Blood farms: from Iceland to Italy and Parma ham

Taken from the blood of pregnant mares, PMSG usually prices round €1m per 100 grams, making it probably the most costly powders on the planet. The hormone is bought by pharmaceutical firms all through Europe to supply varied veterinary medicines which are then prescribed to be used on farms. They’re particularly widespread on pig farms, the place they’re used to stimulate the fertility of sows.

What’s PMSG?

Often known as eCG (equine chorionic gonadotropin), PMSG can be used to induce ovulation in cattle, sheep and goats. The overwhelming majority of the hormone distributed in Europe is sourced from so-called “blood farms” scattered throughout Iceland.

Uruguay and Argentina was once the primary suppliers of PMSG for European pharmaceutical firms. That started to alter after 2015, when Animal Welfare Basis (AWF) in Germany and its Swiss accomplice Tierschutzbund Zurich (TSB), each animal rights charities, carried out a collection of investigations revealing the atrocious situations on blood farms. The investigations generated intense media protection, main 4 of 5 European pharmaceutical firms producing medicines containing PMSG on the time to cease supplying the hormone from South America. 

Reasonably than kill the business, nonetheless, the transfer merely led PMSG manufacturing to shift to Iceland: an extra investigation carried out by TSB and AWF between 2019 and 2021 situated 119 blood farms in Iceland on the time.

Through the summer season months, vets on blood farms extract as much as 5 litres of blood from pregnant mares each week. The animals are additionally badly mistreated. “Mares are hit with sticks and put in tiny pens, whereas cannulae are inserted in an unprofessional method, inflicting ache, stress, concern and panic,” Sonny Richichi, president of the Italian Horses Safety Onlus affiliation, stated in an interview.

Because the mares solely produce PMSG when they’re pregnant, breeders repeatedly perform pressured abortions in efforts to collect as a lot of the hormone as potential. Round 30% of horses current on the farms die, lots of them of malnutrition. Of the few foals which are born, the males are despatched to slaughter and the females, like their moms, are used for blood extraction.

What’s Europe doing?

In 2021, the European Parliament requested the Fee to ban the import of PMSG, citing the EU’s directive on the safety of animals used for scientific functions (2010/63), which states that animal experiments must be changed by various strategies wherever potential.

The European Medicines Company (EMA) encourages utilizing options fairly than animals when testing medicines, each for human and veterinary use. In response to the EU’s “European Directive on the safety of animals used for scientific functions” (2010/63), animal experiments should be changed by non-animal options wherever potential.

In response to Germany’s agriculture ministry, there are 36 artificial options to prescribed drugs containing PMSG obtainable available on the market in that nation. 

AWF due to this fact argues that blood doesn’t have to be extracted from mares to supply PMSG.

In Could 2023, the EFTA (European Free Commerce Affiliation Surveillance Authority) formally requested the Icelandic authorities to accurately apply Directive 2010/63 to extracting blood from mares, claiming that the nation’s 2022 nationwide regulation on the follow “additional enhanced the authorized uncertainty governing the blood assortment from pregnant mares and failed to make sure the effectiveness of Directive 2010/63”.

The Icelandic authorities conceded in September that drawing blood from mares violates the directive and, in November, revoked the nation’s nationwide regulation on blood assortment, which dated from 2022.

In consequence, Directive 2010/63 applies to blood assortment as of 1 November 2023.

“The open acknowledgement {that a} nation has been in breach of Directive 2010/63/EU paves the best way to an EU-wide ban on PMSG manufacturing, importation, and use. That is prone to put together for comparable measures worldwide,” the Worldwide Federation of Icelandic Horse Associations (FEIF) stated in an announcement.

Subsequent, the Icelandic authorities will resolve whether or not or to not authorise the follow of PMSG extraction, by assessing the feasibility of utilizing a scientifically efficient methodology that doesn’t contain reside animals.

The federal government has till 2025 to resolve.

Following the choice, Isteka, the corporate that owns Iceland’s blood farms, has vowed to proceed extracting the blood. 

The corporate seems eager to keep away from lack of income via a ban on the extraction of blood. Isteka, which the European Fee not too long ago described because the “European market chief in gonadotropin powder”, recorded gross sales of €11.4m in 2022, the final yr for which figures can be found.

Parma Ham

PMSG is used within the overwhelming majority of intensive pig breeding farms in Italy, permitting farmers to avoid wasting money and time.

The current investigation, which has already led to articles in two different publications, exhibits that PMSG is an integral a part of the availability chain of Italian pork merchandise. These embrace Parma Ham, a prized delicacy that the Parma Ham Consortium, which represents the roughly 130 licensed ham producers, markets as an “exemplary” product containing neither preservatives nor components.

The investigation has already sparked controversy in the UK, the primary export marketplace for Parma ham earlier than Brexit, with some animal welfare associations calling on supermarkets to take away merchandise made utilizing the hormone from their cabinets.

“All UK retailers and meals firms ought to decide to sourcing solely merchandise from suppliers with a better commonplace of animal welfare […] this follow, the reason for immense struggling,” stated Dr Sarah Ison, international head of analysis at Compassion in World Farming (CWF), in an interview.

Sabrina Gurtner, venture supervisor for TSB and AWF’s investigations on PMSG, stated in an interview: “Supermarkets ought to prohibit using PMSG of their meat provide chains […] If their suppliers refuse to cease utilizing PMSG, then the consequence must be to cease the import”.

So the place does Italy stand?

The Italian authorities has not responded to quite a few questions from parliamentarians and journalists on using PMSG.

Previous to the present investigation, in a bipartisan parliamentary query in April 2021, MPs Michela Vittoria Brambilla (Forza Italia), Patrizia Prestipino (Pd) and Manfredi Potenti (Lega) requested whether or not the well being ministry was conscious of other medicine obtainable available on the market. “We’re nonetheless ready for a solution,” Prestipino informed us in November 2023.

We requested the well being ministry to supply an up-to-date record of medicine containing PMSG which are authorised in Italy, making the request via a Freedom Of Info Act (FOIA). The ministry has not responded.

Nonetheless, two official on-line veterinary manuals managed respectively by the Well being Ministry and the Nationwide Affiliation of Well being Enterprises (AISA), an organisation representing pharmaceutical firms in Italy, present that six medicine containing PMSG are authorised on the market. When consulted in November 2023, two of them – PG600 and Folligon, produced by MSD in Germany (a subsidiary of the American Merck) – had been obtainable for buy.

4 different medicine – Fixplan (produced by the Argentinian firm Syntex), Gestavet and Oviser (each produced by the Spanish firm Hipra) and Fertipig (by the French firm Ceva Santé Animale) – weren’t obtainable on the time.

We additionally obtained an inventory of greater than 4,000 farms in northern and central Italy that offer Parma ham producers in Italy. Of 100 farmers contacted, solely 5 per cent agreed to reply our questions. All reported having used PG600, and one even stated he had used 4 of the medicine listed.

A spokesperson for Prosciutto di Parma informed us: “The Prosciutto di Parma Consortium brings collectively and represents solely Parma ham producers, i.e. 133 firms […] who buy the uncooked materials (the recent leg) for the aim of processing it”. The spokesperson declined to touch upon using PMSG on farms, explaining: “The Consortium doesn’t signify and doesn’t embrace, amongst its members, any farms”.

The case of Parma Ham is only one instance of a complete business that’s closely depending on these merchandise.

First utilized in Italy within the Nineteen Sixties, prescribed drugs containing PMSG at the moment are commonplace on the overwhelming majority of the nation’s roughly 16,000 intensive pig breeding farms (out of a complete of about 25,000 intensive pig farms, in accordance Well being Ministry knowledge), a consultant of a significant nationwide veterinary affiliation, who spoke on situation of anonymity, informed us.

The assertion was confirmed by two different veterinarians we contacted.

In response to Gurtner at TSB, utilizing the hormone can be widespread follow in Germany, Spain and Poland.

The worldwide status of the Italian ham large and its worldwide popularity for high quality (a 3rd of the 7.9 million legs produced in 2022 had been bought overseas) might assist enhance consciousness about how cruelty to animals fueled by the PMSG business is linked to the meals they eat.

“It is deceptive that this so-called premium product has less-than-premium welfare behind it,” stated Sarah Ison of CWF about Prosciutto di Parma. “I believe folks can be shocked in the event that they knew what was actually occurring to the animals, and may boycott the merchandise.”

Whereas some giant UK supermarkets have claimed there is no such thing as a hyperlink between Parma Ham and PMSG, others have promised to research additional. “We take animal welfare extraordinarily severely,” stated Marks & Spencer, the well-known British multinational identified for its high quality meals. “[We] are trying into this situation with our suppliers.”