Group urges PM to phase out “harmful products of animal exploitation”
Wellington – As the New Zealand government moves forward with plans to phase out tobacco sales, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has written to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, urging them to phase out as well carcinogenic meat products.
The World Health Organization (WHO) classifies processed meats – which include hot dogs, ham, bacon, sausages, corned beef, biltong, beef jerky, canned meat, and preparations and meat sauces – like IARC Group 1, “carcinogenic to humans” – placing them in the same category as tobacco. This classification is based on sufficient evidence from epidemiological studies indicating that the consumption of processed meat causes colorectal cancer.
Meanwhile, red meats, such as beef, veal, pork, lamb, mutton and goat, have been labeled IARC Group 2A, “possibly carcinogenic to humans”. WHO noted that “the strongest, but still limited, evidence for an association with red meat consumption is for colorectal cancer. There is also evidence of links to pancreatic cancer and prostate cancer ”.
“Of course,” writes PETA, “the meat is a death sentence for some 22 million sentient New Zealand animals each year, which – after enduring miserable lives much shorter than normal – are crammed into trucks and taken to blood-soaked slaughterhouses where they will be slaughtered with captive bolt-action rifles before being slaughtered and dismembered. In the way that matters, these animals are no different from those with whom many of us share our houses, but a sense of human supremacy allows people to pay to have them treated in a way that would be illegal if they were cats or dogs.
The group goes on to point out that New Zealand’s growing emissions problem could also be addressed by phasing out animal agriculture, noting that farm animals are responsible for nearly three-quarters of New Zealand’s agricultural emissions. .
PETA – whose motto says, in part, that “animals are not for us to eat” – opposes speciesism, a supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org.au.
PETA’s letter to Prime Minister Ardern is available here.
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