What’s the Real ‘#MilkTruth’? PETA Pours a Glass of Reality

PETA’s Response to Dairy Industry’s New Campaign Points to Cruelty to Cows, Health Risk for Human Drinkers

For Immediate Release:
January 27, 2015

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

As more people turn to healthy, humane plant-based milk, the dairy industry is trying to combat its flagging sales with a “#MilkTruth” website and social-media campaign—but PETA has the real truth about milk. The group is rolling out its popular ads parodying the industry’s “Got Milk?” campaign, which point to studies suggesting links between drinking milk and acne, ear infections, allergies, and prostate cancer.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat … or abuse in any other way”—will use the milk industry’s own “#MilkTruth” hashtag to spread its animal-friendly message on social media.

“PETA’s ads about sick kids and cruelty to cows reflect the real #MilkTruth,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “The milk industry is fighting a losing battle against the growing market for plant-based milks that are as kind to animals as they are to human health.”

PETA’s ads also shine a spotlight on the dairy industry’s cruelty to cows, including tearing male calves away from their mothers shortly after birth and chaining them up in tiny crates (“Got Veal?”) and other everyday abuses: Cows on dairy farms often have their sensitive horn tissue burned or gouged out of their heads, are repeatedly artificially inseminated, and are shipped to slaughter when their milk production declines, at 4 or 5 years of age—far short of their 25-year natural life expectancy.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.