PETA Has Something to Say About That Yogurt COVID-19 Scandal

For Immediate Release:
May 5, 2021

Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382

Please see PETA Vice President Shalin Gala’s statement below about a South Korean dairy company sued by that country’s Ministry of Food and Drug Safety for falsely claiming that yogurt prevents COVID-19 because it didn’t conduct animal tests or clinical trials.

Falsely claiming that yogurt prevents COVID-19 is wrong on many levels. What is even worse is that South Korea’s Ministry of Food and Drug Safety suggested that animal tests should have been conducted first. Poisoning, injuring, and killing animals in cruel experiments to make human health claims for marketing common foods such as yogurt is as smart as putting a screen door on a submarine, because companies can easily test common foods on human volunteers. PETA asked South Korea to remove the requirement and acceptance of animal test results to substantiate health claims for marketing foods in 2018, and we’re still waiting. After discussions with PETA, dozens of global food companies now have policies against animal testing.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org.