Part 2-Section 9 of Horse Passports

[jeanettethree]

sorry if this is repeating anyone else......

With the recent horse meat scandal and abattoirs being raided, we are now being urged to make sure we have signed the 'not for human consumption' section in our horses passports.

My vet has recently refused to treat my horse with Bute, meaning i had to use an alternative, more expensive option (which isnt a problem)

But on inspecting my Zangersheide passport, it doesnt even HAVE this section or anywhere to sign!!!! So i do not want to get fined or in trouble!

Does anyone else have this problem? and how can i solve it? I dont assume there is one we can print off and stick in is there?

 

[jeanettethree]

Defra are no use! Not had a reply from Zangersheide yet either

 

[Rollin]

Defra are no use! Not had a reply from Zangersheide yet either

Write to SANCO at the EU Commission. As far as I am aware it is a legal requirement that all passports issued by approved EU PIO's must have a slaughter declaration.

 

[lpeacock]

You can send your passport off to muliple different horse organisations in the UK, pay a few quid and they will put that section of the passport in.

Technically they are supposed to have them. I've just sent my passport off for ownership change and had a lovely conversation with a lady from the bef. They are very helpful and the money includes special delivery back to you.

You will need to sign it and get a vet to sign it. Also if you want bute then have it! you are the customer!!

 

[lachlanandmarcus]

Interesting the FSA head person said today on R4 that they are talking to Defra about how to make the passport system work. I'm sure they might want to start with asking Defra how millions of Pios and abandoning NED was considered to be an effective traceability approach.....) personally hope NED is revived and there is a single PIO and passports are ownership docs.

 

[Rollin]

Interesting the FSA head person said today on R4 that they are talking to Defra about how to make the passport system work. I'm sure they might want to start with asking Defra how millions of Pios and abandoning NED was considered to be an effective traceability approach.....) personally hope NED is revived and there is a single PIO and passports are ownership docs.

Or they could do what the French do an issue a separate ownership document, which must be returned to the ONLY pio in France each time a horse is sold, so that the ownership is recorded on the central database.

As passports must be kept with keeper, this avoids the problem of horses stolen on loan.

 

[JanetGeorge]

Interesting the FSA head person said today on R4 that they are talking to Defra about how to make the passport system work. I'm sure they might want to start with asking Defra how millions of Pios and abandoning NED was considered to be an effective traceability approach.....) personally hope NED is revived and there is a single PIO and passports are ownership docs.

Defra has emailed all PIOs this week - telling us that it and FSA are trying to work out what went wrong - telling us that if we speak to journalists we must be careful not to breach the requirements of the DPA, and telling us that they will be writing to us in the next week telling us what we must be doing!!!! It was a load of bo**ocks and I had the job of replying for my Breed Society. I quite enjoyed it!

I can't POSSIBLY put the contents of HIS e-mail here (as it was plastered in lots of guff about how confidential it was ) but this was my reply (you'll get the gist of what he was telling us!)


Dear David

I'm sure I was not the only Trustee of the IDHS(GB) (or official of other
PIOs) to be surprised by this e-mail! As Charity Trustees, we are all
very aware of our responsibilities, of which those under the DPA are only
a small part! Most Trustees do not have access to anything other than the
publicly viewable part of our database - access to 'sensitive'
information on the database is strictly limited!

And NONE of this information would be of any interest to Journalists!
Journalists want to know why the horse meat 'situation' has occurred and
anyone who has been involved in any way with horse passports over the
years since their implementation by law, is very well aware of the fact
they don't work as originally intended - and WHY they don't work. The
evidence of this appears on a plethora of horse forums and discussion
groups, week in and week out!

We are therefore surprised that your department and the FSA appear not to
have a clue why the bute residue problem has occurred - we're just
surprised it has taken so long to be noticed! Perhaps I can enlighten you
a little!

No doubt this problem is largely due to some fairly large scale 'criminal'
activity and a failure to check paperwork, probably at several stages
along the supply chain. I can only comment on the passport 'situation'
and why it will stand in the way of determining the original source of
horses involved.

Passports have NOT worked as intended in the UK from the time of
introduction for a number of reasons, including - in no particular order:

1. Responsibility for change of ownership of a horse was put on the wrong
person - the buyer! It should have been placed upon the seller. As a
breeder, it frustrates me that horses I sold years ago are still in our
database as mine! There are at least 10 of my horses in this category -
all bought by perfectly respectable, law-abiding people who were told they
should do it.

2. Horses are still being sold without passports - and the buyer then has
to get a passport for it. The only time anyone gets prosecuted for this
is the odd high profile Trading Standards case against a disreputable
dealer facing mis-selling charges - the lack of passport is just an
add-on!. Whether these horses ever HAD a passport - or whether its first
passport shows a lot of treatment with bute or other drugs which would
make it appear 'risky' to a buyer - who knows!

3. Passports are rarely returned to the PIO when a horse dies or is
slaughtered and the biggest number of 'stray' passports are possibly in
the hands of knackermen. As just one example, a horse of mine was put
down at a vet hospital on Christmas Day and his body was removed by a
knackerman who took the passport. It certainly hasn't been returned to
the PIO. It's unlikely that horse ended up in the human food chain as he
was post mortemed by the vet prior to disposal - but where is his
passport?? (I AM trying to find out!) I have come across one 'dubious'
knackerman who had a large box of 'spare' passports in the front of his
lorry! Many of these no doubt belonged to casualty animals he had
collected who had gone to zoos/safari parks as lion food - but why was he
keeping them??

4. Horses are coming into this country with no health checks - or at
least none recorded on their passports. As just one example: a couple of
years ago I was asked to act as an 'expert witness' in a mis-selling case
against a dealer. The horse had a Dutch (KWPN) passport. Under drugs, it
showed a 'flu vaccination in Holland in 2005, and another in Wales in
2010. There was nothing else to show how/when he had come into this
country - or via where (the dealer told the buyer he had come from
Ireland!) There was no treatment with 'bute' (or anything else) recorded
though the horse was so chronically unsound it seems unlikely he could
have been shown to a buyer without some 'help' in this regard! The
Trading Standards officers running the case were quite oblivious to what
should have been in the passport - I had to explain it to them.

5. Many horses are coming into this country under the tripartite
agreement which are NOT the sorts of horses whose movements this agreement was set up to facilitate. Lorry loads of low value horses come in from Ireland - and from France (although many of those are from further
afield). Some of them are sold for above meat value to inexperienced
buyers - and the rest of them end up being slaughtered (usually after
being hawked around several markets - with the very real risk of spreading
disease in addition to glaring welfare problems!)

There is very little that the PIOs can do - other than that which we are
already doing - to enable the "effective enforcement of the horse
passports regime", when the passports regime has been faulty since its
inception!. The IDHS(GB) takes particular care in the issuing of
passports and of course all our pure-bred horses must be DNA tested, and
we must have micro-chip numbers and ID papers issued by a vet. But after
that, all we can do is record changes of ownership, or deaths, that are
notified to us.

The recent demise of NED was untimely - but I am sure this 'problem'
predates it. However, a National database - properly maintained - should
have helped (maybe.) But without resources being put into implementation of the passport regime, the problems will be ongoing.

Perhaps you should check out the recent Channel 4 documentary, The Horse Hoarder - http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-horse-hoarder. This man has - for many years - kept and bred large numbers of semi-feral horses, most of whom are born (and die) without passports. Mind you, they are neglected and left untreated too - so they are probably not contributing to the 'bute' problem in the human food chain!

When passports were first introduced, horse owners were warned there would be checks made to ensure all horses were passported. I own about 80 horses - apart from myself and my vet, the only people who have ever seen any of my passports are buyers and their vets (when horses ARE vetted), and IDHS(GB) inspectors at gradings! At a couple of shows I've had to wave a few passports under a gateman's nose - but there was no check to determine the horses matched the passports!

And - of course - only the 'bute' part of the problem can be loosely
associated with passports. If abattoirs/cutting plants etc are going to
pass horse meat off as beef, the lack of a passport isn't going to worry
them too much, is it? That demonstrates a major failing in areas of
DEFRA/FSA responsibility where the PIOs have NO role or responsibility at
all!

Do you think any of the above is not compliant with the Data Protection Act??

regards

Janet George (Mrs.)


I'm not holding my breath for a response - I've had an automated receipt that suggests I should have one within 15 days!

 

[s4sugar]

Excellent email Janet.
I bet the first draft has a lot of bleeps in it.

 

[lachlanandmarcus]

Splendidly trenchant and to the point response Janet.... Shame there isn't a webcam of them opening it ))

 

[Suelin]

Excellent e-mail. I think that you are very wise not to hold your breath waiting for a response. The only thing I could add is, what about the horses that are PTS and picked up by the knackerman. I have lost 2 in recent years and I still hold their passports. Nobody, to date has asked me for them, so goodness knows where their carcasses ended up.

We can only hope that something good will come out of this total fiasco.

 

[Rollin]

Dear Janet,

Well done!!!

However, as we are now told we need to eat several hundred horse meat burgers before we will ingest clinically sig, amount of BUTE, I wonder why we all went down this route in the first place.

 

[lachlanandmarcus]

yep they cant have it both ways, either its really dangerous and justifies all the paperwork, or its not actually that big an issue and we should concentrate on the sh&te that manufacturers legally put into human and animal feed....especially that multicoloured dry dog food :-DD

 

[natalia]

How silly! I know large amount of normal horsey folk who have taken a dose of bute (works a treat if you've been body slammed and shouldn't really be riding but need too) and none of them have died from it!

 

[jeanettethree]

Excellent email Janet. And I agree with everyone's responses but......... No one has answered my initial question!!!!! Lol

 

[Rollin]

Excellent email Janet. And I agree with everyone's responses but......... No one has answered my initial question!!!!! Lol

My husband did look up the legislation for you. I will post it tomorrow - as far as i am aware Z are in contravention of EU Law so it is for the Commission to kick them.

 

[Beausmate]

How old is your horse? Both my thoroughbreds were foaled in 1993, one is of French origin. Neither of them had the section 9 part in their passports, I had to send them to Weatherby's to have it put in. Either send it to the original issuer, or I'm sure there's another PIO that could do it as it's not breed specific.

I think it was around 2004 that UK horses had to have it? Passports issued before then didn't have it, they didn't need to.

DEFRA are even more useless than a horse passport!

 

[spottybotty]

Dear Janet,

Well done!!!

However, as we are now told we need to eat several hundred horse meat burgers before we will ingest clinically sig, amount of BUTE, I wonder why we all went down this route in the first place.

I thought that too! Watched the Chief Medical adviser on Tv yesterday saying how low a risk it was!!!??? All I can say Is well done Janet and what an absolute farce the Passporting system has been from its conception. I can remember seeing ads in H&H for periodical horse "sales" telling you that if you didnt have a passport you could get one for a fiver at the sale!!! Not sure if this allowed still? I had 4 horses that were unregistered when the passposts were introduced. Being a law abiding citizen It cost me a great deal of money with BHS PIO and vet visits to get them done. My old boy had to be PTS before I even recieved his.There are thousands of horse/ponies in UK without passports and no owner is prosecuted.

 

[lachlanandmarcus]

ESP as there was an article on bbc news saying that spotted horse society issued about 7000 passports AFTER having its authorisation as a PIO revoked - you couldn't make it up!!

 

[Ditchjumper2]

....and of course all the random gypo nags have passports.......

 

[trottingon]

To me the overriding factor about this whole fiasco is that unless you DNA test every carcass (for pure-breeds which obviously can be traced) you cannot be sure that the passport in your hand matches the horse in front of you!
And the fact that if you lose a Passport you can just apply for another which will obviously only have the info in it that the issuing authority hold, so no drug info then!
And you can apply to a different organisation for a new passport anyway (CHAPS etc) so really, what is the point?

I have a grey Welsh section A pony, surely his passport would match 1000 other little grey ponies???(unless you look very closely at any whorls and lets be honest I can't imagine that much notice would be taken).

He's had bute but its not documented in his passport!

I really wouldn't be surprised if the eventual outcome of this fiasco includes "cattle-tagging" the ears of all foals, otherwise any passport system will never work 😳

 

[Alec Swan]

.......

With the recent horse meat scandal and abattoirs being raided, we are now being urged to make sure we have signed the 'not for human consumption' section in our horses passports.

My vet has recently refused to treat my horse with Bute, meaning i had to use an alternative, more expensive option (which isnt a problem)

But on inspecting my Zangersheide passport, it doesnt even HAVE this section or anywhere to sign!!!! So i do not want to get fined or in trouble!

Does anyone else have this problem? and how can i solve it? I dont assume there is one we can print off and stick in is there?

I don't entirely understand your problem. There is no legal requirement that you sign your passport to opt out of your horse entering the human food chain.

Why your vet should have refused to supply you with Bute, is a mystery, unless they considered it unnecessary.

As for being "urged" to be certain that owners opt out of the slaughter system, that's fine, but do bear in mind that by doing so, and if you decide to sell your horse on, then you may well be resigning the poor beast to an eventually desperate and neglected end. That is unless the eventual owner faces up to their responsibilities, and the bulk of them don't.

Alec.

 

[JanetGeorge]

To me the overriding factor about this whole fiasco is that unless you DNA test every carcass (for pure-breeds which obviously can be traced) you cannot be sure that the passport in your hand matches the horse in front of you!
And the fact that if you lose a Passport you can just apply for another which will obviously only have the info in it that the issuing authority hold, so no drug info then!
And you can apply to a different organisation for a new passport anyway (CHAPS etc) so really, what is the point?

That's why microchipping was brought in although it has only applied for foals born in the last 3 years. But EVENTUALLY, the vast majority of horses will be microchipped.

And if you apply for a passport after December in year of birth, I THINK they have to be signed off as not for human consumption by the PIO (though I stand to be corrected on that one.)

 

[Rollin]

To me the overriding factor about this whole fiasco is that unless you DNA test every carcass (for pure-breeds which obviously can be traced) you cannot be sure that the passport in your hand matches the horse in front of you!
And the fact that if you lose a Passport you can just apply for another which will obviously only have the info in it that the issuing authority hold, so no drug info then!
And you can apply to a different organisation for a new passport anyway (CHAPS etc) so really, what is the point?

I have a grey Welsh section A pony, surely his passport would match 1000 other little grey ponies???(unless you look very closely at any whorls and lets be honest I can't imagine that much notice would be taken).

He's had bute but its not documented in his passport!

I really wouldn't be surprised if the eventual outcome of this fiasco includes "cattle-tagging" the ears of all foals, otherwise any passport system will never work 😳

Also true of the Cleveland Bay, which should have no white markings. We actually had a case where one experienced breeder sold another experienced breeder a stallion. It was only when the foals were DNA tested it was discovered it was the wrong horse!! So if breeders cannot tell one from t'other, what chance for the rest of the world.

 

[firm]

Alec, Jeanettethree's vet could not treat the horse with bute because the horse has no section 9 in the passport. According to BEVA:
" However, it is now an offence to treat a horse with a substance unsuitable for use in a food producing animal if its Section IX status is unknown."

Also BEVA
Q: Do I need to see a passport for every horse I treat? A: Yes. You must ask to see the passport before you administer, supply or prescribe anything. It is now an offence not to ask to see the passport before treating the horse. Q: I know for certain that a client’s horse was given phenylbutazone, yet he refuses to sign Part II of Section IX to say the horse is not eligible for human consumption. What should I do? A: The vet must then sign it.

 

[Alec Swan]

Alec, Jeanettethree's vet could not treat the horse with bute because the horse has no section 9 in the passport. According to BEVA:
" However, it is now an offence to treat a horse with a substance unsuitable for use in a food producing animal if its Section IX status is unknown."

Also BEVA
Q: Do I need to see a passport for every horse I treat? A: Yes. You must ask to see the passport before you administer, supply or prescribe anything. It is now an offence not to ask to see the passport before treating the horse. Q: I know for certain that a client’s horse was given phenylbutazone, yet he refuses to sign Part II of Section IX to say the horse is not eligible for human consumption. What should I do? A: The vet must then sign it.

That's interesting, but I'd question the legality of it. When I send sheep to either market as dedicated killing animals, or direct for slaughter, then I take on the responsibility that ALL MEAT WITHDRAWAL CONDITIONS have been met, in other words, that there are no animals which I've offered into the food chain which are still in possession of barred chemicals within their systems.

It's also my understanding, that Bute has a 6 month meat withdrawal, and it's not a lifetime ban. Why should it be, when it was a drug previously prescribed to humans, but as there was the odd rare reaction, it was withdrawn?

I really don't understand the problem with Bute. If those of you who don't agree with me could see the array of the most awful life encouraging drugs which are fed to pigs and to poultry, you would never eat either again. Do your research and then tell me that I'm wrong.

Alec.

 

[Rollin]

Alec, Jeanettethree's vet could not treat the horse with bute because the horse has no section 9 in the passport. According to BEVA:
" However, it is now an offence to treat a horse with a substance unsuitable for use in a food producing animal if its Section IX status is unknown."

Also BEVA
Q: Do I need to see a passport for every horse I treat? A: Yes. You must ask to see the passport before you administer, supply or prescribe anything. It is now an offence not to ask to see the passport before treating the horse. Q: I know for certain that a client’s horse was given phenylbutazone, yet he refuses to sign Part II of Section IX to say the horse is not eligible for human consumption. What should I do? A: The vet must then sign it.

Is this a policy change? Did we not have this debate when passports were introduced i.e. if the horse did not have a passport or it was not with the horse at the time when vet treatment required, we were told vets would not refuse to treat - for ethical reasons.

The old saying is "The law is an ass". Imagine, a horse does not need to be accompanied by its passport when hacking, so it is involved in an accident which requires emergency veterinary treatment.

Please don't forget, we are now being told you need to eat 500-600 cheval burgers to ingest clinically significant amounts of BUTE.

 

[firm]

Rollin - It is not new. It has been the law since Aug 2009. There were leaflets printed up at the time which PIO and vets I think were supposed to hand out.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2009/1611/made

In the case of emergency treatment there is a form that can be used http://www.rcvs.org.uk/news-and-eve...erinary-profession-regarding-horse-passports/

 

[Rollin]

I have been in France since 2005 so missed that. Here it is a pantomime. My vets never write medication in the passport or ask to see the declaration. In any case I can buy BUTE from the chemist without a scrip or obtain it from vet's receptionist on demand.

They have no idea which horse has had the medication.

I have never seen European horse meat on sale in a supermarket - it all comes from Mexico and Canada. Very little is sold.

 

[david c]

And if you apply for a passport after December in year of birth, I THINK they have to be signed off as not for human consumption by the PIO (though I stand to be corrected on that one.)

that's correct - since 2009

 

[EstherYoung]

Jeanette - how old is the passport? When the legislation came in we had to send our TBs passports back to Weatherbys to have the additional pages added, because although they had passports they weren't passports that fitted the terms of the legislation, which meant that technically they could have got done for not having a passport even though they had a passport.

If yours is an older passport it might pre-date the legislation and may need the additional pages adding. Not sure how you would do that though with your breed society. I think this is how people have ended up with multiple passports, where their original 'passport' was from a foreign breed society and they couldn't get it upgraded to comply. It is all a farce.

Our vets have asked to see all passports, they are noting their system whether the 'not for slaughter' page is completed, and if it is then it's business as usual.