PETA Billboard Uses Image of Virgin Mary to Promote Breastfeeding

Ditch the Dairy Products, Says PETA; New Medical Journal Report Confirms That the Breast Is Best

For Immediate Release:
April 7, 2010

Contact:
Michael Lyubinsky 757-622-7382

Lexington, Ky. -- PETA is taking on the dairy industry with some very high-profile support: Mother Mary and her baby, Jesus. A new study in the medical journal Pediatrics concludes that the U.S. could save billions of dollars in health-care costs--and more than 900 lives--every year if mothers exclusively breastfed their babies for the first six months of their lives. So PETA is currently negotiating with Lexington outdoor advertisers to erect a billboard featuring an image of Mary nursing Jesus next to the caption "If It Was Good Enough for Jesus ... The Breast Is Best. Dump Dairy. PETA." Why Lexington? Because according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, among all U.S. states, Kentucky has the third-lowest percentage of mothers who breastfeed. Click here to see the billboard.

"Human milk is the best food for human babies, and cow's milk is best left to calves," says PETA Vice President Bruce Friedrich. "I trust Mother Mary's judgment more than the dairy industry's propaganda."

The dairy industry's case for drinking cow's milk is hard to swallow when children are getting sick and animals are suffering. Cows used by the dairy industry are almost constantly kept pregnant and are drugged and bred to produce such unnaturally large quantities of milk that they suffer increased rates of crippling injuries and infection. Because their bodies prematurely wear out, cows used by the dairy industry are shipped to slaughter when they reach a fraction of their natural life expectancy. Hormones, antibiotics, pus, and bacterial pathogens are among the contaminants found in milk.

PETA's recent investigation of a dairy farm that supplies industry giant Land O'Lakes revealed sick, exhausted cows struggling to stand and being forced to hobble through a massive buildup of their own waste. The cows suffered from painful infections and severe lameness, and animals were kept in miserable conditions, deprived of even the most basic care.

For more information, please visit PETA's blog.