Premarin : Horse cruelty drug co. moves to Ireland

Doper Than U

Wyeth, the company responsible for manufacturing Premarin is shutting down it's plant in Rouses Point in NJ, USA ... and moving to Ireland!!

Premarin is a drug to help with the symptoms of menopause. It is made using pregnant mare's urine (PREgnant MARes urINe). It is an exceptionally cruel practice, mares are impregnated, give birth and their foals are taken from them straight away and killed.

Because so much of this drug is prescribed, its production requires the operation of around 700 "farms", in which around 80,000 horses live their entire lives penned in tiny stalls, unable to turn around or meaningfully lie down, deprived of water, repeatedly impregnated, and continuously connected to plumbing collecting that urine.

When they can no longer produce adequately, most are summarily slaughtered. Most of their offspring are either put in stalls or slaughtered. Over fifty-eight years of Premarin production, well over a million horses or perhaps millions of horses, have lived in cruelty and then been slaughtered. Only in the last twenty years has this dreadful secret become known at all.

Sales of Premarin have fallen by over 50% (hence the closure of the plant in Rouses Point) because there are now safer and more effective ways of synthesising the drug WITHOUT the need for cruelty to horses.

Ireland is one of the worlds greates horse countries. I'm shocked that we already have a Premarin plant over here. To know that production here is going to INCREASE is horrifying.

What do we do?

Alun

Not to belittle the apparent cruelty of this practice, but if the aim of the whole exercise is to collect urine, why would they be deprived of water? Surely that would be counterproductive? And why would they kill the foals? Surely if the mares are constantly giving birth to, presumably healthy, foals, wouldn't it make more (financial) sense, to sell them?

Don't get me wrong, if this is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about what is going on, then clearly it's terrible, but I often get the impression that the people making this kind of stuff public aren't averse to a bit of "over dramatization" to further their cause.

Interceptor

You have just summarised what happens to cows every day in order that we have a dairy industry (ie kept pregnant and their offspring killed) - don't you think it would be a better idea to ban milk?

'cptr

Doper Than U

Alun, I can understand your point and I wondered about that myself. The Premarin "issue" has been around for years (50 years), but we only found out about it in the last 20 odd years. The reduced water consumption I assume will concentrate the urine.

I don't drink milk. I eat organic cheese. I'm a carnivore... but I do insist on knowing that the meat I eat was raised ethically. I object to any farming practice that treats animals like this, so.. ban milk? Yes and no. More appropriately, we should ban intensive farming practices that are cruel to animals. Milk from suckler cows? That I'll go for.

I don't agree with this kind of treatment of any animal... the excuse that : "well, it's done to cows.. so who cares if it's done to horses?" doesn't really wash with me. Why do it to any animal?? Especially for a drug that can be readily synthesised without animal suffering. If milk could be synthesised, don't you think people would actually condemn intensive dairy farming?

Capt'n Midnight

Doper Than U wrote:

It is an exceptionally cruel practice, mares are impregnated, give birth and their foals are taken from them straight away and killed.
...
What do we do?

How about protesting when the same thing happens to dairy cattle just to get milk ?

Yet again I'll point out that rodents are probably more intelligent and may be more capable of feeling pain then many grass eaters. And it's ok to poison them with stuff that causes them to die over several days from intestinal bleeding (not a nice way to go).

Interceptor

Doper Than U wrote:

If milk could be synthesised, don't you think people would actually condemn intensive dairy farming?

It has, I drink it every day and its called soya milk. But I don't see anyone condemning intensive dairy farming. STOP BASHING THE SOYA BEANS ON THE HEAD I SAY - THEY HAVE FEELINGS TOO.

'c

Aveda

Hi there,
Just been reading your thread - and its not acceptable for any type of cruelty to animals, for any reasons.I say this as an owner of 3 cats,2 dogs, 2 birds, 2 cows,2 goats and 2 ducks (not quite noah's arc).I myself have changed to soya milk and for my part feel like I'm doing something.

however,dopur I just noticed your comment under your notices - stating I 'club' baby seals??? surprised at that considering you are obviously against any harm to animals....maybe I'm missing the point, sorry if I am

Doper Than U

Yup, that's a little thing I like to call "humour". There's even an irony in there, since I'm such an animal lover and against cruelty to animals, to have a banner like that is antithetical to what I stand for. I'm against cruelty to animals, not jokes (even if they're bad).

Look.. this thread is about Premarin and the fact that they're moving to Ireland. If people want to object to the cruel practice that is dairy farming, then I'm right behind you. I believe it's cruel, I don't drink milk, I do drink soya milk. But to use the dairy cow issue as a way to say it's ok to do the same to horses is a feeble argument at best. I object to dairy farming. I object to Premarin production. It's not ok to treat either cows or horses in this manner. So, to those of you who continue to say "Yeah well... they've done that to cows for years, so who gives a sh*t about horses"... try a different tack; is it really ok to do it to any animal? If you object to dairy farming, then you'll likely object to Premarin production. If you don't object to dairy farming, you might have no problem with Premarin. But why are you pitting the two things against each other? Neither of them are ok. It isn't a case of cows vs horses.

And people DO protest about dairy farming. If you guys are so upset about dairy farming, start a thread on it. I'll even come in and lend my support. Same with the rat poision if that's how you feel about it. Nowhere in my original post did I say it was wrong to treat horses cruelly, but right to treat cows and rats cruelly. I merely was reporting on a piece of current news involving cruelty to animals. I thought people on this forum might be interested, and perhaps a little outraged, since many of them object to cruelty to animals.

So I'll reiterate : Dairy farming is cruel. Poisoning rats is cruel. Premarin "farming" is cruel. This thread is about Premarin. Please start a new one to discuss the appalling industry that is dairy farming if it so disgusts you.

doctor evil

How is dairy farming cruel?, I don`t know much about it, do you mean just the whole principle of it *nickingthecowsmilk*.

It was my understanding that PMU foals are usually (if not sold for leisure/work horses) sold for meat. Slaughter of horses for human consumption doesn`t bother me as long as it is done properly. I think (please correst if I am wrong) that transport regulations in America is not as stringent as in other countries.

Capall86

look folks i think all you need to get your facts right.

Doper, Wyeth is already in ireland and has a huge factory in newbridge.
Foals from premarin are sold on, mainly to homes where they are used for riding etc, you don't get much meat from foals and the cost of killing and destroying the carcasses is far too much. So a profit is made from the sale of the foals.
Yes American livestock transport laws are sh*te, animals are regualarly mistreated. Premarin will contiued to be made while their is a requirement for if it can be synthesised and made more3 cheaply. I think my username indicates my love of horses, but there is nothing you can do to stop this, plus i think wyeth building another factiry here is good as it will bring more jobs here. Plus irish people are smarter then the yanks and we might be able to synthesie Premarin someday.

Dairy farming is not cruel.

Soya milk tastes like sh*t

Capt'n Midnight

doctor evil wrote:

I think (please correst if I am wrong) that transport regulations in America is not as stringent as in other countries.

Have a read of fast food nation sometime. When meat is butchered for the EU market in the US the workers prefer it to when they have to do meat for the US market. This is because EU regs limit the amount of cattle a worker has to process meaning they less stressed, less likely to get injured and less likely to contaminate the meat with the contents of the animals gut by sloppy work. In short the regulations in the US aren't don't fully protect the health and wellbeing of the humans never mind the animals.

junkyard

I didn't know that calfs were killed in dairy farms. Why is this happening? Surely the calfs must have some worth, this seems awfully cruel to me but farming in general seems a very cruel job to me. Any farmers I've come across seem to be very hard people and as for the ones working in slaughter houses, they seem to be total nutters who seem to get a buzz out of killing animals. I couldn't do it in a million years, I'd sooner starve! This is my experience with these people anyway, I could be wrong.:(

juanveron45

sorry to change the subject

I have been invited to an assessment centre in liffey vallley for the second round process of a process tech role with wyeth in clondalkin.Basically there I will have 2 aptitude tests a group problem solving discussion and a behavioural interview I was just wondering if anyone here has gone through this process or can give me any tips on how to prepare or what to expect?

Schlemm

junkyard wrote:

I didn't know that calfs were killed in dairy farms. Why is this happening? Surely the calfs must have some worth, this seems awfully cruel to me but farming in general seems a very cruel job to me. Any farmers I've come across seem to be very hard people and as for the ones working in slaughter houses, they seem to be total nutters who seem to get a buzz out of killing animals. I couldn't do it in a million years, I'd sooner starve! This is my experience with these people anyway, I could be wrong.:(

With calves from dairy farms, the cow calves are either kept and reared as replacements for the milking herd or are sold on. The bull calves are sold at marts and finish as beef or are exported to mainland Europe to finish as veal.

The EU has banned veal crates and now veal calves are kept in slatted sheds or straw bedded houses. I think there are some regulations regarding the amount of fibre in their diet to prevent problems such as pseudo-rumination. While the EU standards are by no means radical, they are certainly an improvment on what was there before them. The really big issue today in veal farming is live export of calves to Europe from Ireland and other countries for veal production. The calves are quite young and are not able for such a long journey. I reckon that, given that there is a market for veal and that there is an availability of male dairy cross calves for veal production, that we'd be better off in the republic to actually have a few properly run veal farms so that we could export meat rather than live animals.

I've been to abbatoirs and I haven't met any headbangers, in fact, most people working in abbatoirs are quite concerned that things are done properly.

Milk from suckler cows? That I'll go for.

If we did milk sucklers, their yields would be a lot lower and farmers would not make any money out of it; the price of milk is still quite low at the moment. And even if we did milk sucklers, they would still be prone to the problems of dairy cattle such as mastitis because the process of milking cattle facilitates mastitis spread. Plus they'd dry up much more quickly than dairy cattle. There are problems associated with high milk yields such as metabolic disorders, lameness, mastitis, etc. But in general, dairy production in Ireland is still not as advanced as some other countries, for better or worse...Our milk yields are about half that of the USA and the EU has banned drugs such as growth hormone and angel dust. Our herds are also a lot smaller. There's a limit of how far we can push our animals but Irish dairy herds are probably a lot better off than some other countries. There are a lot worse practices in farming than milking cattle - just look at intensive chicken and pig production.