Archive: Legislation

Mink VIRUS Act

Mink on fur farms incubate diseases such as COVID-19 and avian influenza, creating the perfect conditions for new variants to jump to humans—with potentially devastating results. Mink farms risk worsening the current pandemic and ushering in the next one.

In addition, taxpayer dollars are being used to prop up mink farms, subsidizing an industry that was already in decline before the COVID-19 pandemic. To eliminate a severe public health threat and end this financial waste, there is a solution that would benefit all:

The bipartisan “Mink: Vectors for Infection Risk in the United States Act” (Mink VIRUS Act) would

  • end the farming of mink for fur, after a one-year phase-out period, and
  • establish a USDA grant program to reimburse mink farmers for the full value of their farm.

Mink Farms: A Public Health Risk

Mink pose a high risk to humans because their upper respiratory tract is physiologically similar to ours, which means they can become infected by—and potentially transmit to people—some of the same respiratory viruses. Mink’s susceptibility to acquiring and spreading both human and animal respiratory viruses render them potentially potent “mixing vessels” for generating novel pandemic viruses.1

In 2023, infectious disease experts at Imperial College London, in a paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, concluded that mink farming poses a high risk for future viral pandemics.2 They “strongly urge[d] governments to … consider the mounting evidence suggesting that fur farming, particularly mink, be eliminated in the interest of pandemic preparedness.”

Fur farms house mink in crowded environments that create an ideal setting for pathogens to circulate among and across species.3 Wire cages are packed together and often stacked on top of one another so that waste falls on the animals below. The confined conditions cause caged mink to become highly stressed and thus immune-compromised, making them even more susceptible to infection. The absence of legal requirements for veterinary care only compounds the problem.

Avian Flu in Mink
A deadly avian influenza virus (H5N1), which has a 52% mortality rate in humans,4 has infected tens of thousands of mink on dozens of fur farms since 2022. During an October 2022 outbreak on a mink farm in Spain, the virus gained at least one mutation that favors mammal-to-mammal spread, allowing it to spread from mink to mink.5 Before this outbreak, the virus spread primarily through contact with infected birds, not between mammals. Scientists sounded the alarm on this H5N1 mink farm outbreak, calling it a “clear mechanism for an H5 pandemic to start” and “a warning bell.”6

H5N1 infections were also detected at multiple mink farms in Finland in 2023,7 demonstrating the risk for this dangerous virus to continue causing outbreaks on mink farms, each time with the possibility of mutating into something transmissible between humans.

COVID-19 in Mink
Mink are highly susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 (the coronavirus that causes COVID-19), with outbreaks on more than 480 known mink fur farms across 12 countries. The virus has infected tens of thousands of captive mink in the United States,8 and millions of mink in Canada, Denmark, France, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, and Sweden.9 New outbreaks of SARS-CoV-2 continue to emerge on fur farms, including in Poland in January 2023 and Bulgaria in October 2023.

Alarmingly, mink are capable of passing a mutated form of the virus back to humans.10 Mink-to-human transmission of the virus has been reported in at least six countries so far, including the United States. Four people in Michigan were infected with a unique strain of SARS-CoV-2 traced back to mink.11 Spillback from mink farms to humans could introduce new variants, undermining the effectiveness of vaccines and jeopardizing efforts to contain the pandemic.12

Like humans, mink can become infected with COVID-19 without showing symptoms, thus potentially serving as an undetected reservoir of the disease. Escapees from these farms can also transmit the virus to wild populations, potentially fostering reservoirs of the virus off the farms. In December 2020, a wild mink captured near a mink farm in Utah tested positive for a variant of COVID-19 indistinguishable from the virus found in infected mink in a nearby farm—demonstrating the broader dangers posed.13

Mink Farms: Financially Unsustainable

Waste of Taxpayer Dollars
Mink farming is a dying industry, with sales nosediving since well before the pandemic.14 However, taxpayer money is helping to keep this industry afloat. Utah mink farms received approximately $1.5 million in loans from the US government in 2020–21.15 The majority have since been forgiven. The state of Utah also gave mink farmers about $1.8 million “to compensate producers for loss in the market due to COVID-19” and to pay for mink who died during the pandemic.16 US taxpayers are unwittingly propping up a hazardous industry that US consumers were already rejecting.

An Industry in Decline

According to the US Department of Agriculture, in 2017 there were 236 mink operations in the United States that produced about 3.3 million pelts, generating about $120 million. Now, there are approximately 100 US mink farms.17 The industry has declined significantly as a result of shrinking consumer demand for real fur and a commitment by major fashion brands and retailers such as Nordstrom, Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s, Saks Fifth Avenue, Gucci, Versace, and Giorgio Armani to go fur-free.

According to a July 2023 USDA report, 2022 was the fur industry’s worst year on record, with the value of all mink pelts produced falling to $39.2 million, a 17% reduction from 2020 (previously the worst year). Mink pelt production in 2022 also fell 6% from 2020.18

Cities, states and even countries are now banning fur sales, further closing markets for fur products. In 2019, California became the first state to ban fur sales after similar measures passed in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Berkeley, and West Hollywood. In 2020, Wellesley, Massachusetts, became the first East Coast city to ban fur sales.

Furthermore, there was a nearly 50% decline in the value of fur apparel imported into the United States in 2020 compared to 2019, which was also a low year.19, 20 Global fur auctions, which in 2020 were held virtually in Denmark, Finland, and other fur-producing countries only managed to sell a small percentage of the pelts on offer.21 The North American Fur Auction, one of the last remaining fur auctions on the continent, lost its lender and declared bankruptcy in October 2019.22

International Response

Many European countries have already banned, or are in the process of banning, mink farming, including Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Ireland, France, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, and the United Kingdom. The Italian government also allocated money for reimbursing mink farmers.23 The COVID-19 crisis prompted Denmark, Sweden and Italy to suspend mink fur production, the Netherlands to move up its deadline for ending all mink fur production from 2024 to the end of 2021, and France to announce its intent to ban mink fur production.

In addition, British Columbia, Canada, announced it would phase out mink farming after mink and farm workers tested positive for COVID-19 at multiple BC mink farms. The province is providing financial support and other transition assistance for mink farmers.24 In 2021, Israel became the first country to ban the sale of most fur products. Swift measures taken by governments to address the serious public health risk posed by mink farms are appropriate and proportional to the scale of the crisis.

Save America’s Forgotten Equines Act

Horsemeat Poses Serious Risks to Human Health

The Save America’s Forgotten Equines (SAFE) Act would prohibit the slaughter of horses in the United States for human consumption, as well as the export of live horses for the same purpose.

Hundreds of drugs and other substances commonly administered to equines are prohibited by the US Food and Drug Administration for use in animals slaughtered for human consumption. Yet, there is no procedure in place to ensure that American horses, sold to slaughterhouses and killed for human consumption, are free of these FDA-banned substances. When horses are sold, especially through an auction, there is no required transfer of information regarding the substances they received during their lifetime. Therefore, there is no mechanism in place to ensure horses frequently bought at auction by kill buyers—those who purchase them for slaughter in Mexico and Canada—have not been given dangerous substances before they become part of the food chain.

Horses are routinely given substances that are dangerous to humans. Most American horse owners do not imagine that their horses may someday be slaughtered for human consumption. Almost universally, they give their horses medications, antibiotics, ointments, wormers, and other substances that are labeled “not for animals intended for human consumption”—some of which linger in the body for long periods.

A study published in May 2010 in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology found that substances routinely given to American horses cause dangerous adverse effects in humans. One commonly used anti-inflammatory drug, phenylbutazone (bute), can be lethal if ingested by people. The most serious effect of bute on humans is bone-marrow toxicity, leading to agranulocytosis (failure to produce white blood cells, causing chronic infections) and aplastic anemia (insufficient production of red and white blood cells and platelets). Similar blood conditions such as leucopenia, hemolytic anemia, pancytopenia, and thrombocytopenia may also occur in people who consume bute. The National Toxicology Program has determined that bute is a carcinogen. For these reasons, the FDA bans this substance for human consumption.

Nearly all racehorses in America are treated with bute. Racehorses are frequently shipped to Mexico and Canada to be slaughtered for human consumption when their performance flags, often within days or weeks of receiving their last dose of bute. Horsemeat may be ground together with beef and sold without proper identification, so consumers could be unwittingly ingesting banned substances, with serious health implications.

The European Union has a policy prohibiting importation of the meat of any horse who has ever received bute. Nitrofurazone, the most common wound ointment given to American horses, is also prohibited for use on any horse whose meat is shipped to EU countries.

The United States needs to shut down the horse slaughter channels that currently put consumers at risk, and ensure that meat from American horses is not jeopardizing the health and lives of consumers. To learn more about horse slaughter, click here.

“The permissive allowance of such horsemeat used for human consumption poses a serious public health risk.”1

POISON: It's what's for dinner when horsemeat is on the menu

Poison: It’s what’s for dinner when horsemeat is on the menu
Those promoting horsemeat consumption claim horsemeat is leaner (and therefore, supposedly, healthier) than beef. What they fail to point out is that, unlike cattle, horses are not raised for meat, and are given hundreds of legal and illegal drugs rendering their meat unsafe for human consumption in the United States and abroad. However, because of confusing and conflicting US and foreign laws, horse meat slips through the regulatory cracks and is consumed overseas by unsuspecting diners. The diagram shows just a few of the banned and dangerous drugs that consistently end up in horse meat and on people’s plates.

Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act

Background

Before passage of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act, horseracing in the United States operated under a patchwork of rules and regulations, governed inconsistently by the states with limited oversight for racetracks. Without comprehensive and consistent standards for racing, horse welfare suffered and horses were subject to rampant “doping”—administration of drugs that mask pain and allow horses to push beyond normal physical limitations, often leading to catastrophic injuries.

For years, certain stakeholders fought implementation of federal oversight, claiming that the industry could self-regulate, but numerous high-profile horse breakdowns demonstrated otherwise, as did a shockingly high fatality rate. A 2012 New York Times article found that on average, 24 horses died on American racetracks each week, a number much higher than in countries with more stringently regulated systems. Between 2009 and 2023, according to The Jockey Club’s Equine Injury Database, over 7,900 thoroughbreds died in race-related incidents (a tally that does not account for training-related fatalities and injuries that occur 72 hours before or after a race).

Public awareness of this issue was substantially heightened after 37 horses died at the famed Santa Anita Park in California between December 2018 and November 2019. Then, in March 2020, 27 individuals were indicted on federal charges related to “the systematic and covert administration of illegal performance-enhancing drugs to racehorses competing across the United States.” Something had to change. In response, the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act was enacted at the end of 2020.

Uniform Regulations

HISA oversees two unique programs, the Racetrack Safety Program and the Anti-Doping and Medication Control Program. Rules developed and proposed by HISA must be approved by the Federal Trade Commission.

Regulations promulgated under the Racetrack Safety Program are intended to increase safety and consistency at racetracks. Among other things, the regulations address racetrack footing and riding crop use and expand veterinary oversight.

The Anti-Doping and Medication Control Program seeks to address drug overuse and doping in the sport. It establishes a comprehensive list of permitted and banned substances, along with testing requirements and uniform penalties. The program is enforced by the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit, which was developed by Drug Free Sport International.

Together, the programs maintain one set of rules and regulations for all thoroughbred racing in the United States. In addition to promulgating new rules, HISA will conduct extensive data analysis in an effort to better understand and avoid catastrophic breakdowns of horses.

AWI’s Part

As part of the Coalition for Horse Racing Integrity, AWI successfully campaigned for passage of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act—regularly meeting with congressional offices, educating lawmakers on the need for reforms, and hosting briefings on Capitol Hill. Since the law’s enactment, AWI has pushed for robust implementation of the anti-doping and medication control regulations and racetrack safety rules. We submitted multiple regulatory comments to the Federal Trade Commission, which ultimately approved HISA’s proposed regulations (citing AWI’s comments in the order approving the anti-doping and medication control rule). However, further reforms are still necessary to protect all racehorses in the United States, including breeding and training reforms. AWI is staunchly opposed to unsanctioned horse racing at bush tracks, where equine cruelty, criminal activity, and biosecurity threats abound.