WRITTEN QUESTION No. 1495/98 by Heinz KINDERMANN , Jan MULDER , Jan SONNEVELD , Robert STURDY to the Commission. Availability of equine medicines
C 31/42 Official Journal of the European Communities EN 5. 2. 1999 It has been supporting projects carried out by NGOs working with street children in Honduras since 1993. These projects have focused on various fields, the main ones being: › an information project designed to raise childrenís awareness of their rights and how to uphold them; › preventive actions, the aim of which is to help reintegrate street children into their family. The projects involve working with children but also with their family and people close to them; › support for NGOs that manage shelters for street children. These projects take a comprehensive approach to children and include training schemes for young people to facilitate their reintegration into Honduran society. The Commission also assists governmental bodies in finding solutions to the specific problems of street children. The Commission finances large-scale projects in other central and south American countries with the collaboration and participation of local NGOs in almost all Latin American countries. (1999/C 31/053) WRITTEN QUESTION E-1495/98 by Heinz Kindermann (PSE), Jan Mulder (ELDR), Jan Sonneveld (PPE) and Robert Sturdy (PPE) to the Commission Subject: Availability of equine medicines (13 May 1998) 1. The Commission is surely aware that equine practitioners are confronted with an increasingly limited number of veterinary medicinal products authorised for use in horses and that therefore the quality of treatment is impaired and animal welfare is compromised. As a result, the Commission is also surely aware that, when no product is authorized in their own Member States, equine practitioners have, if they still want to treat the horses under their care, no other alternative but to use products imported from third Member States or to use products authorized in their own Member States but not for horses. Which in both cases is illegal. What is the Commission prepared to do to restore the therapeutic arsenal of equine practitioners? 2. Does the Commission share our opinion that given the limited number of recreational horses which are slaughtered each year in the Community, such horses should not be regarded as food-producing animals and that, should they nonetheless be slaughtered and enter the food-chain, public health could be protected by means of a set, conservative pre-slaughter waiting period, (e. g. 3 months)? Such a period would give enough confidence that any residues of products used throughout the life of the animal would have decreased below levels of any concern to the consumer. Under such conditions, is the Commission prepared to make a distinction between recreational horses and those bred for meat production and to accept that veterinary medical products could be used in recreational horses when no maximum residue limits have been established for horses? Despite the existing measures to increase the number of veterinary medicinal products available for minor 3. species or minor uses, veterinary practitioners are confronted with a limited number of products authorized for such uses or such species. Is the Commission prepared to investigate what further measures could be taken to increase the number of such products and to develop a policy modelled on the measures taken for Orphan Drugs necessary for the treatment of rare human diseases?