Update: Papa John’s Changes Statement—Still Needs to Change Its Ways
Confronted by PETA over misleading propaganda, Papa John’s has amended its opposition statement to remove outright falsehoods since it’s clear that calves suffer miserably when their horn buds are burnt off or developing horns are gouged out or cut off.
What Papa John’s really needs to do is to stop opposing PETA’s shareholder resolution and take decisive action to stop its suppliers from dehorning cows.
The following was originally published on February 28, 2013:
Owning stock in a company allows PETA to suggest policy changes, attend annual meetings, and propose resolutions to help animals in a way that can’t be easily ignored. Unfortunately, this doesn’t guarantee that corporate bigwigs won’t dig in their heels and refuse to make simple changes that would reduce cruelty to animals nor stop them from trying to mislead other stockholders about PETA’s resolution—as pizza giant Papa John’s has done in response to a proposal to address the painful dehorning of cows on the dairy factory farms in the company’s supply chain. Now PETA is calling on the pizza giant to set the record straight by removing falsehoods and misinformation from its statement of opposition to PETA’s resolution.
As shown in PETA’s video exposé of dehorning, narrated by Oscar-nominated actor Casey Affleck, workers on dairy farms burn searing-hot irons into calves’ heads to destroy horn tissue or use sharp instruments or other tools to saw off, gouge out, or cut off the horn and sometimes the surrounding tissue. Cows struggle desperately during these procedures, which are typically performed without the use of pain relief. Dairy farmers can easily eliminate this cruel, expensive, and labor-intensive procedure by breeding for polled (hornless) cattle, which causes at least half the calves to be born hornless since the polled gene is dominant.
Both common sense and scientific evidence reveal that calves suffer from agonizing pain when their sensitive tissue is burned or sawed off or gouged out of their heads. It’s time for Papa John’s to stop pretending and come clean about the cruelty of dehorning—and then take decisive action to stop it.
What You Can Do
Cow’s milk is vile and unhealthy stuff—don’t swallow it. Live (and let live) better, the dairy-free vegan way!
