‘Smoking Baby’ Billboard Highlights Dangers of Meat Consumption

For Immediate Release:

30 October 2015

Contact:

Jennifer White 020 7837 6327, ext 222; [email protected]

‘SMOKING BABY’ BILLBOARD HIGHLIGHTS DANGERS OF MEAT CONSUMPTION

PETA Erects Giant Warning to Parents Following World Health Organization Report That Classifies Meat as ‘Carcinogenic to Humans’

Leeds – A new PETA billboard – which pictures a baby smoking a cigar and reads, “You Wouldn’t Let Your Child Smoke. Like Smoking, Eating Bacon, Sausages and Other Processed Meats Is Linked to Cancer” – has just gone up on Burley Street near Leeds General Infirmary. The billboard follows a World Health Organization (WHO) report released earlier this week, which warns that processed meats are as much of a cancer threat as smoking is.

Images of the billboard are available here and here.

“We all know how important it is to set a good example for our kids, and that means choosing habits – such as eating vegan meals – that will steer them towards a healthier life”, says PETA Associate Director Elisa Allen. “The billboard will remind us all that, just as we should put down the cigarettes, we should put down the bacon butties and pick up fibre-rich, heart-healthy plant-based foods instead.”

The report from the WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer, which is considered an authority in evaluating evidence on cancer causation, listed processed meat as a cancer-causing substance – receiving the highest of five possible rankings – along with alcohol, asbestos, arsenic and cigarettes. According to the findings, 50 grams of processed meat a day – the equivalent of one sausage or less than two slices of bacon – increases a person’s chance of developing bowel cancer by 18 per cent.

In addition to saving their own lives, vegans spare approximately 100 animals a year immeasurable suffering on factory farms, in abattoirs and on the decks of fishing boats.

For more information or to order a free vegan starter kit, please visit PETA.org.uk