New Drug Screening Test for Long-Acting Tranquilizers

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290 – July/Aug, 2016

BY HEATHER SMITH THOMAS

“The long-acting tranquilizer panel that we recently added stems from an equine pre-purchase drug screen that we began offering just over a year ago. That particular drug screen includes more than 30 non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) as well as three tranquilizers that are considered long-acting in veterinary medicine—at least in equine use. These include fluphenazine, fluoxetine and reserpine. The pre-purchase drug screen encompasses all of these drugs, but we felt it would be beneficial to give veterinarians the ability to test just for the tranquilizers in situations where they weren’t necessarily concerned about the NSAIDs,” says Mays.

“That was the reason we decided to offer this independent tranquilizer screen. Since then we’ve received client feedback about possibly adding some other drugs that contain those same sedative and tranquilizing effects in horses. As a result we’ve recently added three more drugs, which include acepromazine, guanabenz and romifidine. We are going through an approval process and will have all 6 of these drugs as part of our tranquilizer drug screen,” he says.

“As far as drug testing goes, our primary focus is to establish a level playing field— whether in horse racing, or in competitive events like cutting, reining or other horse shows.” Also if someone buys a horse, whether for performance in a certain sport, or just for pleasure riding, or for their children to ride, they want to know if the horse is sound and whether they are getting what they see. Lameness might be masked with drugs, and a flighty, high-spirited, or nervous animal might be calm and mellow under the influence of certain drugs.

“We want to help make sure the animal is sound, not only to protect the horse but also to protect the person who potentially will be riding or handling that animal. That’s the basis of the testing we do,” he explains.

Click here to read the complete article
290 – July/Aug, 2016