PREMARIN

September 1, 2004

If you have a horse, dog, cat, or any other companion animal, it would be tough for most of us to think of them as disposable. Yet, thousands of healthy and eager foals every year are treated this way. They are the Premarin foals.

The most prescribed drug in the United States is Premarin, a hormone-replacement therapy drug used to treat the symptoms of menopause. What many people, including many doctors, don’t know is that Premarin is made from the urine of Pregnant mares. To produce this urine in the most cost-effective way, thousands of mares are kept pregnant in their stalls, attached to catheters day and night. They are given little water to keep their urine as concentrated as possible. Once their foals are born, they are auctioned off, and most end up slaughtered for human consumption. Redwings believes this entire process to be cruel, both to the mares and their foals.

There are many synthetic and organic hormone replacement therapies that many have found to be far more efficacious than Premarin. Several studies have even found that Premarin has health risks to the women who take it. Your doctor might not be aware of these alternatives.

Redwings Horse Sanctuary devotes a large part of its resources to educating interested people of challenges to the well-being of equines. In 1997, Redwings went to Manitoba, Canada and bought four foals, disposable by-products of Premarin production, and brought that bit of reality home to our ranch. They are Charisma, Calypso, LB, and Melissa. You can visit all of them today at our ranch in Lockwood, California. You can also sponsor Melissa to help the world handle the consequences of Premarin production.

Fortunately for the long term well-being of horses, Premarin sales have recently plummeted, probably because of these studies, and the continuing education done by Redwings and many other organizations of the cruelty of Premarin. The short-term result is that many mares that have been impregnated to produce Premarin have been taken off line, and now face uncertain futures.

United Animal Nations has long been devoted to the issue of cruelty with Premarin production. They have recently launched a project called PMURescue.org which has created an online database of Premarin production veterans which are available for adoption. United Pegasus Foundation is also devoted to finding homes for former Premarin mares and maintains a list of ones available for adoption.

Redwings recently adopted two pregnant mares, Scarlett and Tara, who were taken offline from Premarin farms. In May 2004, they gave birth to colts, Rhett and Rebel.

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