TENS of thousands of healthy foals will be needlessly slaughtered over the next few weeks. They are unwanted "by-products" or "throwaways" from the most widely prescribed hormone-replacement therapy (HRT) drugs, Premarin and Prempak-C, which are made from their mothers' urine.

Each year, 75,000 mares are impregnated and imprisoned for periods of six months in stalls so small they can not turn around or lie down comfortably. Heavy rubber bags are permanently strapped to their haunches to collect their oestrogen-rich urine. Water access is often restricted so that their urine will be more concentrated.

The foals resulting from these pregnancies are unwanted and each year they are shipped to slaughter. The mares are re-impregnated and tethered in their cement-floored stalls. Some go through this gruelling cycle for more than 20 years.

When they become old, infertile or crippled they, too, are auctioned off to the butchers.

Eight million women worldwide - more than a million in the UK - currently take Premarin or Prempak-C.

Most don't know about the hidden horse suffering, or that effective plant-derived and synthetic HRT drugs are widely available.

By switching from Premarin or Prempak-C to a comparable plant-derived drug women can stop this senseless bloodshed.

For a list of urine-free HRT drugs, please contact us.

TONI VERNELLI, UK representative, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), PO Box 3169, London, NW1 2JF.

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