PETA ad claims milk hurts kids
By Gerry Clark
Managing Editor, Dairy Network.com
An animal-rights activist group once again is slamming the dairy industry with a celebrity image-featuring ad, but it apparently got the person's permission before putting up a billboard this time around.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which recently made headlines for posting billboards utilizing an image of New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani in a Got Milk? ad campaign parody without securing the politician's OK, has taken its battle to the source: this week's World Dairy Expo 2000 in Madison, WI.
The group's new ad features Bill Maher, host of TV's Politically Incorrect, as an oversized baby with a message urging parents to keep cow's milk out of the mouths of babes.
"Make your baby happy—breastfeed," the ad states. "Cow's milk is linked to ear infections, colic, and juvenile diabetes."
The 22-foot-by-10-foot mobile billboard is scheduled to be on display four days, traveling through downtown Madison after making its Oct. 3 debut outside the expo, which is being held at the city's Dane County Expo Center.
"Cows give milk for the same reason humans do--to feed their babies," PETA Campaign Coordinator Sean Gifford said. "But the dairy industry steals the milk and turns the calves into veal. It's unnatural. Human babies belong at their own mothers' breasts."
U.S. dairy industry groups wasted little time in responding to the ad campaign, which they dismissed as "the latest example of (PETA's) strategy to say anything, no matter how baseless and outrageous, to advance its animal-rights agenda in the media."
National Dairy Council and National Fluid Milk Processor Promotion Board leaders said that PETA's assertions regarding milk and children's health aren't backed by the views of reputable health organization or science groups.
"In fact, the American Academy of Pediatrics, a leading organization on children's health, encourages pediatricians to recommend milk, yogurt and other calcium-rich foods for children over one year of age," the dairy groups said. "The dairy industry concurs with AAP that breast milk or iron-enhanced infant formula is the recommended diet for children under one year of age."
NDC and NFMPPB leaders also stated that PETA's claims about links between milk and diabetes, ear infections and colic are off the mark.
"A review of the current research reveals that any results linking milk and juvenile diabetes are suggestive at best," the dairy organizations said. "PETA's other claims regarding milk and ear infections and colic are equally empty and not based on sound science."
The organizations also objected to PETA's characterization of dairy farming.
"Consumers are advised to get their medical and nutrition information from trained health professionals and reputable organizations, not from animal rights activists," NDC and NFMPPB said.
Dairy cows are treated like "milk machines," PETA leaders contend, with the animals continually impregnated to keep them lactating.
"To save time and human labor, factory farmers use milking machines that often cause cuts, injuries, and electric shocks to cows' udders," PETA says. "Farmers also use an array of drugs, including bovine growth hormone and antibiotics, to increase productivity. The calves--traumatically separated from their very maternal mothers soon after birth--are either added to the dairy herds or confined to small crates for the production of veal."
PETA came under fire for its late August ad campaign showing Guiliani with a milk mustache and the query "Got Prostate Cancer?" with text indicating that studies have shown a link between the disease and dairy consumption. (See related article).
Giuliani, who has been diagnosed with prostate cancer, criticized PETA and had threatened to sue the group. The organization later pulled the ads and apologized to the mayor. (See related article).