PETA Grabs Meat.com Web Site to Spread Vegan Message

Web Surfers Seeking Fleshy Fare Will Get Low-Down on Meat-Related Risks

April 8, 2004 -- Just in time for the American Cancer Societys Cancer Control Month (April), and in a move thats bound to give meat moguls indigestion, PETA is borrowing the domain name Meat.com. Instead of finding recipes for chicken cordon bleu or tips for backyard barbecuing, visitors to Meat.com will learn that eating animal products has been conclusively linked to several forms of cancer, including cancers of the colon and prostate, and that the best way to protect their health is to adopt a healthy, humane vegan diet.

Studies in the American Journal of Gastroenterology, the International Journal of Cancer, the American Journal of Epidemiology, and many other medical periodicals show that eating meat increases a persons risk of developing cancer and that a diet based on grains, fruits, and vegetables significantly decreases that risk. Consumption of meat and other animal products has also been linked to heart disease, strokes, obesity, diabetes, and other diseases, as well as life-threatening bacterial infections such as salmonella, E. coli, and listeria. And, of course, the best way to avoid contracting the human form of mad cow diseasenew variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob diseaseis to switch from beef burritos to bean burritos and from cows milk to soy milk.

Peoples meat habit is hazardous to animals health, too. Animals on factory farms are mutilated, drugged, and subjected to many other abuses from which dogs and cats are legally protected. Pigs are confined to concrete-floored stalls and have their tails cut offand, in the case of males, are castrated as wellwithout anesthetics. Chickens are jam-packed into wire cages in semi-darkness and suffer debeaking with a hot blade so that they cant peck each other to death from stress. Calves raised for veal are taken from their mothers within hours of birth and kept chained in tiny, dark stalls.

"Eating meat causes cancer and obesity and leads to high blood pressure," says PETA Vegan Campaign Director Bruce Friedrich. "In 15 years, the meat moguls will be suffering the same reputation that big-tobacco magnates suffer today."

As part of the campaign, PETA is posting billboards in American cities with the largest cancer-treatment centers.

For more information, please visit Meat.com.

# # #