Six foals resting in the afternoon sunshine at Laura Ormsby’s Ladyluck Farms in White City seem to know they are home and safe. The foals are six of 35 that Ormsby managed to save from slaughter — this time.

Despite delays because of snow, border checks, traffic accidents and Mapquest Internet mapping errors, the foals finally arrived Friday night in a cattle trailer after a 36-hour haul from Manitoba, Canada. Watching them calmly munching on hay and nuzzling each other, Ormsby, visibly tired but relieved, was already plotting her next horse rescue mission.

"Now we have to save the mares," she said.

Millions of women take the drug Premarin to control symptoms of menopause. Many don’t know that the name of the drug is an anagram of its key ingredient: PREgnant MARe urINe.

Advertisement

The asset is the urine. The foals are the expendable byproduct of harvesting the drug Premarin. Of the 50,000 to 60,000 foals born every year, most are sold to slaughter. And, Ormsby says, the mares are now at risk too.

Ormsby said the information shocked and catalyzed her. She sent an urgent plea out to Rogue Valley residents to help her save the foals at the Rogue Valley’s Rescue Ranch. The price to adopt a rescued foal was $1,000. Within weeks, Ormsby’s efforts paid off and all the foals were spoken for.

Shirlee Gustafson of Jacksonville adopted two of the foals. She chose two paint/draft mix fillies off the Rescue Ranch Web site. She said the $2,000 she was going to spend on a trip to Hawaii was better spent saving the two foals.

"You have to make choices in life," said Gustafson. "There are so many, but we can make a difference."

Diane Lacy of Ashland said she first heard about Premarin horses while hunting in California. The hunt used rescued Premarin mares.

"The Premarin horses were wonderful. I thought I’d take one and keep it till it was ready to start working him for hunting," said Lacy.

The foals have lived in the Canadian meadows since birth. Rarely handled, they are all still relatively wild and untrained. But, Lacy said her colt weathered the transport well and trotted into her paddock without incident once she used her gelding as a pony-buddy.

"My God, how far they’ve come," she said. "Somebody has lucked out. Whether it was us or the horses, I don’t know."

Ormsby thinks everyone has lucked out. She’s not even upset that one of the two fillies she personally adopted turned out to be a colt.

"I look at them all and I can’t believe it. If we hadn’t done this, they’d all be dead," she said.

Now she wants to see the mares rescued. Recent health studies have created questions about the safety of some types of hormone replacement therapy. Premarin farms, which relied heavily on drug company subsidies, are shutting down as demand falls off, and the mares are being sent to slaughter.

"There isn’t the demand for Premarin," said Ormsby. "This is going backwards quickly."

Ormsby said more than a third of the farmers in Canada subsidized by the nation’s drug companies have shut down. The rest have been put on notice, she said. The PMU farmer who sold the foals to Rescue Ranch, is letting 145 mares go immediately.

"We’re working to get the mares’ photos up and on the Web site as soon as possible," said Ormsby.

Those interested in a PMU foal or mare can contact Ormsby at 826-7829 or visit www.ransomranch.com on the Web.

9 million use hormone, down 25 percent

Nearly 9 million women still use some form of Premarin. This figure is down 25 percent from a 12 million high in 1999.

Nisha Jackson, a Medford nurse practitioner and author of "The Hormone Survival Guide for Peri-menopause," says the drug is the most widely prescribed estrogen for hormone replacement therapy. But, she says, not in her practice at Southern Oregon Health & Wellness.

"This is not my first line of treatment," says Jackson.

There are two types of hormones, Jackson says — natural (animal- or human-based) and synthetic (chemically derived).

"Premarin is considered natural because it is animal-based," she says. "But Premarin has more than a dozen different estrogens. Humans have three."

The question, she says, is whether the nine other estrogens help or hurt the human body in the long run. The Women’s Health Initiative Study recently stated there was an increased risk of breast cancer among women who use Premarin. But, says Jackson, the risk was blown out of proportion in the media.

"The absolute risk was one-tenth of 1 percent," says Jackson. "Excessive estrogen creates a risk of breast cancer. Not enough or underabsorbed estrogen, and there is a risk of osteoporosis."

Still, she says, some plant-derived, soy-based estrogens "fit the (human estrogen) keyhole exactly."

"They match our bodies’ molecular structure exactly," she said.

And that’s why, after a thorough hormone analysis, she prefers to start patients on plant-based hormones first. But pure non-synthetic hormones have to be created (compounded) at pharmacies.

"Pharmaceutical companies cannot patent a pure plant-based drug. They have to be part plant, part chemical," she said. "So, if someone wants something truly natural ... it has to be compounded at a pharmacy."

Jackson says some Medford-area pharmacies compound plant-based estrogen, and insurance companies cover the medication.

Reach reporter Sanne Specht at 776-4497 or e-mail sspecht@mailtribune.com