Marc Murphy is a Horse Meat Eater!!!

Marc Murphy is a executive chef, restaurateur and television food personality.  He owns Landmarc with locations in TriBeCa and in the Time Warner Center, and Ditch Plains in the West Village.  He is best know for his regular judging spot on the Food Network series Chopped.

He is also a Horse Meat Eater!!!

and I have a problem with that.  In the interview below he talks about how its not a big deal to eat horse meat because he grew up in Italy eating it.  How it is common place to see horse meat on menus in France and Italy.  He even goes to say he would serve it to friends, if they wanted it and that the only reason he will not put it on his restaurant menus here in the US is because no one would buy it, on the basis that we don't want to eat our pets.

In the Forbes article How Safe Is That Horse Meat? by Vickery Eckhoff, Contributor, dated June 18, 2012, I quote:

Good fact-checking is essential when it comes to horse slaughter, especially the long list of drugs present in U.S. horse meat, including Phenylbutazone, which causes cancers that are fatal to humans, particularly babies.

Phenylbutazone (or “bute”), is a painkiller used legally by more than 85% of U.S. horse owners to treat everyday soreness and inflammation, but banned completely in food-producing animals, including horses, by the Food and Drug Administration and related agencies in Canada, the UK, and the EU. Interestingly, in 1949 it was used to treat gout and rheumatoid arthritis in humans, but was later banned when its carcinogenic effects were discovered.

In their report, Association of phenylbutazone usage with horses bought for slaughter: A public health risk, Dr. Nicholas Dodman, Dr. Nicolas Blondeau and Dr. Ann Marini describe Phenylbutazone’s adverse effects on humans such as aplastic anemia and leukemia.

Their lengthy 2010 study, which appeared in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology, analyzes the presence of bute in slaughter horses; the government’s inadequate drug testing methodology; and the USDA’s failure to ensure the removal of the vast majority of horses treated with banned substances from the food chain, among other topics. 

Now how bout them apples!!!  Go head tell me its ok to eat horse meat!  When you get a disease from ingesting bute, and you cry about it, I will laugh at you!!!