The pharmaceutical giant Pfizer makes about a $1 billion a year by abusing pregnant horses for their urine. Conjugated equine estrogen (CEE) is used in menopause and osteoporosis drugs for Pfizer, and if this sounds crazy, it is! As the founding President of The Horse Fund, an equine advocacy organization, I have followed this issue for years, and really need your help to get Pfizer to stop abusing horses. Please sign my petition for Pfizer to stop using horse urine to produce conjugated equine estrogen for its Premarin, Prempro, Duavee, and other products.

In this horrible industry, mares are repeatedly impregnated for an average of 12 years, and spend 6 months of their 11-month pregnancy confined to stalls so small they have difficulty turning around or lying down. Most of this time is spent standing up on cold concrete floors. They are permanently attached to cumbersome rubber urine collection bags hanging between their hind legs that chafe their flanks, cause infections and severely limit movement.

Please sign my petition calling on Pfizer to end this appalling practice.

The fate of the foals – the "by-products" of the industry – and the mares who cannot conceive is bleak. Most are sold at auction to "kill buyers" and ultimately end up at the slaughterhouse where they will be improperly stunned, dismembered, butchered and their meat sold for human consumption in countries where there is an appetite for it.

Over the years, public scrutiny lead the makers of these products to change sourcing from horse farms in North America to overseas locations in places like China.

These drugs are bad for people, too. Drugs containing CEEs are not well tolerated by the human body and pose serious cancer and cardiovascular risks among others. The National Toxicology Program as well as the World Health Organization have linked drugs like Premarin and Prempro to cancer for years. While all drugs carry some risk, for women who don't want to take estrogens derived from CEEs, there are numerous alternatives with a much more acceptable safety profile.

Given the great achievements of the pharmaceutical industry over the last few decades, I wonder why an industry giant such as Pfizer, self-described as "the world's largest research-based pharmaceutical company," is not using the most innovative and state-of-the-art methodology in developing safer and more effective drugs, but instead persists with decades-old technology that relies on the increasingly unpopular and detrimental use of animals.

Please sign my petition asking Pfizer to stop abusing horses and putting women’s lives at risk. Tell Pfizer you do not want them to make products from horse urine.