The European Union (EU) has done for American horses what our Congress refuses to do. Thanks to the EU, our race horses will be less likely to be be slaughtered for human consumption. It seems our race horses are toxic to humans; the medicines legal and illegal we use on our horses make them unfit for human consumption.
The new rules going into effect as of April 1, 2010 require slaughtered horse meat to come with complete health records showing horses have not been given specific drugs. If health records do not show this, horses will have to be kept in quarantine for 180 days (6 months) before slaughter to ensure any drugs that were in their system has totally cleared. This means horses would have to be kept on feed lots for six months which will make the horse meat much more expensive to produce that it will not be economically feasible to use American (and Canadian) horses for food. Also, the quarantine keeping horses on feed lots will mean they will be more likely to catch disease which will require medication which will start the 180 day clock all over.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has already announced they will follow the EU rules so the flow of American horses to Canadian slaughterhouses should trickle to a flow. The Mexican slaughterhouses that send meat to Europe will have to follow the same rules as well; whether the smaller Mexican facilities that provide horse meat for domestic consumption will abide by these rules is unknown. The assumption is that any idea of opening new slaughterhouses in the United States may come to a halt being the slaughtering of horses for human consumption will become economically unfeasible as they will have no choice but to follow the EU rules.
Bottom line is while horses may be slaughtered for non-human consumption, the demand for our surplus horses for slaughter should dramatically decrease; the best news pro-horse people could ask for.
For more information about this new regulation, please click here.
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