PETA sparks outrage with controversial new billboard campaign about cancer-causing meats that features a child smoking

 

PETA has sparked outrage after launching a controversial new billboard campaign featuring a child smoking in an attempt to raise awareness of cancer-causing meats.

The poster shows a boy aged around two or three years old lying on his stomach, reading a book, while holding a smouldering Havana-style cigar.

It urges people to 'Go Vegan!' and reads: 'You Wouldn't Let Your Child Smoke. Like Smoking, Eating Bacon, Sausages and Other Processed Meats Is Linked to Cancer' 

The billboard has been put up on Burley Street in Leeds, West Yorkshire, just days after the World Health Organisation (WHO) released a report listing processed meats, such as sausages and bacon, as a cancer threat.

The report said eating as little as 50 grams of processed meat a day - around one sausage or two slices of bacon - raises the risk of developing bowel cancer by 18 %

It classified processed meat as carcinogenic alongside arsenic and asbestos, with global health chiefs warning it was as big a cancer threat as cigarettes.

The billboard came in for criticism on social media, with one Twitter user, Jennifer Lane, posting: 'I support PETA and I am against cruelty and abuse towards animals. But this is just b******* and over the top.'

Steven Conrads added: 'People will not respond well to misleading signs, esp [sic] when the science is lousy. Emphasis better placed on the ethical appeal.'