A horse advocacy group has highlighted a white paper produced in Ireland which talks of the dangers of children eating horse meat contaminated with banned substances.
Slaughter opponents have long argued that US horses are unsuited for slaughter for human consumption, as they are not raised as food animals.
The use of a handful of drugs, including the common anti-inflammatory phenylbutazone (bute), render the meat unfit for human consumption. Under European regulations, there is no safe withholding period for the drug.
The Equine Welfare Alliance, an umbrella group for 195 organisation, this week highlighted an Irish Veterinary Journal white paper, released in December 2010.
The paper gives an inside account of European Union (EU) deliberations that are leading to tough new restrictions on drug residues in animals, including horses, intended for human consumption horses.
The new EU regulations clearly define food animals and the risk to humans, particularly children, of ingesting horse meat containing banned substances.
Focusing on phenylbutazone, the paper outlines the extreme dangers to children and warns veterinarians: "It is a statement of fact that if the European Commission on its audit of this country find evidence of bute use in animals not excluded from the food chain, then the product will immediately lose its license Europe-wide.
"If samples prove positive for phenylbutazone or its metabolite in equine meat of Irish origin, it will be traced back, and the prescribing veterinary practitioner will be in the firing line of prosecution."
The paper states: "The difficulty with phenylbutazone is that it, or its metabolite, can cause aplastic anemia in children. If a child were to consume an animal-based product containing even the minutest amount of bute or its metabolite then the child may develop aplastic anemia."
Horses have always been shipped to Mexico and Canada for slaughter. The closing of the plants in 2007 did not save US horses from slaughter as the industry began shipping horses across the borders.
The alliance noted that phenylbutazone is one of the most popular and effective drugs used in equine practice in the US.
In a 2010 paper in the Journal of Food and Chemical Toxicology, doctors Marini, Dodman and Blondeau found that all 18 of the racehorses that the study tracked to slaughter had been given phenylbutazone.
The study further explains that the drug can take up in injured tissues and be released back into the blood stream later as the tissue heals, and that there is no acceptable washout period for the drug.
European Regulations (EU Comm Reg No 504/2008) require all horses in Europe to have a passport, which is effectively a tracking system.
All passports issued to horses over six months of age will automatically be excluded from the food chain, as will horses with duplicate passports.
By 2013, the EU has announced that all third countries, including the US, will have to meet the same traceability standards.
Both Canada and Mexico are instituting tracking programmes based on tagging technology in order to meet the new requirements.
However, after years of resistance from ranchers and horse owners, the US scrapped a similar programme called NAIS (National Animal Identification System) in 2010.
Horses in the US are not raised or regulated as food animals, the alliance says. The country has no mechanism to remove animals from the food chain that have received substances banned in food animals or any way to trace horses back to the owner(s) or veterinarians that allowed the animal to enter the food chain.
It says Congress must start taking food safety seriously and realise the risk to the US for knowingly allowing unsafe food into the foreign markets.
"Horse slaughter in this country is not used for food production but as a dumping ground for owners that no longer want to be held accountable for their animals and breeders that continually produce excess horses that far exceed the demand for horses. These animals should never enter the food chain," the alliance said in a statement.
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