After getting all the publicity it could, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) announced that it was stopping its advertising campaign which tried (in vain) to link prostate cancer to milk. The ads, which featured New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, were stopped because PETA claimed, “What we do is intended to be provocative, not hurtful, a fine line that we regret to have crossed.”
Now comes news that the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) is launching new anti-milk television ads designed to play off of PETA’s Giuliani ads. The National Dairy Council rightly puts PCRM in its place, noting: “Reputable researchers and health organizations — including the very researchers who conducted the research PCRM refers to — disagree with PCRM’s position on this issue. In fact, PCRM’s views have been repeatedly denounced by the American Medical Association (AMA), the National Osteoporosis Foundation (NOF), and the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH), among others.”
So why is PCRM picking up the ball where PETA dropped it? Because PCRM is nothing more than a puppet for PETA to use in spreading its virulent, anti-choice rhetoric. If you have any doubts about the PETA-PCRM connection, take a look at the board members of the PETA-run Foundation to Support Animal Protection (the foundation has the same mailing address as PETA and PETA owns the Foundation’s website address). There you will see PCRM president Neal Barnard (a frequent contributor to PETA’s magazine – PETA also hawks Barnard’s books on their website) and PETA president Ingrid E. Newkirk listed together, sitting on a couple million dollars of foundation assets they can use to carry out their campaigns.
