We received a call recently from a whistleblower who alerted us to a situation at Coach House Gifts, a Clovis, California–based business where 37 out of 40 frogs in a shipment died after being left in a shipping box so long that they succumbed to heat prostration. Wondering what a store that specializes in greeting … Read more »
More than a quarter of a billion eggs—a quarter of a billion!—have reportedly been recalled because of an outbreak of salmonella that has sickened hundreds of people in at least three states. A nationwide recall of 13 brands sold by an Iowa egg factory farm has launched a multi-agency investigation that is only expected to … Read more »
Restaurants are already reluctant to post calorie counts; can you imagine how hard it is to get fast-food joints to post a skull and crossbones—or at least a warning sign—letting customers know that their grilled chicken contains a carcinogen? It’s pretty dang hard—but the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) just got one step closer … Read more »
Note to bigwigs at animal-abusing companies: Don’t offer to answer questions unless you’re prepared to sit in the hot seat! When PETA learned that McDonald’s vice president Bob Langert is taking questions from stakeholders—people who are affected by McDonald’s actions—on McDonald’s “corporate responsibility” blog, PETA Senior V.P. Dan Mathews sent in this query, which is … Read more »
If you don’t want people to start chanting, “Fatty, fatty two-by-four, can’t fit through KFC’s door,” you might want to put down that drumstick and pick up some Gardein buffalo wings instead. A recent study of hundreds of thousands of Europeans revealed that the more meat people ate, the more weight they gained over time—and … Read more »
Hot on the heels of news that some doctors are recommending that elementary school–age kids be put on statin drugs (seriously—I wish I were making it up) comes a better prescription for dealing with the side effects of the childhood obesity epidemic. Several of the U.K.’s leading doctors are recommending a junk-food jihad. “If we … Read more »
“When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: But when I became a man, I put away childish things.”1 Corinthians 13:11 When I was a child (in 1976), I entered—and “won”—a fishing contest. But when I became a man, I put away the … Read more »
BrokenSphere / CC by 1.0 Here’s a toxic tidbit from the “Gross Meat Facts” files: Chickens who are raised for their flesh are routinely given feed laced with Roxarsone, an additive that contains—are you ready for this—arsenic. May we suggest a new slogan for the nugget bucket? “Potent poison in every piece!” The fact is, … Read more »
“The first rule of Fight Club is: You do not talk about Fight Club.” If, however, the fight club involves forcing mice to battle one another in a stupid and barbaric experiment, you know we’re going to talk about it. Recently, vivisectors at the University of Wisconsin–Madison (sheep abuse ring a bell?) studied the effect … Read more »
We’ve never understood why any child needs to poke around inside an amphibian, but holy “Jumping Frogs of Calaveras County“: iTunes now offers a virtual frog dissection iPad app! In honor of this sophisticated and humane alternative to dissection, PETA is presenting its creator, Emantras Interactive Technologies, with a Mark Twain Ethical Science Award. … Read more »
Once again, the PETA Files goes to the movies. First up: Vegans are hitting the big time on big screens across America, courtesy of Rob Schneider’s vegan character in last week’s box-office hit, Grown Ups. Sure, the movie made fun of vegans, but it made fun of everything—besides, we at PETA have a good sense … Read more »
The following is a Canada Day guest post from Bill Maher, the genius behind Politically Incorrect and HBO’s Real Time With Bill Maher. Maher offered his wit for an op-ed, originally posted in today’s Daily News, in a humorous protest against a deadly serious issue: Canada’s annual slaughter of tens of thousands of seals—the largest … Read more »
PETA’s brand-new McCruelty PSA starring actor Jenna Jameson turned out fantastic, as we knew it would, but we had to shoot it several times. Jenna had to stop the action to regain her composure whenever she started talking about how chickens’ legs are often broken when workers slam them upside down into metal shackles, and … Read more »
Here’s something you won’t hear too often: Austrian nuns opened a health spa to raise money for their convent after their chicken farm “fell flat.” The nuns even use high-pressure hoses to spray chilled water at guests to stimulate their skin. The whole thing might not sound very conventional (there’s no buff masseuse in a … Read more »
At PETA, we sometimes embrace things that others might call “bizarre,” like Andy Dick’s interview as Ronald McDonald with Jiminy Glick. So when people started ringing our phones wanting our reaction to the recent news that Mike Myers is “kind of obsessed” with painting KFC’s Colonel Sanders, we might have puzzled some callers who assumed … Read more »