The Dairy Industry’s Attempt to Silence Animal Activists in the U.K. Blew Up in Its Face

The meat and dairy industries know they’re losing public
favor. Thanks to hard-hitting
investigations, tireless
advocacy, and a recent burst of brilliant and revealing documentaries
and films, more and more people are seeing the truth about factory farming.
And they’re choosing to ditch these industries’ cruel and unsustainable
products.

Now the animal agriculture industry seems desperate to
continue covering up the truth by silencing those who speak out against it.
Well, in the U.K., one such attempt was resoundingly defeated in a recent
decision by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). In February, Go
Vegan World, a vegan advertising campaign run by Eden Farmed Animal Sanctuary
in Ireland, ran a newspaper
ad declaring, “Humane milk is a myth. Don’t buy it.

The ad highlights how the dairy industry repeatedly
impregnates cows so that their bodies will produce milk and steals their calves
soon after birth so that the milk to be sold for profit is not consumed by the
cows’ own babies. A female calf will be raised to suffer the same fate as her
mother. A male calf will be slaughtered for veal.

The ad challenges the reader: “I could no longer participate
in that. Can you?

Several complainants affiliated with the dairy industry
filed a challenge to the ad with the ASA, a regulatory organization for the U.K.’s
advertising industry, arguing that the ad was “misleading.

In a remarkable turn of events, the ASA found that the ad
was not misleading because it accurately described standard dairy industry
practices. The ASA said that since “calves were generally separated from their
mothers very soon after birth, … the ad was unlikely to materially mislead
readers.

This is a big deal. A powerful regulatory agency has acknowledged
the inherent
cruelty in the dairy industry.

This is not the only time animal agriculture has tried—and
failed—to cover up the truth about factory farming. Back in 1998, Oprah Winfrey
famously triumphed
in a libel lawsuit filed against her by the beef industry. When Oprah declared
that she would not eat another burger after interviewing former cattle rancher
Howard Lyman, the beef industry sued her under the Texas “food disparagement” law. These types of laws make people afraid to publicly criticize the food industry.
Although widely considered
unconstitutional, there are 13 of these laws in the U.S.

Think about that for a second. The animal agriculture
industry is so desperate to perpetuate its myths—like the “humane milk myth—that
it not only attacks newspaper ads that depict the truth but pushes for laws
that trample over basic civil liberties.