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FACTS ON PREMARIN
Check out the following links for information on the newly discovered health risks of Hormone Replacement Therapy.
Premarin is an Estrogen Replacement Therapy (ERT) drug manufactured by the Philadelphia-based pharmaceutical
corporation Wyeth-Ayerst Laboratories. ABOUT THE HORSESAs of 2001, approximately 35,00 to 40,000 mares are kept pregnant year after year in order to produce Premarin. The quality of their care and the tragic fate of many of their offspring have been animal welfare issues for several years. There were about 480 PMU farms, located mostly in rural areas in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, Canada, but with the international outcry over the increased health risks, many of these farms have been or are being phased out. While at one time there were nearly 50 PMU barns in the United States, located in North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota and Indiana, these farms have been or are being phased out. Canadian PMU farms continue to be the leading provider of PMU for hormone replacement therapy. Every year in September, auctions are held to sell the large number of surplus foals, typically when they are between 3 and 4 months of age. Many of the approximately 30,000 foals sold at auction end up as meat in butcher shops in Japan, Belgium, France, Italy, Germany Holland and Switzerland. Every year, the mares are kept in barns from October until April in narrow tie-stalls, fitted with rubber collection pouches suspended on pulleys. They cannot turn around, lie flat out at night to sleep deeply or roll in the dirt. Exercise is unregulated and minimal. However, recent interest in the regulation of the treatment of the mares has led to better care, but it is difficult to balance the collection needs and the needs of the pregnant mares making it nearly (if not completely) impossible to devise methods that meet the collection needs and the humane treatment of the mares. A growing number of grassroots animal rescue groups are helping to find homes for the approximately 30,000 "surplus" foals but this is a formidable task. It is estimated that about 500 PMU foals were rescued at the September 2000 auctions and brought to homes in the United States. ABOUT WOMEN'S HEALTHOf the FDA-approved Hormone Replacement Therapy drugs currently on the market, there are very few made from urine. These include Premerine, Prempro and Premphase. Around 10 million women take Premarin. For decades it has been the most widely prescribed drug in America (in 2000 it fell to number two). Sales of Premarin-based drugs (including Prempac, Prempro and Premphase) reached $1.9 billion in 2000. A growing number of studies have shown that standard prescription estrogens (Premarin, plant-based and synthetic estrogens) can begin to raise breast cancer risk after several years of use. Rarely are women sufficiently warned of this added health risk or informed of alternatives. In 1994, when two smaller drug companies, Duramed and Barr Laboratories, applied to the FDA with a cheaper, plant-based generic estrogen with the same active ingredients as Premarin, Wyeth-Ayerst filed a petition against it. In 1997, after heavy and costly lobbying, the FDA refused to license the generics. READ MORE ABOUT PREMARIN"Hormones and Horses" by Ray Kellosalmi, M.D., Animal Watch magazine of the ASPCA, Summer 1998 Taking Hormones and Women's Health: Choices, Risks and Benefits (2000 edition) National Women's Health Network, Washington DC, 202-628-7814 $10 members; $15 non-members. Their web site states, "In easily accessible language, it explains the scientific evidence that supports (or in some cases doesn't support) the medical recommendations that women hear from their health care providers, friends and relatives. "The switch from HRT as treatment to HRT as preventive therapy has occurred without debate or justification. It is a shift of the profoundest significance, yet has gone unremarked and undiscussed." Sandra Coney, The Menopause Industry "The abuse of horses in the production of Premarin is a total denial of our debt to the horse and the role horses have played in the exploration, conquest and utilization of our planet. What we are doing is unthinkable ---- and unforgivable." Roger Caras, President, ASPCA, 1991 to 1999. "That a substance derived from horse urine is 'natural' to the human body is simply a tribute to 50 years of successful advertising," Phillip Warner, Gynecologist, Los Gatos, CA" That a substance derived from horse urine is 'natural' to the human body is simply a tribute to 50 years of successful advertising," Phillip Warner, Gynecologist, Los Gatos, CA "Sadly, PMU foals, only a by-product of the drug industry, are usually worth far less than is the urine their mothers produce." former Director of Equine Protection, HSUS "No industry, particularly one dealing with living things, should be virtually self-policing and immune from public inquiry." Frances Russell, Winnipeg Free Press Women's Health and Ethics CoalitionAHDF has brought together a number of American and Canadian horse and animal protection nonprofits to act in a unified effort to combat the PMU industry and to educate doctors and women about the plentiful alternatives to the Premarin / PremPro family of products. Click HERE for an article on Premarin from Dr. Kellosalmi and Tracy Basile, courtesy of Conscious Choice. Doctors no longer have to give women Premarin and other products produced from pregnant mares' urine (PMU) in order to prescribe conjugated estrogens to treat the symptoms of menopause. Please spread the word! Click Here to see a table of alternatives to Premarin!
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Premarin Information
Justice for Horses
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