Letter was unoriginal

By: David Martosko
Newspaper: Press & Sun Bulletin

Leave it to the pushy animal rights movement to use a trade dispute in South Korea as an excuse to spew anti-meat propaganda with a form letter. The June 17 rant blaming beef for everything from deforestation to world hunger also appeared word for word in at least two dozen other newspapers. In each case, a different "author" signed it.

This is a deceptive effort from the save-the-cows crowd to hijack opinion pages. As long as they brought it up, data from the Environmental Protection Agency show that American meat production only contributes 2.4 percent of greenhouse gas emissions -- hardly a climate change villain.

There aren't any "pathogens" in meat that you won't also find in spinach, bean sprouts, and tomatoes. And if the worst you can say about beef's nutritional profile is that it contains "some B vitamins but no fiber," thank goodness we have salad before our strip steak. American beef has never caused a human case of mad cow disease. If animal activists want to blow smoke about vegetarianism, the least they should do is spend 10 minutes to write something original.

David Martosko Research Director, Center for Consumer Freedom Washington D.C.