Full Version: PMU Foals
America's Debate > Archive > Assorted Issues Archive > [A] Science and Technology > [A] Health and Medicine
From PMU Foal
Question for debate:
Should we allow people to mistreat and sometimes ultimately kill horses to treat post-menopausal women, an affliction that is a non-terminal illness?
QUOTE
Estrogens extracted from pregnant mare urine (PMU) are used in the production of Premarin, a hormone replacement drug/therapy used for the treatment of post-menopausal women. Thousands of mares are bred each year such that their estrogen rich urine can be collected, and unfortunately each fall at least 30% of these healthy, quality PMU foals end up in feed lots in Canada and the US, ultimately going to auction.
Question for debate:
Should we allow people to mistreat and sometimes ultimately kill horses to treat post-menopausal women, an affliction that is a non-terminal illness?
We've abused and killed animals for a host of pharmaceutical reasons. Viagra, for example, treats erectile dysfunction. A condition that can be temporarily caused by other prescription drugs, and even lifestyle choices like smoking, drinking, and drug use, although in the case of the latter, damage to blood vessels is probably permanent. And finally there are alternative treatments for ED. Not that all of the above combined can stand in the way of a good investigation (and a chance to make a buck)!
Should we allow people to mistreat and sometimes ultimately kill horses to treat post-menopausal women, an affliction that is a non-terminal illness?
To alleviate human suffering? Sure thing. 'Course, if Lassie doesn't deserve that gruesome ending we can always look into stem cells...
I hear equine tastes good. Can anyone confirm?
QUOTE
Huntingdon Life Sciences is one of the world's largest product testing labs. Every year 180,000 animals, including dogs, cats, rats, mice, primates, rabbits, fish, birds and farm animals, are poisoned and killed testing agrochemcials, household products and pharmaceuticals like Viagra.
-- Last Chance for Animals
-- Last Chance for Animals
QUOTE
But I’ve got a plan. Make vivisection duty mandatory for every human who supports animal testing. We are, after all, animals.
It will be just like jury duty. You get a note from the county advising you your turn has come, and you are to report next Tuesday. You call the evening before to see if the experiment has been cancelled. It hasn’t, but you learn they only want males. You are, so you show up the next day.
You learn you’ll be testing Viagra. Good, you say. I don’t need it (you hasten to add) but what can it hurt?
You soon find out. You take the drug. Instead of cutting off your penis, as happened in experiments on beagles, rabbits, rats, mice, and monkeys, the vivisectors (who at the very least have no testicles, else they would surely refuse each time they were told to torture another) cut open your penis and insert an electrode into a branch of the pelvic nerve. They pass a charge through for a minute at a time, causing erections. They then measure the blood pressure of the erection. Their hope is that Viagra will help maintain the erection.
It seems to do that, but you and everyone else concerned already knew that from many previous tests. Can I go home now? you ask, your opened-penis smarting. Oh, sorry, they say. We forgot to tell you: afterwards all subjects are sacrificed.
-- The Ecologist
It will be just like jury duty. You get a note from the county advising you your turn has come, and you are to report next Tuesday. You call the evening before to see if the experiment has been cancelled. It hasn’t, but you learn they only want males. You are, so you show up the next day.
You learn you’ll be testing Viagra. Good, you say. I don’t need it (you hasten to add) but what can it hurt?
You soon find out. You take the drug. Instead of cutting off your penis, as happened in experiments on beagles, rabbits, rats, mice, and monkeys, the vivisectors (who at the very least have no testicles, else they would surely refuse each time they were told to torture another) cut open your penis and insert an electrode into a branch of the pelvic nerve. They pass a charge through for a minute at a time, causing erections. They then measure the blood pressure of the erection. Their hope is that Viagra will help maintain the erection.
It seems to do that, but you and everyone else concerned already knew that from many previous tests. Can I go home now? you ask, your opened-penis smarting. Oh, sorry, they say. We forgot to tell you: afterwards all subjects are sacrificed.
-- The Ecologist
Should we allow people to mistreat and sometimes ultimately kill horses to treat post-menopausal women, an affliction that is a non-terminal illness?
To alleviate human suffering? Sure thing. 'Course, if Lassie doesn't deserve that gruesome ending we can always look into stem cells...
I hear equine tastes good. Can anyone confirm?
Should we allow people to mistreat and sometimes ultimately kill horses to treat post-menopausal women, an affliction that is a non-terminal illness?
Any time a person bites into a hamburger or steak, he/she confirming that human quality-of-life outweighs an animal's right to live. Even for something as trivial as taste. I am against the mistreatment of animals, though, even those that make it to the slaughter house. I see no reason to abuse these animals, but slaughtering a horse for meat is not discernably different than slaughtering a cow...and if they use the urine for medicine it is comparatively less wasteful.
Yes, Lesly, I confirm that carne del cavallo (horse meat) is extremely tasty. It is also very lean and healthy, in comparison to beef. It tastes like prosciutto crudo, without the fat.
Any time a person bites into a hamburger or steak, he/she confirming that human quality-of-life outweighs an animal's right to live. Even for something as trivial as taste. I am against the mistreatment of animals, though, even those that make it to the slaughter house. I see no reason to abuse these animals, but slaughtering a horse for meat is not discernably different than slaughtering a cow...and if they use the urine for medicine it is comparatively less wasteful.
Yes, Lesly, I confirm that carne del cavallo (horse meat) is extremely tasty. It is also very lean and healthy, in comparison to beef. It tastes like prosciutto crudo, without the fat.
Before we get all PETA/Buddhist about it, should botfly larvae, tapeworms, liver flukes, mosquitos, tse-tse flies, dystenteric amoebae or even Staphylococcus aureus die for human benefit?
Well? A botfly "bite" is not usually life threatening or even very painful (depending on the site of the parasitism). It's more unsightly than anything - menopause is much less fun. Yet modern medicine will insist on killing a poor innocent maggot to make it's human host feel better.
But it's a little harder to anthropomorphise a worm living inside a huge boil on someone's body, isn't it?
Especially when we're just as happy to kill another maggot from the same species that is living under the skin of a pet horse.
But while I disagree with extremist PETA/Buddhist ideas that we should never harm another living creature, even those we cannot see, I respect that position a whole lot more than people who get worked up about horses being bred for oestrogen and the "excess" foals that reult being sold for slaughter, but don't bat an eyelid at the same thing happening on an indsutrial scale in cattle so we have somthing to pour on our cornflakes.
Where, exactly, does cow's milk come from? You realise that cow's have to have recently calved to be lactating, don't you?
But the male calves that come from them are no use for milking, so most of them get sent for slaughter anyway, in far greater numbers than the few thousand horses that get killed so your aunt can get rid of her hot flushes and avoid busting her hip bone twice a week.
Well? A botfly "bite" is not usually life threatening or even very painful (depending on the site of the parasitism). It's more unsightly than anything - menopause is much less fun. Yet modern medicine will insist on killing a poor innocent maggot to make it's human host feel better.
But it's a little harder to anthropomorphise a worm living inside a huge boil on someone's body, isn't it?
Especially when we're just as happy to kill another maggot from the same species that is living under the skin of a pet horse.
But while I disagree with extremist PETA/Buddhist ideas that we should never harm another living creature, even those we cannot see, I respect that position a whole lot more than people who get worked up about horses being bred for oestrogen and the "excess" foals that reult being sold for slaughter, but don't bat an eyelid at the same thing happening on an indsutrial scale in cattle so we have somthing to pour on our cornflakes.
Where, exactly, does cow's milk come from? You realise that cow's have to have recently calved to be lactating, don't you?
But the male calves that come from them are no use for milking, so most of them get sent for slaughter anyway, in far greater numbers than the few thousand horses that get killed so your aunt can get rid of her hot flushes and avoid busting her hip bone twice a week.
I do not see anything in the opening paragraph which leads to the mistreat question of the thread? What is the mistreatment ?
ick..that is gross I just figured it all out. In Europe horse meat is still very popular in some countries..and it was in the country I last lived in over there. They serve it at restaurants, sell it at the butchers for you to cook at home and even make jerky out of it. Also where I lived they label the origin of everything even on menus and the horse meat is always from the USA and sometimes Canada and now I know why. I often wondered why does the US produce so much horse meat..and now I know ..for our drugs.
I have mixed feelings on this one.
On the one hand, I've been a practicing vegetarian for nearly 10 years now and I'm very much against the use of animals for certain things.
On the other hand, there may be some truly good reasons to use animals for life-saving reasons.
Back to the first hand, however, menopause is a natural stage in life and I resent it being treated as an illness. There are also many natural ways to treat the discomforts of menopause that don't require the death of an animal to do it.
But back to the other side, I've been told that some of the discomforts of menopause are really un-fun to go through, and solving the problem with natural remedies would require a lot of work and diligence.
Personally, I'll most likely be using the natural remedies when my time comes. And on the whole I think it's the best method for most women, but there may be exceptions.
On the one hand, I've been a practicing vegetarian for nearly 10 years now and I'm very much against the use of animals for certain things.
On the other hand, there may be some truly good reasons to use animals for life-saving reasons.
Back to the first hand, however, menopause is a natural stage in life and I resent it being treated as an illness. There are also many natural ways to treat the discomforts of menopause that don't require the death of an animal to do it.
But back to the other side, I've been told that some of the discomforts of menopause are really un-fun to go through, and solving the problem with natural remedies would require a lot of work and diligence.
Personally, I'll most likely be using the natural remedies when my time comes. And on the whole I think it's the best method for most women, but there may be exceptions.
This is a simplified version of our main content. To view the full version with more information, formatting and images, please click here.