Naked 'Dead Victims' Of Bird Flu Bring Message To Dublin

Pandemic Threat Transmitted by Eating Chickens, Turkeys and Eggs Prompts PETA to Say, 'Stay Away From Poultry Like It's the Plague'

For Immediate Release:
14 March 2006

Contact:
John Carmody 087-6275579

Dublin, Ireland - Lying naked in flower-decorated coffins, PETA members will be on display on Friday to remind consumers that an addiction to poultry could lead to a bird flu pandemic. Activists will carry placards reading, "Bird Flu Kills: Go Vegetarian":

Date: Wednesday, 15 March
Time: 12 noon sharp
Place: Henry Street, (Opposite Spire)

Avian influenza, or "bird flu", threatens humanity with what could easily be the greatest public health crisis in recorded history. Experts warn that the disease could kill one in eight human beings and cause a collapse of the world economy. Outbreaks of various strains of bird flu are regularly detected, and according to Scotland's former chief medical officer, Dr Mac Armstrong, between 5,000 and 50,000 people in Scotland could die from bird flu. Bird flu can be caught simply by eating undercooked meat or eggs, by eating undercooked food prepared on the same cutting board as infected meat or eggs or even by touching eggshells that are contaminated with the disease.

"It's pay-back time, with avian flu now showing up as a direct consequence of a very sick and cruel industry", says PETA campaigner Anita Singh. "With diseases running rampant in crowded, filthy factory farms, not to mention the known link between meat-eating and heart disease, the safest thing to do with chicken flesh is to avoid it like it's the plague."

One factory-farm chicken or turkey shed houses tens of thousands of birds who are constantly kept cooped up in their own filth, allowing diseases to spread quickly amongst them. Laying hens are kept in stacked cages so that faeces from the birds on top fall on the birds below. The problem is not restricted to birds: Factory-farmed pigs and dairy cows, who live in similar intensively-crowded and unsanitary conditions, can also get and spread this or similar viruses.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk