For
Immediate Release:
19 May 2003
Contact:
Anuradha Sawhney (Mumbai) 98201 22602; AnuradhaS@peta.org
Jason Baker (Hong Kong) 852 6200 7588; JasonB@peta.org
New Delhi — What you touch and inhale may be
important, but what you pick up with your fork is even more crucial,
say People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). In response
to news reports that the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) epidemic
now spreading across the globe probably originated on a pig farm, a
PETA member, wearing a pig costume with a giant mask reading, ‘No
SARS - Go Veg!,’ will hand out SARS masks inscribed with the words,
‘No Pig Germs in Here,’ to residents and tourists in New
Delhi. Other activists will hold signs reading, ‘SARS: Caused
by Meat - Go Veg!’
Date: 19 May 2003
Time: 12 noon sharp
Place: Connaught Circle
Intersection of Barakhambha Road & Inner Circle. (Between
Block E and F)
Like all globe-sweeping ‘flus, the latest killer germ was created
on a factory farm in southern China. Intensively confining animals creates
filth that allows diseases to spread like wildfire. In India, chickens
on factory farms commonly carry listeria, salmonella, leukosis (chicken
cancer), campylobacter and E. coli bacteria, all of which are transmissible
to humans. As people in Asia eat more meat, they put the rest of the
world at risk. In the west, hundreds of thousands more people go vegetarian
every year, a trend PETA calls ‘highly healthy’.
SARS isn’t the only problem created by eating flesh: Meat-eaters
are nine times as likely to be overweight as vegans (people who consume
no animal products whatsoever) and 10 times more likely to suffer from
heart disease. Although vegetarianism remains popular in India, as more
people eat meat, diseases that have been linked to meat consumption,
such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer, are occurring more
often. During the past 30 years, coronary artery disease (CAD) in most
developed countries came down by 50 per cent but doubled in India. Adding
to this problem is the high incidence of rheumatic heart disease in
India. With at least 50,000 new cases every year, it is estimated that
currently there are more than one million patients with rheumatic heart
disease. A low-fat vegetarian diet has been proven to reverse heart
disease, reduce the risk of several cancers, and reduce blood pressure.
Vegans live, on average, at least seven years longer than meat-eaters.
Of course, in addition to its many dangers for humans, factory farming
is cruel to animals. Crammed together in tiny spaces, living in their
own waste, they rarely - if ever - smell fresh air or feel the sun on
their backs until the day they are sent off, screaming and kicking,
to slaughter.
‘
The battle against SARS and other diseases begins on our dinner plates,’
says Anuradha Sawhney, Chief Functionary, PETA India. ‘No more
meat means no more outbreaks of diseases spread by farmed animals, whether
from germs or from the cholesterol and fat in their flesh.’
For more information, please click
here.
