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PETA Pounces On SARS Fears To Make Asians Shun Meat
Singapore, Apr 28: An animal rights advocacy group urged Asians today to go vegetarian amid fears that the SARS epidemic ravaging the region may have originated from livestock in Southern China.
Singapore, Apr 28: An animal rights advocacy group urged Asians today to go vegetarian amid fears that the SARS epidemic ravaging the region may have originated from livestock in Southern China.
"Stop eating meat," the US-based People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) said in a statement sent with a mock medical mask adorned with the pink face of a piglet and the slogan "Say no to pig-farm germs".
The global death toll from Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) is about 320 with some 5,000 cases reported, mostly in East Asia.
PETA, which advocates a vegetarian diet as the answer to many human ailments, said "intensively confining animals create filth that allows diseases to spread like wildfire".
"As people in Asia eat more meat, they are putting the rest of the world at risk," the statement said, citing a "highly healthy" trend in the west toward vegetarian diets.
PETA's Asia representative Jason Baker said "The battle against SARS and other diseases begins on our dinner plates".
"No more meat means no more factory farms and no more outbreaks of diseases spread by intensively raised animals, whether from germs or from the cholesterol and fat in their flesh."
Scientists are looking into the possibility that livestock in Southern China may have been the source of the SARS virus, noting that in some rural parts of Guangdong province people live in close proximity to pigs, chickens and other animals.
Bureau Report
"Stop eating meat," the US-based People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) said in a statement sent with a mock medical mask adorned with the pink face of a piglet and the slogan "Say no to pig-farm germs".
The global death toll from Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) is about 320 with some 5,000 cases reported, mostly in East Asia.
PETA, which advocates a vegetarian diet as the answer to many human ailments, said "intensively confining animals create filth that allows diseases to spread like wildfire".
"As people in Asia eat more meat, they are putting the rest of the world at risk," the statement said, citing a "highly healthy" trend in the west toward vegetarian diets.
PETA's Asia representative Jason Baker said "The battle against SARS and other diseases begins on our dinner plates".
"No more meat means no more factory farms and no more outbreaks of diseases spread by intensively raised animals, whether from germs or from the cholesterol and fat in their flesh."
Scientists are looking into the possibility that livestock in Southern China may have been the source of the SARS virus, noting that in some rural parts of Guangdong province people live in close proximity to pigs, chickens and other animals.
Bureau Report