What a nightmare for everyone! I can’t imagine the stress that’s causing, not only financially but mentally as well. I had a pony when I was younger who was imported from Canada, but thankfully I bought him from the person who imported him so didn’t have to deal with quarantine, etc.
Hope the poor pony gets some resolution soon. (Yes I know it’s not a pony, but all horses are ponies regardless)
Livestock insurance should cover this very case though. It does for cows. you should get a long time of coverage for quarantine if there is a problem. I think it is 2 months or so standard coverage. It sounds like maybe the insurance was not bought correctly unless they do not offer the same cover for horses as for other livestock? And of course you should not accept the insurance saying 'no" without argument. They often try to deny claims. I would consult a legal expert.
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Importing from Canada doesn’t have the quarantine requirements as importing from overseas.
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I do not think anyone would be raging against the USDA and JetPets about this if the family wasn’t cash strapped. Yes horses get held up in quarantine but from posts on the FB, by people who routinely import, say they cut there losses at the first negative BECAUSE of this. More power to the poster seeing this through with her horse and others who do the same.
I do think the USDA needs to get onboard with the more accurate testing, however, I also believe this family was led astray by the very professionals they trusted to guide them through this process. I feel terrible for the family and the horse. The trainer leaves a bad taste in my mouth as I ponder what she did/said to get a cease and desist letter. I also have a bad taste in my mouth about the trainer for not asking for advice sooner (clearly she’s in over her head) and heeded the advice she got.
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Out of curiosity, does anybody know what Glanders test Canada uses for European imports?
I just had a scary thought.
There were 15 horses held as they were contacts of Hireno. Those owners will have related costs somewhere in the 70-80 K (collectively) Are those owners in a position to place a claim against the owner of Hireno for reimbursement of related expenses? If so, that poor family is potentially up for another shock.
From the https://inspection.gc.ca/animal-health/terrestrial-animals/imports/import-policies/live-animals/2011-5/eng/1325285856958/1325285922473 website, where more details can be found:
“During post entry quarantine in Canada, the horses must be retested for Glanders using a complement fixation test negative at 1/5 or, where applicable, an alternate test acceptable to CFIA.”
I believe Canada also offers some compensation, where eligible, for owners whose animals need to be euthanized upon positive test results for these controlled diseases.
All US would have to do to change protocol is make a proposal to OIE that WB or alternative to CFt would be accepted, as it is in many other countries. I have no idea, when this issue happens as frequently as it does, why the change hasn’t happened yet or when it will. I would imagine it will take deep pockets, several parties and a few savvy attorneys to get the wheels in motion.
While we should never underestimate the creativity of plaintiffs’ attorneys, I don’t see how they would have a viable claim. Hireno’s owners owe no duty to the owners of his fellow travelers. There is no evidence they knew or should have known Hireno would test positive, so it’s not like they knowingly or even negligently exposed others.
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I hear you. I’m just repeating what the trainer’s comments on Facebook indicated about a lack of coverage. And someone way earlier on this thread mentioned the differences in the North American CFT vs European CFT could pose a problem as well with an insurance policy.
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The insurance angle may not be a dead end - would be interesting to see the actual policy and denial letter. Hopefully the family will seek some professional advice about the denial, and the merits of it.
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I don’t think you understand how medical tests work… there’s no such thing as a test that is always 100% correct all the time.
Tests are characterized by sensitivity and specificity, and it is always a tradeoff. If you want a test to always catch every truly positive case, there will be some false positives too. If you want a test to never have any false positives, that means you are going to miss some of the truly positive animals (going to have false negative).
For a serious foreign animal disease like glanders, the correct thing to do is require a test that is highly sensitive so that you never miss a positive horse, even if that comes at the expense of a rare false positive.
That is why the USDA requires a certain test and you can’t just choose to use another test.
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I was not aware of that, thank you.
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That’s a good point.
Honestly… the family should hire an attorney ASAP, and have the attorney advise from here on out about what to do. It sounded from comments like the attorney who advised on the two other highly publicized cases (Chapman Hopkins was his name I think…) got on the phone with either the trainer… or the client and the trainer… and offered some simple advice. Which is consistent with what everyone else has said.
But the family needs their OWN attorney, (meaning no conference calls with this trainer, and the attorney ONLY represents the family’s interests) and they need one RIGHT NOW. It’s definitely worth every penny. Reviewing the policy and pushing back on the insurer is one of multiple things an attorney could advise them on, and hopefully help clarify for them.
The comments I saw earlier about the policy excluding pre existing conditions were made by the trainer. So maybe she was the one who followed up on the insurance coverage questions… and if so… I think the family probably would be better served by an attorney handling those communications for them.
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Wasn’t going to add anything else here but couple of things are in my mind.
First is the horse has come up positive repeatedly over the last 8 weeks. Test controversy aside, how often do false positives repeatedly keep showing up if they are really false? Something is off with the horse and has been for eight weeks. JMO but…? IIRC there were 21 other horses in that load and none showed a fever except him and none came up positive a week or so later on the retest so were released.
The other thing is all the “ send him back” stuff. To WHOM whom would he be sent back to? Typically, you don’t buy a horse to import from an individual owner but from a dealer who sources horses for sale to present to US buyers in large groups so those buyers can see as many as possible. Often those buyers are not acting as individual buyers but as buyers authorized agent or they buy outright to resell to specific buyer clients or on the open market in the US. Eventual owner never sees it except in videos, sometimes, as here, eventual owners trainer never sees it either.
After the horse leaves the dealers yard and ownership changes from dealer to buyer, it goes to a consolidator who makes up plane loads to ship and handles outbound health requirements as owners authorized agent. Horses may stay there for several days to several weeks waiting for space on the plane.
This process can vary but that’s basically how it works for the majority of imports. These unfortunate folks have owned the horse since it left the dealers yard, least a week before it stepped on the plane. Recall reading somewhere somebody (dealer or consolidator ?)) did offer to accept delivery but no refund and only if they paid shipping. Let’s be clear what would have happened to the horses on arrival back there, he would have simply been put down. But it would have cost them another 10k, not whatever they are up to now. Even if they negotiate with JP and the vets, it’s going to end up more then that now.
Europe treats horses and the horse export business as livestock. That is a big part of why they are less expensive. And they do have a bottom level to their marketing ladder over there we don’t have here and they are not afraid to cull and/or cut their losses.
Don’t think there’s any blame here the horse has something going on, just a misplacement of trust and funds in the wrong person who was ill equipped to handle this tragic event or understand the consequences of what they loudly and publicly advised clients to do at clients expense. As a horse Pro, some decisions you have to make are really going to suck and properly advising client suck even worse. Best protection is really knowing, trusting and understanding any process you advise clients to undertake. Something not reflected here.
That said, there is some hanky panky on the other side too, heard some things, personally know of one whose clean PPE x rays were found to be of another horse several months after arrival and it wasn’t the only one. So, the import game is not one for novices, even if they are Pros in other phases of the horse business.
There might be a lawsuit here but the family needs to hire their OWN-attorney, preferably not one recommended by trainer. And they need to SHUT UP on FB. Surprised if anybody actually really has hired one, they’ve let that FB mess continue instead of trying to remove most of it. Or maybe they have and it’s more bad advice on top of bad advice they are paying for
ETA, OK, will say what I’m sure others are thinking. 35k landed on the a West Coast is on the low end of import prices but close to, if not more, then the annual income for many. Think around 55k is now the median income for a family in the USA. Really hope the adults plastering all this on social media doesn’t come back on this 15 year old for being a rich kid” and translate to contempt instead of commiseration.
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I assumed the people who import regularly and have made GOOD connections in Europe probably stipulated in the sale contract that of the test deemed worthy by the USDA comes back positive the seller agrees to take the horse back. At least that is how I imagine it would work. Again I don’t know. I can’t fathom importing a horse as I’m content buying OTTBs. Competitively showing isn’t my thing any more.
I feel this non-horsey family trusted a novice importer and now has a big bill.
I will say too, not that the trainer thought this, but there is a notion that military people have $$$ even within the military itself. I can’t tell you how many times people have said to me, “well you’re X rank you should be able to pay for all of us.”
I can also say I have a good idea of the father’s base salary and that by no means puts them in the affluent category. It would, if it’s a single income household, put them solidly middle class IF they didn’t live in California.
I applaud the family for trying to give their daughter every chance possible to succeed in the sport. I’m still really put out by the trainer.
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It’s probably cross-reacting to some other organism. The test they’re using is very sensitive but doesn’t have the highest level of specificity (specific only to the infective agent in question).
From the few comments of people who seem to have some familiarity with similar cases, I’m guessing sending it back immediately as not meeting US entry requirements was the best advice. But that’s such a hard decision to make in the moment, it’s a personal horse not a business, and for sure the family assumed he’d just test negative next time… or the next… or…
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Good points.
I wonder, though, which tests were available at the time the regulations were enacted.
There was a period of time where the only EIA test accepted for export to Canada from the US was the AGID, and not the ELISA because the ELISA did not exist when the regulations were drawn up.
Not that it would help here, but looking forward, it might be worth looking into regulatory updates.
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I suspect that the returned to Europe Plan B /“bottom level marketing” might not be an option here, as glanders is a potentially zoonotic disease, and it just isn’t worth the risk.
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If some one has expertise, please answer. Do these tests work by detecting antibodies or the virus? If it is antibodies, is it possible the horse was exposed and developed antibodies well before import? That it is not infected or contagious, but has antibodies?
I agree this isn’t “just” a false positive if he has consistently popped a positive.
I had an active Rocky Mountain fever case from a tick but the tests also showed an old Lyme infection, all through antibodies.
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