THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, February 2, 1995 TAG: 9502020009
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Short : 46 lines
Regarding ``Drug: SPCA doesn't want to be linked to Premarin'' (news, Dec. 3): Deborah Myers, director of public affairs for Sentara Health Systems says it is ``just the most ridiculous thing'' for the Norfolk Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) to ask station WVEC to broadcast a disclaimer of the public-service announcement linking the SPCA to Premarin.
Premarin is the most commonly prescribed estrogen-replacement drug and is taken by more than 8 million women worldwide. Most of them don't know the drug is made from pregnant mares' urine and that its production results in misery and death for tens of thousands of foals and mares yearly.
To produce Premarin, producer Wyeth-Ayerst fits 75,000 pregnant mares with rubber collection bags and ties them up in cement-floored stalls measuring just 3 1/2-to-5 feet wide by 8 feet long. For six months, the mares cannot take more than a step or two in any direction, turn around or lie down comfortably.
Soon after giving birth, they are reimpregnated, their babies are taken from them and they are returned to the ``pee line.'' Some mares go through this grueling cycle for more than 20 years, after which they are butchered.
Almost every one of the 75,000 foals is butchered.
Says Dr. Stephen Rosenman, ``In my experience, plant-derived (estrogen) drugs are preferable to Premarin, and they do not contain the hidden ingredient of cruelty.''
The public-service announcement is misleading and scurrilous, since no humane person apprised of the facts about Premarin would promote it, much less wear an SPCA T-shirt for the filming.
More information can be had from PETA, P.O. Box 42516, Washington, D.C. 20015.
CARLA BENNETT
Senior writer
People for the Ethical Treatment
of Animals
Washington, D.C., Jan. 20, 1995 by CNB