Child’s Bird Flu Case Summons PETA’s Massive Chicken With a Message: ‘Meat Kills!’
For Immediate Release:
November 26, 2024
Contact:
Sara Groves 202-483-7382
Following news that bird flu has infected a local child—bringing the reported number of human infection cases this year in the U.S. to 55, including 29 in California alone—PETA plans to place a sky-high warning in Alameda County featuring a reminder from a straight-talking chicken: If the saturated fat and cholesterol in bacon and burgers doesn’t kill meat-eaters, then bird flu might. Thankfully, the child has a mild case and is expected to recover, but more than half the people with confirmed infections of the H5N1 strain of bird flu have died—and the World Health Organization has called the risk of the virus “an enormous concern.”
“Forcing millions of animals into the crowded, waste-filled sheds of factory farms before sending them to filthy slaughterhouses is not only cruel but also a dangerous ticking time bomb,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “PETA urges everyone to please go vegan to save all our lives, children and chickens alike.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warns that three out of every four new or emerging infectious diseases in humans come from animals. Chickens form complex social structures, dream when they sleep, and worry about the future, just as humans do—yet more chickens are raised and killed for food than all other land animals combined. In the meat industry, chickens are confined by the tens of thousands to severely crowded, filthy sheds before being trucked to slaughterhouses, where workers cut their throats—often while they’re still conscious—and scald many to death in defeathering tanks.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. PETA offers a free vegan starter kit on its website for everyone ready to make the switch. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow PETA on X, Facebook, or Instagram.
