Due to complaints from viewers about the graphic nature of a television ad depicting abuse at a Pennsylvania dairy farm, WPHL-TV in Philadelphia has removed a PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) commercial from the air scheduled to appear all week.
This commercial depicts an undercover investigation made by PETA at a Pennsylvania dairy farm that supplies Land O’ Lakes Dairy. A whistleblower at the farm contacted PETA asking for an investigation because of disturbing practices the person observed at the dairy farm.
A PETA press release from May 7 gives the following quote:
"If the footage is too graphic to watch, then the abusive conditions on this and every other dairy factory farm are too severe to tolerate." ~ Tracy Reiman, Executive Vice President, PETA
In case you are unsure just what happens on a typical dairy factory farm, here’s the scoop. Cows are inseminated and forced into pregnancy only to have their young calves ripped away from them within hours after birth. Why? So the cows can be milked by machines for human consumption.
Often there is little, if any veterinary care and cows suffer needlessly from pus-filled infections, post delivery complications like vaginal prolapse and chronic mastitis. Mastitis is caused by swollen udders and results when hormones are given to increase milk production.
The TV ad shows dairy workers forcing cows and calves to stand and walk by kicking them, giving them electric shocks, and jabbing them with small knives. Cows are seen being forced to stand in massive amounts of their own excrement while being milked. Care to ponder what gets into the milk sold at food stores? Feces aren’t the only hazard; pus from draining wounds and untreated mastitis finds its way into the milk chain as well.
Take a look at the video. Yes, it is graphic and yes, it is disturbing. But not viewing it in its entirety is putting yourself into a state of denial thereby negating the truth. Without fully seeing and understanding the truth, change cannot occur. So, suck it up, find your courage and keep both eyes open while watching the ad.
PETA will be posting a billboard later this month, in Philadelphia as part of a national campaign asking consumers to stop using dairy products. It will be located at 5800-5802 Old York Road near the intersection of Old York Road, North Broad Street and West Grange Avenue. It is scheduled to be posted May 24 and will be visible for four weeks.
After viewing the video take a few moments to reflect on what you saw. What was your first thought? If it is something related to “the truth will set us free” you’re on the right path. Now what will you do?
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Cows Left to Suffer
for Land O' Lakes
PETA TV ad removed by WPHL-TV
Comments
Great article! If you can't watch it, don't pay for it! Go vegan.
Facing reality can be uncomfortable but not nearly as horrific as the conditions and lives that these poor creatures have to endure.
Take the time to be informed and base your choices from that.
I did.
I am Vegan.
Hi I do agree with you that the conditions of some dairy farms is outrageous, but not all dairy farms are run in this fashion. I know because I live on a dairy farm and have worked on many dairy farms as well. Some farmers do everything possible to make the cows comfortable and happy. Like on our farm our cows spend as much time outside grazing and lazing around as possible (weather permitting) and we never hit, shock, or stab our cows. We just talk to them and they respond well, believe it or not but patience goes along way. If we have a cow that cannot stand up we leave her to rest and give her proper veteranairy care. I am strongly against animal cruelty and I support orginizations like the aspca. I love our cows and they all have names, not numbers, I treat them as you would treat a pet like a dog or cat. I am not a vegan and I am not saying that you shouldn't be, I just wanted you to know that there are decent people running dairy farms the best way possible. Thank you for reading this and we can fight against animal cruelty in our own ways. Fight on!
That was so disturbing..but sadly true in so many of the animal industries now a days....long gone are most of the family farms where animals were treated humanely and not injected with steroids and hormones. If you wont go vegetarian please buy from your local farmers...buy organic...
I wish I knew what farm this was. I'm a Pennsylvanian, and am familiar with some of the farms here in the area. I've never seen horrible treatment like this. If I ran Land O'Lakes, I'll call them out on it and make sure they never did business again.
I've been following a mostly-vegan diet for almost 8 months now, ever since I first started researching the effects of diet on the human body and came across information on what cow's milk contains and what it does to us. Even raw, uncontaminated cow's milk was never intended for human consumption; casein (cow's milk protein) has been linked in tons of studies to cancer, heart disease, and diabetes. Aside from all that, this video is sickening, and I wish it would find it's way onto every television station across the country so people could see the truth. That stuff is unsanitary, unhealthy, and unnatural for us to drink. "Does a body good" my @$$.
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