Doping or a Pork Burrito? Scandal Prompts Present From PETA for Disqualified Runner

For Immediate Release:
June 17, 2021

Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382

A gift basket packed with pig-free treats—including vegan Herbivorous Butcher Cuban pork, jerky, pork rinds, chorizo, and al pastor—is on its way from PETA to Shelby Houlihan, the champion runner who was barred from the Tokyo Olympics after testing positive for a steroid, which she has blamed on eating a pork burrito from an Oregon food truck.

“Steroids are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the toxins that might be lurking in a pork burrito,” says PETA Senior Vice President Lisa Lange. “PETA hopes Shelby’s experience will serve as a wake-up call for everyone—the safest meal is a vegan one.”

Pigs raised for food live in crowded, poorly ventilated, filthy conditions where bacteria, parasites, and disease run rampant. Common contaminants in pig flesh include listeria, salmonella, E. coli, trichina, and tapeworms, and the antibiotics used to keep pigs alive in squalor have led to the development of “superbacteria”—bacterial strains that antibiotics can’t fight.

The World Health Organization has confirmed that processed meats, such as hot dogs and sausage, cause cancer—but each person who goes vegan dramatically reduces their risk of suffering from cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and strokes; saves the lives of nearly 200 animals a year; and helps prevent future pandemics and epidemics. SARS, bird flu, swine flu, and COVID-19 all stemmed from confining and killing animals for food.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.