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Promoting The Humane And Responsible Treatment of Horses
Manitoba, Canada - On November 8, 2003, Equine Advocates began the first of what will hopefully be many PMU mare rescues. Eighteen PMU mares were transported over 1300 miles from the Canadian Province of Manitoba to a safe haven in Ontario. There the mares were examined by veterinarians, serviced by farriers and prepared for their trip into the US for adoption. The dramatic revelations of the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) in 2002 concluded that the hormone replacement drug, Prempro (Premarin plus progesterone) could potentially do more harm than good to the women who took it. Since then, the production of pregnant mares' urine (PMU), the main ingredient in Premarin, Prempro and Premphase (made by the pharmaceutical giant, Wyeth), has been decreased by one third. While that is great news for the horses, as foals from a third of the mares will not be born year after year and sold for slaughter, there are now thousands of unwanted PMU mares. Many of them have already been slaughtered, and many will be sold for slaughter if they are not saved.
"What we are witnessing is yet another bloodbath, this time of PMU mares, adding to the annual foal genocide which has taken place for decades," said Equine Advocates' president, Susan Wagner. "We are hopeful that finally we are witnessing the beginning of the end of this barbaric industry. We are calling for the drug company, Wyeth, to take responsibility in helping these mares so that they are not slaughtered. It is the very least they can do after being responsible for these animals being turned into four-legged drug machines for over half a century."
Equine Advocates plans to place this first group of eighteen mares in loving adoptive homes, and then rescue another group. Sixteen of the mares are in foal (pregnant). Anyone interested in contributing toward the rescue of this group of mares and future PMU mare and foal rescues, please go here.
More information about the PMU industry will be posted on this site in the coming months, including Equine Advocates' new booklet, "The End of the Line" which has just been published. The online version will be posted shortly. Stay tuned...