All the Creatures

I was at a health conference this afternoon. I was there to watch a friend do a presentation. I watched as a multitude of subjects were presented, from irvingia gabonensis side effects to how exercise increases bone mass. I was bored beyond tears at one point until a young woman got up and did a power point presentation of the PMU industry in Canada. For those of you who don’t know what the PMU industry is, it is the production of the drug Premarian using pregnant horse’s urine. The industry has been going on for the last 25-30 years now. The woman that was presenting the information was using old news. She was claiming that the industry had over 400 farms that produced the urine for the drug. Yes that was true about 8 years ago, but the demand dropped and the bottom has almost fallen out of the industry.

I was curious after I left that conference and decided to find out what the real news is about the PMU industry….not just news that is 5 years old. I discovered that Pfizer/Wyeth, the makers of Premarian have issued contract cuts to their suppliers. That means only 22 farms are left to produce the urine for the drug. 22 is a far cry from 400 farms and most of the 22 only have about 40 horses each.

I can see that in the next few years the PMU industry will have run its course and will be no more. If you want to read the news story (dated May 2010) on the shutting down of the farms in Canada here is the link

http://www.agcanada.com/Article.aspx?ID=22848

All the Creatures

If you are a horse fanatic then you would have no doubt heard about the expensive horses that were insured and then the owners hired a “hit man” to kill the horses. The news stories came out in the early 1990’s and were reported by Sports Illustrated. Soon the stories had spread from the horse racing industry to the show jumping world. Horses were insured for millions of dollars and often were found to be either not fertile enough for breeding or were getting too lame to perform in competition. So the owners hired someone to kill the horse so they could collect the insurance money.

I was curious enough to see it that was still going on, 20 years later. Here is what I found:

• I could find no mass scandals involving the racing industry in the last 10 years that involved insurance fraud. That is possibly due to the more stringent penalties and prison time on the books now.
• One case of possible insurance fraud involved 21 polo ponies that died mysteriously in 2009. That incident has since been cleared up as a pharmacy error in inject-able supplements given to the horses. The pharmacy mixed the wrong drugs.
• Although insurance fraud probably still goes on in the horse world, no one is bringing it out in the open, yet. That might be due to the fact that, since the 1990’s, insurance companies are stricter in their requirements in insuring a horse.

I have had one of my horses’ insured 10 years ago. I can tell you that before you go out and get horse life insurance quotes, also known as mortality insurance, your horse will have to have a vet exam and the vet must fill out the insurance policy. The horse must be in good health and you must be able to prove that the horse is worth what you want it insured for.  The policy itself is reasonably priced, I paid $150 for one year for a $5K policy, thankfully I never needed it.

All the Creatures

The video news story below makes you wonder how these people can proclaim themselves to be helping animals when the local authorities have to step in and take animals away from them - for the animals welfare.

All the Creatures