Our recent ad featuring Mayor Giuliani had the whole city hopping. Hopping mad, mostly.

The ad was designed as an attack on milk, specifically on the plight of veal calves, their "dairy cow" mothers, and the ill-health effects of drinking milk. The ad honestly wasn't an attack on the mayor, but a lot of people took it that way.

Click here to read PETA's press release regarding the withdrawl of the campaign.
Click here to read PETA President Ingrid Newkirk's letter to Mayor Giuliani.
Our goal was to get people to stop lamenting and start preventing. Not to think, "If the mayor can get prostate cancer, there's no hope for me," but to think, "Perhaps there are ways I might avoid this disease." Of course, we also wanted people to hear our argument that buying a carton of milk contributes to the cruel confinement of calves to "veal crates" and to other misery for animals associated with dairy consumption. We wanted to point out the healthy options, like soy milk and calcium-fortified orange juice.

Most people don't know that it is not necessary to get the permission of a public figure to use his or her picture in a parody ad. However, our decision to use Mayor Giuliani, instead of an unknown person who would not attract much attention, went over like a lead balloon with a lot of people. Having lost her own father this year to meat- and milk-related disease, our president, Ingrid Newkirk, said that while she gladly would have used her dad's image, no one would have given the billboard a second glance had she done so. She was right. The Giuliani ad has brought more people to our www.DumpDairy.com Web site, more mail, and more telephone calls than any previous ad. Each person has had a chance to rail at us, but they've also come away with information on how animals suffer and die in modern dairy farming (there are no retirement homes for worn-out dairy cows) and have had a chance to examine the links between milk (and meat) and the often fatal diseases that afflict our society, including prostate cancer.

As much as we disagree with the mayor on many animal issues–including his public appearances to promote circuses that we are fighting because of the shackling and treatment of elephants, his promotion of milk and most recently, his laughing with David Letterman over the plight of a mouse or rat struggling not to die in a cruel sticky glue trap–-we had no intention of hurting him. That's not what we're about. In fact, it would never have occurred to us to mention his health problem if the mayor himself had not already discussed it in a very public way. When he chugged a glass of milk on television and said that the dairy industry was a great industry, that our facts were wrong, and that there was no connection between dairy and cancer, we knew that the mayor, like most people, hadn't a clue. He was also missing an opportunity, which we had seized, to turn a life-threatening situation into a life-saving one. Life-saving, that is, for both people and for the animals who need our help to escape the veal crate and the slaughter ramp.

Yes. We profoundly apologize if our ad hurt Mayor Giuliani in any way. While we suspect that our ad gleaned more sympathy for the mayor than any previous event, our organization is all about stopping hurt, not causing it.

We do not have the tiniest fraction of the immense budget (and none of the government subsidy) of the dairy industry, so we can't erect billboards and run magazine ads of new stars and athletes and political figures wearing soy mustaches. The dairy people are like McDonald's and they hook onto everything that comes along, most recently having the cast of Survivor wear milk mustaches. That is why milk is well thought of in popular culture. Not because it is healthy (it isn't), but because it seems fun and sexy, and "everyone's drinking it."

In this tabloid press era, and in a time when there are too many competitors for people's attention, it is hard for social causes to be heard. The information you can get from us could save the life of an animal, that of a member of your family, or even your own life. Let PETA provide free recipes, referrals, even a vegetarian starter kit. Will you please also post, pass on, and talk about what you learn

We will immediately withdraw the Giuliani ad campaign. We will withdraw, too, our intention to sue the billboard companies that have removed this ad in violation of our contract with them.

We also appeal to you to take us seriously when we don't use gimmicks and silly or offensive ways to reach out in our efforts to stop animal suffering. We ask you to open your heart in the fight for animal protection and to open your mind to a dietary revolution that will save human lives. Thank you.

To learn more about the link between dairy consumption and prostate cancer, click here.