February 2001
PMULines
by United Animal Nations©
WELCOME to the Janaury 2001 edition of PMULines.
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In This Issue | PMULine Directory
* National Survey Shows Women Want Cruelty-Free Options to Premarin
* Premarin Recall Downplayed by American Home Products
* Cruelty-Free Alternatives Growing in Popularity
* Natural Biologics Still Waiting for FDA Approval of Generic Premarin

PMULine Directory
1. NATIONAL SURVEY SHOWS WOMEN PREFER CRUELTY-FREE ALTERNATIVES WHEN TOLD
PREGNANT MARES AND FOALS SUFFER TO PRODUCE PREMARIN
A new nationwide survey of 500 women age 40 and over shows just how critical education efforts are in stopping the spread of the use of Premarin. The survey, commissioned by United Animal Nations and conducted by Zogby International of New York, found that most women would prefer to take an alternative to Premarin once they know the truth about how this drug is produced. Significantly, the survey also found that most doctors aren’t telling women about where Premarin comes from and are giving them no other choice for hormone replacement therapy.

“The PMU industry has a vested interest in keeping women hooked on hormone replacement that is derived from horse urine,” said Nancy Harrison, M.D., a United Animal Nations board member from San Diego. “Our goal is to ensure that women aren’t kept in the dark about the needless suffering of the horses or about successful alternatives that would end their suffering.”

The survey, which was conducted via telephone by Zogby International, asked participants if they were aware that Premarin and other like-sounding hormone replacement therapies such as PremPro and Premphase are derived from the urine of pregnant horses. About half of the respondents (231 women of the 487 respondents or 47 percent) said they were not aware of the source of Premarin while only 31 percent (less than a third of the respondents) said they were very aware of where Premarin comes from.

When asked if their doctor or other medical professional had told them that there were various alternatives available to Premarin, by more than two to one respondents said they hadn’t been told about cruelty-free plant-based and synthetic options. (Sixty three percent of respondents, or 309 women, said they hadn’t been told that options were available while only 30 percent or 147 respondents said their doctors had shared this information with
them.)

When respondents were told that tens of thousands of pregnant mares are forced to stand in small stalls, with a urine collection device hooked to them, for as many as six months out of every year to produce Premarin, a majority of respondents (53 percent or 255 women) said they would choose a plant-based or synthetic treatment as opposed to Premarin. That percentage increased to 54 percent (265 women) when respondents were told that the majority of foals born to these mares are sent to slaughter, their meat shipped overseas to Europe and Japan for human consumption.

UAN has distributed results of this poll to the media nationwide and will
also be using the results to push the medical community to provide more
information and increased availability of HRT alternatives for menopausal
women. UAN’s news release on the survey is available at
www.uan.org/media/newsreleases/expand.cfm?ID=254.
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2. PREMARIN RECALL DOWNPLAYED
BY AMERICAN HOME PRODUCTS
According to a recent news report by an online business source, American Home Products was forced to recall 382 MILLION DOSES of Premarin last fall by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). However, the December news report by TheStreet.com stated that American Home Products officials wouldn’ t say exactly what was wrong with the pills, how much it cost to recall them or the number of pills actually recalled.

Instead, the company would only say the recall was related to how the
tablets dissolve once they’re ingested and that safety and efficacy weren’t an issue. Company officials (apparently concerned about the 8 million American women taking Premarin who THEY THINK are hooked on the drug) were quick to insist that the supply wasn’t interrupted. Meanwhile, recently released FDA reports state that some patients taking Premarin prescriptions may not have gotten optimal doses prior to the recall, although no patients suffered ill health from taking the pills.

It’s not surprising that American Home Products doesn’t want to discuss the Premarin recall in detail. As the online report noted, the company is still smarting from its costly recall three years ago of diet pills Pondimin and Redux (due to heart problems attributed to these drugs). And, in more revealing news about American Home, TheStreet.com noted that American Home Products also had to pay $56 million in 2000 to cover government fines and upgrades to manufacturing plants in Pennsylvania and New York after an FDA inspection found conditions violated government rules. To read the news report on the recall, go to
http://biz.yahoo.com/ts/001218/kansas_001218.html.
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3. CRUELTY-FREE ALTERNATIVES GROWING IN POPULARITY
A recent Cincinnati Enquirer business article reported that Cincinnati-based Duramed, the company which produces Cenestin, has seen sales of this cruelty-free alternative jump exponentially within the last year as more doctors and women choose this drug derived from yam and soybean plants. (All of our efforts -- and yours -- to spread the word about Premarin are undoubtedly having an impact!)  The Feb. 3 article reported that sales of Cenestin had tripled through the first nine months of 2000 and weekly prescriptions were up by 40 percent in December compared to three months prior. (To put Cenestin’s growth in perspective, though, the article noted that Cenestin posted about $3.8 million in sales in 1999 compared to more than $1 billion for Premarin.)

More good news for Cenestin users was also included in the Feb. 3 Cincinnati Enquirer edition with a report from two women’s health experts stating that Cenestin may be more effective than Premarin because its polymer coating allows its estrogens to be released at a more even, steady pace as the pill is digested by the body. “Premarin was state-of-the-art in the 1940s and it is still the most widely used,” Dr. Henry Hess an associate clinic professor obstetirc and gynecology at the University of Rochester School of Medicine, was quoted as saying. “The problem is that this is an old product.”

(NOTE: Duramed’s anti-trust lawsuit against Premarin producer Wyeth-Ayerst is still pending.) To read the Cincinnati Enquirer articles, go to http://enquirer.com and search the archives for the Feb. 3 edition.
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4. NATURAL BIOLOGICS STILL WAITING FOR FDA APPROVAL OF GENERIC PREMARIN
Expansion of the PMU industry in the United States hinges primarily on
whether Natural Biologics (based in Albert Lea, Minnesota) can get FDA
approval to produce a generic version of Premarin. A recent check of the
status of Natural Biologic’s request (first filed in September 1997) shows
the company is still waiting for approval of a “natural conjugated estrogen”
from the FDA. As part of UAN’s 2001 campaign to halt expansion of the PMU industry in the United States, we will be launching a petition to urge the FDA not to approve this request for both health and animal welfare reasons.

In the meantime, UAN has already filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to find out what, if any permits, Natural Biologics has obtained for treatment and disposal of all the horse urine they reportedly have collected (in hopes they’ll get
approval for their generic).  News reports in 1999 stated that Natural
Biologics already was contracting with 40 farmers in the midwest (each with as many as 50 to 100 pregnant mares online) and that the urine was being transported to Albert Lea via refrigerated trucks. Given all the
environmental problems outside the Wyeth-Ayerst plant in Manitoba, the
question remains: Once horse estrogens are extracted, where is all the urine being dumped in Albert Lea? We’ll let you know when we find out.

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