CHICAGO, (EWA) – I would like to personally thank Rep. Sue Wallis (WY) on behalf of equine advocates for the recent emails sent to her supporters [published on this website], her facebook page outbursts, but more importantly, for the below comments she posted on a facebook page. She has provided us with documentation for Congressional members that leaves no doubt that those involved in the horse slaughter business have never, and have no intention, of ever following food safety laws or acknowledging the facts surrounding horse slaughter. One can only imagine that if she has such little regard for food safety, how she will twist and spin animal welfare laws in her proposed “regulated” horse slaughter plant.
Representative Sue Wallis wrote: “You are flat wrong. Bute is completely out of the system in far less than 30 days. Very thorough blood tests done by independent third party laboratories verify down to parts per trillion–if it cannot be detected, than obviously it does not exist. Canadian and EU regulations now require any horses that do not have a veterinarian’s certification of all drug administrations for at least six months be held for that time period. They can lose their license to practice if they falsify records. So, for all of those reasons, there is no chance that any horse with even a detectable amount of bute in their system would ever wind up in the food chain.”Phenylbutazone is BANNED in all food producing animals [except in certain dairy cows under 20 months of age] by the FDA and EU. Banned is banned. One dose and the animal can never enter the food chain. It doesn’t matter what Wallis thinks, what you think or what I think. It is the medical professionals at the FDA and EU that establish the tolerances, withdrawal periods and medications that are forever prohibited. It is our responsibility to follow those regulations to ensure food safety.
The 6 month quarantine is a phase-in for the U.S. to a passport system that will be required within two years [three years from Oct ’09 when the program was implemented]. All countries, except the U.S., follow the established regulations. Wallis is making up medical information to justify sending ineligible horses to slaughter. She has been told over and over again that blood testing is not the proper test to detect bute residues. Blood can be drawn within a certain time period, such as within 24 hours of a race, to determine bute levels. When the time interval to detect bute has passed, the only way to determine if a horse was given bute is by determining bute residue levels. The USDA’s standard method to determine bute residue levels is by taking a sample of kidney and performing a rather complicated procedure that is highly sensitive and specific.
The horses are not accompanied by vet certified paperwork. They are accompanied by signed blank forms that the kill buyers are completing. We have dozens of copies of them. The US has no system to track drugs [from birth] in horses so how could anyone sign a report stating the horse is drug free, let alone the thousands of horses that are stolen and sent to slaughter.
Wallis’ supporters will never see the EU report [report Ref. Ares(2011)398056] that has documented the drug residues in U.S. horses and the falsified paperwork that accompanied the horses. Since the report refutes everything she has been telling her supporters and Congress, she simply just ignores it.
I’ll bet that the big Agriculture organizations that hide behind her are even cringing with her latest outburst on drugs in U.S. horses.
Vicki Tobin, Vice President
Equine Welfare Alliance
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