Advocacy

Few causes are able to unite people such as Lorenzo Borghese from ABC’s The Bachelor, actors Bo Derek and John Corbett, school children and animal welfare organizations, but all of them got together last week to participate in the “Horses on the Hill” event on Capitol Hill. The ASPCA was proud to co-host with the Animal Welfare Institute and The Humane Society of the United States publicly urge legislators to stop our nation’s horses from being slaughtered at home or abroad.

The ASPCA’s very special guest at Horses on the Hill, nine-year-old Declan Gregg of New Hampshire, has created an organization and blog called Children 4 Horses. Declan spoke eloquently about the urgency of protecting our horses. He was joined by Senators Mary Landrieu and Scott Brown as well as Representatives Jim Moran, Ed Whitfield and David Rivera—all of whom spoke strongly to the need for passing a ban on horse slaughter.

Killing American horses for human consumption is simply not acceptable. The ASPCA’s founder, Henry Bergh, loved all animals, but initially focused his efforts on stopping horse abuse. Mr. Bergh would not have been surprised by the people who turned out in D.C. to help horses because he believed animal protection was an issue that crossed party lines and class boundaries. More than 140 years have passed since Mr. Bergh founded the ASPCA, but our commitment to horse protection remains steadfast.

Take Action

Horses in this country are in grave danger, and they need your help! You can make a difference by contacting your Congress members to request that they cosponsor and support the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act. 

Guest blog post from Suzanne McMillan, ASPCA Director of Farm Animal Welfare

As many of you know, animals raised on factory farms often receive antibiotics in order to remain healthy in an otherwise harmful environment as well as to promote growth. But there are dangers involved for both humans and animals! Antibiotic resistance in humans is a very big concern, and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been under increasing pressure to do something about it.

Last week the FDA finally responded, releasing three documents addressing the use of antibiotics in livestock. While it’s great that the FDA is acknowledging a problem, these documents are extremely disappointing. Producers are simply asked to voluntarily curb their use of antibiotics, and pharmaceutical companies are asked to voluntarily stop labeling certain antibiotics as useful for livestock growth. All of this despite a federal court ruling just last month that ordered FDA to stop relying on voluntary programs to curb the use of certain antibiotics. Further, these programs focus only on using antibiotics for growth promotion—not on the similarly common practice of feeding animals antibiotics to prop up their already weak immune systems.

The coalition Keep Antibiotics Working, of which the ASPCA is a member, calls the FDA’s new plan an “inadequate response” and urges it to, at the very least, establish “an enforcement mechanism and timeline” for achieving the voluntary protocols it proposes. 

For more information on the ASPCA’s efforts to help farmed animals, please visit our Farm Animal Cruelty section.

Guest blog post from Suzanne McMillan, ASPCA Director of Farm Animal Welfare

On March 22, a federal judge ruled that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) must address the overuse of antibiotics in farm animals. The fact is, factory farms feed drugs like those in the penicillin family to animals even when they’re not sick. The drugs are used to speed up the animals’ growth and compensate for their unsanitary and overcrowded conditions, which are major breeding grounds for illnesses. Indeed, the same drugs that we take when we are sick are routinely fed to healthy animals!

The FDA Fails to Protect
More than 30 years ago, the FDA first discovered the overuse of antibiotics creates drug-resistant bacteria that can spread to humans and cause hard-to-treat illnesses. So far, the FDA has failed to follow through on its findings. This new ruling will now require the FDA to withdraw its existing approvals for routinely using penicillins and tetracyclines on farm animals unless the farming industry provides evidence that their use does not threaten human health.

Did You Know…?
Almost 80% of all antibiotics sold in the U.S. are fed to food animals. In addition to its impact on animal welfare, the misuse of antibiotics also affects our own lives. If we want to keep antibiotics working for us, we must keep industrial farms from abusing them. The ASPCA applauds this recent court decision—not only for human health, but also in hopes that it will help ensure cleaner, more humane living conditions for animals on farms.

For more information on the ASPCA’s efforts to help farmed animals, please visit our Farm Animal Cruelty section.

"It's hard to watch these poor animals running for their lives for people who could really care less if they live," said Dr. Margaret Ohlinger, a track veterinarian at Finger Lakes Casino and Racetrack in upstate New York.
 – New York Times, March 25, 2012

We've known for a long time that the horse racing industry is in serious need of reform. For horses who do not win, auction and slaughter for human consumption overseas has been an all too easy outlet for an industry obsessed with the pursuit of cash winnings at all costs. The ASPCA has focused on passage of the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act, but last year, we met with the authors of the Interstate Horseracing Improvement Act and heard about the rampant use of drugs to mask pain in racehorses, so we endorsed their legislation to curb this abuse.

This past Sunday's edition of The New York Times provided a disturbing reminder of how very necessary and overdue this legislation is. The Times published a shocking exposé, "Death and Disarray at America's Racetracks," documenting its investigation into racehorse doping and the sharp rise in deaths and injuries to horses and riders.

The article details the rampant use of drugs—how "trainers experiment with anything that might give them an edge, including chemicals that bulk up pigs and cattle before slaughter, cobra venom, Viagra, blood doping agents, stimulants and cancer drugs." The result? The catastrophic deaths of thousands of racehorses. Horses pushed beyond their limits by steroids, stimulants or pain-killing drugs that enabled them to run through injuries up to the point of collapse. 

Though the horse racing industry has long promised to restrict the use of performance-enhancing drugs, such voluntary measures have been largely ignored. The worst offenders can easily circumvent the current patchwork of state horse commission rules by moving their operations. Lax or nonexistent oversight allows, and encourages, the use of any means possible—even cruel, life-threatening means—to win races.

"How on earth did we get to this sorry state?" Mr. Strawbridge [prominent breeder and owner] said. "The first reason is that in this country there are no significant consequences for doping horses."

Self-regulation by local horse racing commissions has failed to protect horses and jockeys from rampant drug use. And, the tragic toll on horses and riders is exacerbated at "racinos" (casinos with horse tracks) where there appears to be an even greater disregard for safety.

H.R. 1733/S. 886, introduced by Representatives Ed Whitfield (R-KY) and Ben Chandler (D-KY) and Senator Tom Udall (D-NM), would prohibit racing any horse found to be under the influence of performance-enhancing drugs and institute a "three strikes" penalty system.

Take Action
Please take action now and ask that your U.S. representative and senators cosponsor the Interstate Horseracing Improvement Act. You can contact your Members of Congress at the ASPCA Online Advocacy Center. Until a federal ban on performance-enhancing drugs in racehorses is the law of the land, the lives of thousands more horses and jockeys will be at risk.