don't want to see. Despite our professed love for the horse, America exports more horses for slaughter than any single nation on the planet. But don't show the pictures because it might make someone cry.


But we should cry. We should scream. Try to imagine the horror of a horse made to ride in a cramped and crowded truck for days without food or water. When she arrives at the slaughter house, she's poked hard in her flanks by workers using long poles who could care less about hurting her because, after all, she's about to die. They force her and other horses toward the 'Kill Shute.' She's scared and her adrenaline is coursing through her body as she hears the anguished screams of the horses ahead of her as they're stabbed repeatedly in the neck one by one until their spinal cords are almost severed. She's so frightened she urinates where she's standing. She smells the blood and every single fiber of her being is screaming at her to run, get free, survive. She rears up, pins her ears back, kicks, bucks, fights until she's moved into the Kill Shute and feels her own neck being stabbed over and over. The pain is excruciating; her blood flows and she loses control of her legs, falling into a pool of blood and urine. She's dragged into the slaughter house and her back legs are attached to a hoist. She's still alive but that doesn't matter. She's lifted upside down so she's suspended into the air. She's even more terrified now because she doesn't have a clue what's happening but she knows undeniably that she's in mortal peril. A knife slices deep into her throat and through her jugular vein. She tastes and smells her own blood and convulses a few more times She isn't dead yet but the workers are impatient. They cut open her belly and she's disemboweled. Those are her last moments. That's how her life ends. And it happens in the thousands each and every week. It's happening today. It's happening now.