Mike
Well-known member
Donning Biohazard Outfits and a Cow Costume, PETA Members Distribute 'Emergency Vegetarian Starter Kits' in Birmingham
For Immediate Release:
March 14, 2006
Contact:
Mike Brazell 757-622-7382
Birmingham, Ala. — Carrying signs reading, "It's Mad to Eat Meat—Go Vegetarian," members of PETA wearing biohazard suits and accompanied by a giant "cow" will pass out "emergency vegetarian starter kits" in Birmingham tomorrow in response to the news that a cow in Alabama tested positive for mad cow disease:
Date: Wednesday, March 15
Time: 12 noon
Place: Magnolia Avenue S. at 20th Street S.
This is the nation's third confirmed case of mad cow disease. The first was in 2003—a dairy cow in Washington who was tested only after her body had already been ground up and sold as hamburger meat. The second case was in Texas in June 2005 and involved a cow for whom final tests weren't conducted for seven months.
According to news reports, the most recently diagnosed cow was thought to be more than 10 years old. Most cows are killed before they turn 2 years old and before they become symptomatic, so it is impossible to know whether they are infected with the brain disease unless they are tested, which is not normally done on nonsymptomatic animals.
Mad cow disease was detected in British cows in the mid-1980s after infectious tissue from sheep was included in their feed. This led to a ban on feeding animals to animals in the United Kingdom as well as a ban on feeding any animal older than 30 months to human beings. Although the United States banned the practice of feeding ruminants to ruminants in 1997, the U.S. government said that this regulation was widely violated. It is also still legal to feed cows' blood to cows and to feed sheep, cows, pigs, and chickens to other animals, even though these practices have been banned in Europe and the World Health Organization recommends against doing so. It's possible that there is a mad chicken disease or a mad pig disease, because any animal with a brain could potentially develop a variant of mad cow disease, which could then be transferable to people. Cases of mad sheep disease, mad mink disease, and mad deer disease have already been found in North America.
"Mad cow disease is obviously still a major threat, and it only adds to the dangers already associated with meat consumption, such as salmonella, E. coli, campylobacter, heart disease, strokes, high blood pressure, and cancer, " says PETA Director of Vegan Outreach Bruce Friedrich. "The only safe thing to do with any meat in your refrigerator is to throw it in the trash and go vegetarian."
For more information, please visit GoVeg.com.
For Immediate Release:
March 14, 2006
Contact:
Mike Brazell 757-622-7382
Birmingham, Ala. — Carrying signs reading, "It's Mad to Eat Meat—Go Vegetarian," members of PETA wearing biohazard suits and accompanied by a giant "cow" will pass out "emergency vegetarian starter kits" in Birmingham tomorrow in response to the news that a cow in Alabama tested positive for mad cow disease:
Date: Wednesday, March 15
Time: 12 noon
Place: Magnolia Avenue S. at 20th Street S.
This is the nation's third confirmed case of mad cow disease. The first was in 2003—a dairy cow in Washington who was tested only after her body had already been ground up and sold as hamburger meat. The second case was in Texas in June 2005 and involved a cow for whom final tests weren't conducted for seven months.
According to news reports, the most recently diagnosed cow was thought to be more than 10 years old. Most cows are killed before they turn 2 years old and before they become symptomatic, so it is impossible to know whether they are infected with the brain disease unless they are tested, which is not normally done on nonsymptomatic animals.
Mad cow disease was detected in British cows in the mid-1980s after infectious tissue from sheep was included in their feed. This led to a ban on feeding animals to animals in the United Kingdom as well as a ban on feeding any animal older than 30 months to human beings. Although the United States banned the practice of feeding ruminants to ruminants in 1997, the U.S. government said that this regulation was widely violated. It is also still legal to feed cows' blood to cows and to feed sheep, cows, pigs, and chickens to other animals, even though these practices have been banned in Europe and the World Health Organization recommends against doing so. It's possible that there is a mad chicken disease or a mad pig disease, because any animal with a brain could potentially develop a variant of mad cow disease, which could then be transferable to people. Cases of mad sheep disease, mad mink disease, and mad deer disease have already been found in North America.
"Mad cow disease is obviously still a major threat, and it only adds to the dangers already associated with meat consumption, such as salmonella, E. coli, campylobacter, heart disease, strokes, high blood pressure, and cancer, " says PETA Director of Vegan Outreach Bruce Friedrich. "The only safe thing to do with any meat in your refrigerator is to throw it in the trash and go vegetarian."
For more information, please visit GoVeg.com.