Criticize the American chicken industry and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is quick to jump on the bandwagon. And jump on is exactly what the animal rights organization did when scientists at John Hopkins University asserted that chicken trucks can spread disease. (See “Who’s playing chicken here?,” Short Takes, Better Farming, January 2009).
PETA suggested that the Maryland Department of Transportation place yellow health hazard signs along roads used by chicken haulers and on the trucks themselves. And then PETA made the following pronouncement: “Most people have heard that the chicken in the freezer case is teeming with bacteria, but now it appears that even driving behind a chicken truck can be hazardous to your health.”