The Veterinary Medicines Regulations and the Cascade

Medicinal treatment of horses is complicated by the status of the horse as a food animal across the EU. This brings the treatment of horses under close scrutiny to ensure horses intended for human consumption are free of unacceptable residues at the time of slaughter. The European Commission recognised that the range of veterinary medicinal products for horses could be improved and this has led to a raft of legislative adjustments to allow horses to be treated as food producing animals or to be excluded from the human food chain and made exempt from the typical controls on the use of food animal medicines. The EU Horse Passport regulations for example, permit horses to be excluded from the food chain as a result of a positive choice by the owner with ‘food animal’ as the default status. The European Commission also introduced legislation establishing a list of medicines that were considered essential for treatment of horses with the intent to improve the availability of medicines for this species. The Veterinary Medicines Regulations operate in parallel to the horse passport system and set out the legal provisions for the prescribing and supply of veterinary medicines. The cascade permits veterinary surgeons, under their own responsibility, to use medicines not authorised for use in horses, provided the requirements for treating food animals are observed where relevant and there is a clinical justification for prescribing an unauthorised medicine in preference to an authorised product. [...]