Page 21 - Equine Matters - Summer 2014

Basic HTML Version

VET VIEWPOINT...
WE ASK THE OPINIONS OF OUR VETS ON THE
CURRENT HORSE PASSPORT SYSTEM
Sybil Dryburgh BVSc MRCVS
Castle Veterinary Group
Paul Hallum BVMS BSc MRCVS
Calweton Veterinary Group
In order to answer this question I think we
need to ask ‘What is the purpose
of passports
?
’. Passports are a legal
requirement for all horses, ponies and
donkeys; their aim is to regulate medicines
so they do not end up in the food chain
and to prevent the sale of a stolen animal
(as the passport aims to prove its identity).
Clearly if these are the aims of the passport
system, the current system in place is
inadequate. The problem arises due to
the number of passport issuing
organisations; if a single authority and a
central database were used then horses
would not be able to have multiple
passports and medications could be
recorded within the database. However,
until this is put in place I’m afraid the system
will remain flawed and the aims of the
passport system will not be achieved.
Passport legislation was introduced to
allow the continued supply of
Phenylbutazone to horses in the UK,
which was threatened with a ban.
Phenylbutazone remains available so
passports have succeeded in that respect.
If the passport system is to prevent
Phenylbutazone from entering the food
chain then it has failed. Checks at
abattoirs indicate that Phenylbutazone
continues to be detected in some
equine carcasses.
If passports are to accurately identify
horses then success has been limited.
Any horse can be 'passported' at any
age for anybody and passports are
available on the 'black market'. Updated
legislation has improved the situation
but lack of enforcement means that
existing laws are routinely ignored
without consequence.
If every UK horse was correctly
microchipped, with a passport and
registered through a central database
which recorded the administration of
banned substances, we could have
confidence in both food safety and
horse identification which would be
worth paying for.
Is the current passport system
in the UK good enough?
Julian Rishworth BVetMed MRCVS
Minster Vets
Clearly the answer is no. Respective
governments can't take any pride from their
handling of horse passports. Weatherby's
showed them how to do it in 1999 with
compulsory microchipping, unified passport
layout and a central database to back
these up, administered by a single agency.
The government decided that 60+ issuing
agencies, each with their own ideas,
would be able to communicate adequately
between themselves and it took them until
2009 to realise microchipping was a
good idea. They have never properly
backed a central database and after two
failed attempts, we are still in limbo.
What is required
?
A single issuing
agency with a unified passport, (the same
document for every horse) with a single
database to which all interested parties
can have inspection access. Once these
basics are in place, there needs to be
proper enforcement of the regulation,
not the current toothless option being
administered by local councils. There can
still be an over-stamping option to keep the
relative breed societies happy, but these
have shown themselves hopeless at
administering the issuing of passports.
The statistical information such a system
would yield would easily justify the
administrative costs.
SUMMER 2014 ISSUE
EQUINE MATTERS
20