Update your Cookie Settings to use this feature.
Click 'Allow All' or just activate the 'Targeting Cookies'
By continuing you accept Avaaz's Privacy Policy which explains how your data can be used and how it is secured.
Got it
We use cookies to analyse how visitors use this website and to help us provide you the best possible experience. View our Cookie Policy .
OK
Congressman Sam Farr: Investigate Food, Safety and Inspection Service

Congressman Sam Farr: Investigate Food, Safety and Inspection Service

1 have signed. Let's get to
50 Supporters

Close

Complete your signature

,
By continuing you agree to receive Avaaz emails. Our Privacy Policy will protect your data and explains how it can be used. You can unsubscribe at any time. If you are under 13 years of age in the USA or under 16 in the rest of the world, please get consent from a parent or guardian before proceeding.
This petition has been created by lorna M. and may not represent the views of the Avaaz community.
lorna M.
started this petition to
Congressman Sam Farr

Dear Congress member Sam Farr,

We all appreciate your efforts to end horse slaughter and for co-sponsoring the SAFE ACT.

As you may or may not be aware, the Food Safety Inspection Service has issued a Directive for equine slaughter. See FSIS Directive below.
6131.0 http://www.fsis.usda.gov/horses/6130.1.pdf

This is a most critical action and merits your immediate attention. If this directive is allowed to go unchallenged, you can bet that every horse will be tortured and processed while alive. This Directive is so egregiously flawed as to be laughable if it weren't so tragic in it's implications.

Fact:

Horses cannot be humanely stunned with captive bolt.
Residue Program cannot possibly address the multitudes of drugs that permeate our domestic horse population.
There is not a directive in place in dealing with improperly stunned horses.


We are asking for an immediate halt to this FSIS Directive as well as an investigation into the FSIS incompetence in issuing such a directive.

Please read Dr. Lester Friedlander's letter attached to this email to better understand the inefficiency of this directive should horse slaughter be implemented in this country again.

In addition, please find more links to very important information as it applies to the FSIS Directive below.

http://www.kansascity.com/2013/06/28/4320072/animal-abuse-persists-at-some.html

http://james-mcwilliams.com/?p=3918

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-friedrich/usda-inspector-general-fo_b_3333853.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wayne-pacelle/hsus-undercover-investiga_b_4674009.html

Please respond as soon as possible.

Thank you for all you have tried to do to stop horse slaughter from resuming in the US.

Sincerely,



Letter from Dr. Lester Friedlander:
My name is Dr. Lester Castro Friedlander. I am a former New York State Horse Racing and Wagering Board Veterinarian. I am also a former USDA, Food Safety Inspection Service, Supervisory Veterinary Medical Officer for ten years and I was also awarded USDA Veterinary Trainer of the Year.
After reviewing FSIS Directive 6130.1, Ante-Mortem, Postmortem Inspection of Equines and Documentation of Inspection Tasks, I found several critical flaws in their Directive procedures that should be condemned as unacceptable in accordance with the Federal Meat Inspection Act.

1) USDA FSIS states they will test 1 horse out of 10 and up to 4 horses out of 100. I find this to be unacceptable
due to the amount of FDA unauthorized drugs used in most Americans domesticated horses every horse must be tested to assure that the utmost protection is obtained for human consumption.
For example, there are up to 119 different drugs found in race Horses. FSIS says it will send 1 pound of liver, 1 pound of muscle and 1 kidney to the Western lab to test for Pesticides. They will send 1 pound of liver, 1 pound of muscle and 1 kidney to the Eastern lab to test for residue. They do not state what pesticide or residue they will be testing for in this Directive which shows a shocking deterioration of ethics and care that should be going into this Directive but isn't. The whole Directive is sloppy and the person who wrote it must be held accountable for this.
2) In my opinion and the opinion of thousands of vets across this country (see veterinarians for equine welfare at http://www.vetsforequinewelfare.org) Horse and other equines cannot possible be slaughter humanely with a captive bolt or a gun and yet that is how the FSIS Directive states it will slaughter these animals in a humane manner. Here are a few of the statements from Doctors of Veterinarian medicine at this link that verifies my statement as well. http://www.vetsforequinewelfare.org/support.php
Please see video link to prove our point where a horse is stunned up to 11 times with a captive bolt and other video links which show horses in the Canada slaughter plants shot with guns. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngxTI1xOj_s And documentation regarding horses and other animals inhumanely slaughtered. https://www.youtube.com/user/TwylaFrancois?feature=watch
3) Before the three equine slaughter plants were closed in 2007, it was documented that horses had more then 1 hole found in their heads due to the excessive use of the captive bolt. This was in direct violation of the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act. Under the Humane Slaughter Act you cannot legally stun or shoot a horse more than once. Under this directive there is no mention or plans to what a veterinarian is instructed to do when a horse is not properly stunned, this plan must include a directive to include how that issue will be addressed. It is my understanding that more horses than not were improperly stunned during the previous years of 2007 when slaughter plants were operational.
Horses are flight animals and do not like humans to approach them from the front. In cattle slaughter, we can use the captive bolt and place the cattle in a head restraint, to immobilize their head, so we can accurately stun the cattle. You can not do this to horses, since their necks are longer, stronger and we can not restrain their head. The captive bolt is not a humane method to stun horses and the person writing up this directive should know this.
I am asking that you investigate this matter and make sure that this directive is dismissed as inadequate and unlawful.
.
Thank you for considering what I stated.

Dr. Lester Castro Friedlander,BA, DVM

Posted (Updated )