‘Eating Us Got You Into This Mess,’ Say Animals in Edgy New Ad
Anti-Pandemic, Pro-Vegan PETA Billboard Rises Near Fast-Food Outlets
For Immediate Release:
July 8, 2020
Contact:
Megan Wiltsie 202-483-7382
As the number of COVID-19 cases rises in Ohio, PETA has placed a billboard within chewing distance of a McDonald’s and several other fast-food restaurants, making the case that raising and killing animals for food is the source of a litany of deadly diseases, including COVID-19, avian flu, swine flu, SARS, MERS, and even Ebola. The ad shows animals who are commonly raised and killed for food urging people to stay safe by going vegan and letting them live.
“It’s a fact: Eating meat from animals who were confined in their own filth on factory farms puts everyone at risk of another pandemic,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “PETA is offering free vegan starter kits, free vegan mentor services, and free tips on animal-friendly eating to help people save lives, including their own.”
PETA notes that a new strain of swine flu with “pandemic potential” is now spreading from pigs to humans in China. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns that approximately 75% of recently emerged infectious diseases affecting humans originated in other animals. U.S. factory farms and slaughterhouses are as filthy as China’s “wet markets,” their floors covered with blood, urine, feces, and offal—and meat supply chain disruptions don’t mean a food shortage, because no one needs to eat meat and the vegan food supply is strong.
The billboard is located at 1980 N. High St. (near E. 18th Avenue), next to a McDonald’s and near a Wendy’s and several other fast-food restaurants.
Resources on PETA’s website include vegan starter kits and a list of vegan-friendly restaurant chains. PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org.
