The Animal Cruelty and Danger Behind the ERT Drug Premarin

One of the most widely and longest prescribed drugs in the U.S. is Premarin®, named after pregnant mare's urine, its chief ingredient. Premarin®, which has been produced for some fifty years, is the only ERT (estrogen replacement therapy) drug made with estrogen from an animal. Other drugs are synthetic or plant-derived. If you're a menopausal woman contemplating estrogen therapy, I hope you'll consider your other choices after reading this.

The story behind Premarin® is ugly and tragic. There are 50,000 mares in North Dakota, Minnesota and western Canada who are impregnated and then tethered in cramped stalls (3.5-5 feet wide by 8 feet long) so that their urine, which contains estrogen, can be collected to make Premarin®. The mares are trapped in this prison barely able to move for six months, fitted with cumbersome rubber urine collection bags, and often denied adequate water in order to increase the estrogen concentration. Grooming and hoof trimming is minimal to nonexistent, and mares are often denied adequate water, reportedly to increase the concentration of estrogens in the urine. The mares are kept pregnant so that they produce estrogen-rich urine for as much of their lives as possible. Within days of giving birth, they are re-impregnated. A few months later, the foals of these mares are taken away from them and they're put back on the "pee line". Most of the foals-"byprods", as the industry callously calls them-are sold to "kill buyers", fattened, and then slaughtered; they're generally dead by four months old. The meat is sent to markets in Europe and Asia for human consumption. A few foals are kept for stud or to replace worn-out mares. The mares, in turn, are eventually auctioned off to butchers when they've outgrown their economic usefulness.