In the United States, despite the administration’s plea with the news media, advocacy groups, or basically anyone with an audience to stop referring to the H1N1 virus as the “swine flu,” as such references have made an already hard year for the pork industry even harder, most with said audience have continued to exercise their First Amendment rights.Now PETA has followed the lead of many in the media and used (based on the way it is being interpreted by consumers) the scientifically inaccurate, yet attention grabbing misnomer. Only they did so in the United Kingdom, and now the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) is going after the animal rights organization.
Russell Parsons has an article for Marketing Week online, which is out of the United Kingdom, reporting that an ad People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), “state[d] ‘meat kills’ in large letters next to a list of diseases with swine flu more prominently featured than others including e.coli and mad cow . . . The watchdog [ASA] ruled some readers might infer that eating meat caused swine flu because the disease stood out more than the others and sat next to the statement on meat and vegetarianism.”
For their part PETA claims the ad only brings attention to the role livestock production plays generally in the spreading of the infectious diseases on the entire list, and did not intend to single out the swine flu or suggest eating meat causes swine flu. Unfortunately for the animal rights organization, the UK government doesn’t feel the same, and the campaign has been banned “for ‘spreading undue dear and distress’ about swine flu.”
To read the Marketing Week article by Mr. Parsons click here.
Posted: 10/14/09
