PETA Statement: WHO’s Stance on Live-Animal Markets

For Immediate Release:
May 8, 2020

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

Washington – Below, please find a statement from PETA President Ingrid Newkirk in response to the World Health Organization’s announcement today that live-animal markets—despite their being responsible for the current pandemic and a looming threat for future ones—should not be shut down:

The World Health Organization should not be in the business of weighing commerce against human sickness and death and choosing commerce. PETA is calling for live-animal markets to be banned for the sake of every other species sold and slaughtered in them—and for the survival of the human species itself.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—opposes speciesism, which is a human-supremacist worldview. More information is available at PETA.org.

For Media: Contact PETA's
Media Response Team.

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 Ingrid E. Newkirk

“Almost all of us grew up eating meat, wearing leather, and going to circuses and zoos. We never considered the impact of these actions on the animals involved. For whatever reason, you are now asking the question: Why should animals have rights?” READ MORE

— Ingrid E. Newkirk, PETA President and co-author of Animalkind